Columnist Jeