Prosecutor challenges Tabish

By Matt Pordum

Tuesday, Nov. 16, 2004 | 11:21 a.m.

Prosecutors elicited an ultimatum from the testimony of Rick Tabish for the jury to consider on Monday in the retrial of Tabish and Sandy Murphy for the murder of Ted Binion: You either believe Tabish or you believe everyone else.

After more than seven hours of questioning by Tabish's attorney, J. Tony Serra, and Deputy District Attorney Robert Daskas, Tabish was defiant in saying the statements of his former brother-in-law, police, friends and strangers alike should be disregarded if they differed from his testimony.

"If any witness testified I did something sinister to Ted Binion they can't be trusted," Tabish said.

Before breaking for lunch Daskas pitted Tabish's recollections of the night he was found unearthing Binion's $7 million in silver against those of the Nye County Sheriff's officers on the scene in Pahrump the night of Sept. 18. 1998.

The Nye County sheriff's deputies wound up arresting Tabish, his employee Mike Milot and David Mattsen, manager of Binion's Pahrump ranch, for burglary.

Tabish said he "fabricated" the initial story he gave Nye County Detective Sergeant Ed Howard, when he told Howard that he was at Binion's property "cleaning up concrete." Tabish said he "didn't want him around" so that was why he didn't tell Howard what was really going on.

Tabish said he was "agitated" by Howard interrogating him even though Tabish already had gotten permission to dig up the silver from then Nye County Sheriff Wade Lieseke.

Tabish said he proceeded to lie about "nothing being in the belly-dump trailer" that was in fact full of silver because he was "buying time" until Lieseke could arrive on the scene and explain what was happening.

Lieseke, who has not been called as a witness in this trial, has previously acknowledged receiving phone calls from Tabish before the silver was excavated. But he has denied giving Tabish the authority to dig it up.

Tabish admitted he didn't tell Howard he was acting on Binion's wishes until Howard discovered the silver in the belly-dump. Tabish said if Howard hadn't found the silver he would have driven it up to Binion's ranch down the street.

Tabish says he was retrieving the silver from Binion's vault because Binion had told him to do that if anything ever happened to him. Tabish said Binion's daughter was to have gotten the proceeds from the plan.

Daskas was incredulous when he confronted Tabish about his testimony Monday.

"Let me get this straight," Daskas told Tabish, "while Ted Binion is alive you're having sex with his girlfriend Sandy Murphy behind his back, but when he dies you're doing a favor for his daughter?"

Daskas also said he found Tabish's story improbable because he said the security detail patrolling Binion's ranch had not been informed of such a plan and had been instructed not to let anyone on the property.

Additionally, Daskas said, although Tabish later told Nye County officers he was going to have Wells Cargo transport the silver to California, Tabish never contacted the company. Tabish said he was going to call Binion's brother and executor of his estate, Jack Binion, on Sept. 19, 1998 and ask him how he would like him to handle the transporting of the silver.

Tabish contradicted himself, however, saying although he had attempted to contact Jack Binion about alleged looting of Binion's home, he "wasn't going to tell him about getting the silver."

Tabish said he had no financial motive to kill Binion or steal his silver. He said in September 1998 he was working on a deal with OTC Emergent Fund that would have seen the company infuse $600,000 into his trucking company and would have given him 500,000 shares of OTC worth $2.5 million.

With his August 19 arrest in relation to the alleged attempted theft of Binion's silver, the deal was canceled.

Despite evidence and testimony to the contrary from bankers and financial representatives who worked with Tabish, he said his companies were worth roughly $3 million in September 1998.

"There was nothing at all the silver could have solved," Tabish said. "There is no way I could have invested it into my company or paid the IRS with it. The silver was a burden and was the reason none of this went through."

Prosecutors allege Murphy and Tabish suffocated Binion and tried to make it look like an overdose and a day later Tabish went to steal Binion's silver in Pahrump. The defense contends Binion died of an accidental overdose of heroin, Xanax and Valium and Tabish was simply following Binion's order to preserve the silver for Binion's daughter.

Tabish and Murphy had been having an affair at the time of Binion's death, though Murphy was living with Binion and Tabish had a wife in Montana. Four years ago Tabish and Murphy were convicted of murdering Binion and were sentenced to life in prison, but the Nevada Supreme Court later overturned the convictions.

Tabish said Monday that while he had heard $20,000 in new bills was reported missing from Binion's home after his death, the new bills found in both his and Milot's wallets came from the $8,400 Murphy gave him before he went to Pahrump to dig up the silver.

Prosecutors allege Tabish stole the money from Binion's home after he and Murphy killed the millionaire casino figure.

He said Murphy gave him the money after he bought a video camera Murphy, Binion attorney Jim Brown and Murphy's attorney Bill Knudson would use to conduct an inventory of the assets in Binion's home. Tabish said he used part of the money to reimburse himself for the $800 camera, and roughly $1600 to take care of expenses he owed to Milot. Tabish said he would replace the money he took from Murphy with some of the $4,000 he had at his home.

Tabish disputed the testimony of Murphy's friend Tanya Cropp, who testified previously to being asked by Murphy to tell Binion estate investigator Tom Dillard she saw Binion give Tabish the $100 bills.

Daskas proceeded to ask Tabish whether he instructed Jason Frazer, a former business associate of Tabish, to contact and pay people in hopes of setting up an alibi for Tabish during the summer of 1999 while Tabish was in custody at Clark County Detention Center.

Frazer testified Tabish wanted former associate, Jim Mitchell, to testify he was with Tabish working at All-Star Ready Mix, a North Las Vegas concrete company, from 6 a.m. until the afternoon on the day Binion died.

Dr. Lary Simms, the county medical examiner, and Dr. Michael Baden have testified that Binion died between 8:30 a.m. and 1 p.m on that day.

Tabish said Frazer was "fabricating" and that he "never paid one dime for testimony and never told a witness what to say." He said he did agree to hire an attorney for Jim Mitchell because he was afraid of going to court because of an outstanding warrant.

"I though it was important to have an alibi for that day so I didn't care about it (paying for Mitchell's attorney)," Tabish said.

He defended the language in notes he wrote to Frazer in which he wrote "if anyone needs a deposit, let me know" saying deposit was simply a reference to the retainer an attorney would require to represent Mitchell.

"I don't feel I did anything shady or asked anyone to do anything shady," Tabish said.

He also denied asking Frazer to assist him in obtaining an alibi from two other men in the case, which ultimately led to three felony convictions for Tabish. Although the jury would not be told the details of the crime due to a pre-trial motion granted by District Judge Joseph Bonaventure, they were told what the convictions were.

Tabish is serving 18 to 120 months for the 1998 beating of Leo Casey. Tabish, John Joseph and Steve Wadkins kidnapped Casey, beat him with a phone book, put a gun in his mouth and placed a knife under his fingernails while trying to force him to turn over his interest in a sand pit he operated in Jean. Joseph and Wadkins reached plea agreements with the state on related charges.

Tabish said Casey, who testified early on in the trial, was wrong in his previous testimony in which he said during a May 1998 conversation Tabish told him he would "pump him (Binion) full of drugs and that would do him in." Casey also testified Tabish told him that having sex with Murphy "would be a big break to him getting the silver."

Frazer, who was granted immunity from charges of being an accomplice to murder, also said that Tabish wrote him a series of notes instructing Frazer to contact a man named Ishma in an attempt to discredit the Binion estate's investigator Tom Dillard.

Tabish said the name Ishma was of "no significance" to him. He said although Frazer's notes indicating payments to investigator Jim Thomas and an attorney were correct, the notes indicating payments to a person named Ishma were not.

The testimony of another friend of Tabish, Kurt Gratzer, soon became focus of Daskas' prodding to determine where the truth lies.

Grazter previously testified Tabish asked him to kill Binion, asked him to discover if it was possible to determine the geographic origin of cell phone calls and what the lethal doses of two drugs were.

Specifically Gratzer said he and Tabish discussed in a "jocular" manner shooting Binion at his home with his own gun, hanging him, jumping from a helicopter and shooting him through the window at his ranch in Pahrump, putting him in a rock crusher and using a tube to send lethal doses of drugs down his throat.

Tabish admitted to talking to Grazter about Binion and his silver, but there was "nothing sinister" about their conversations. He also said "anything he (Gratzer) says is untrustworthy" because Gratzer had "changed his testimony in each of the three times he's testified."

Daskas also explored the true nature of a $25,000 loan that Tabish's former brother-in-law Dennis Rehbien gave Tabish in exchange for silver coins.

Rehbien said Tabish told him he needed the $25,000 for his own legal defense, while Tabish told the jury on Friday it was for Murphy's defense.

Tabish said Rehbien was "not fully informed" and that "he's recalling what he recalls and I'm recalling what I recall."

Tabish said some of the silver coins he gave to his brother-in-law were payment for work he had doing for Binion and some was from Murphy, but on Friday Tabish had testified it had all come from Murphy.

Tabish even challenged the testimony of Deana Perry, someone who he had never had any contact with.

Perry had testified Murphy allegedly predicted the death of the millionaire casino figure while Perry gave her a manicure and pedicure over the course of five to six hours in a private room at the Neiman Marcus salon on Sept. 10, 1998. She also said Murphy told her of a boyfriend named Richard who was "good looking, young, married and rich." Perry said Murphy told her that Binion had silver buried in the desert and after Binion's drug overdose Murphy's boyfriend and his friends "were going to dig it up."

Tabish said Perry's testimony was "ridiculous" because she only came forward after she learned the Binion estate was offering a reward to those with information about Binion's death.

When asked how it was that Casey, Perry and Gratzer, three people who didn't know each other, all had a "common nexus in this case" via similar stories Tabish said he wasn't surprised.

Daskas turned toward the jury and said it "doesn't surprise me either."

With Tabish's testimony complete, his lawyers rested Tabish's defense. Murphy's attorney, Michael Cristalli, is expected to call the last witness this morning. The prosecution will then call a "short list" of re-buttle witnesses.

With 121 witnesses called over five weeks the jury is scheduled to hear closing arguments on Thursday and Friday with deliberations beginning as early as Friday afternoon. Bonaventure said Monday that he still hasn't decided on whether to sequester the jury during deliberation.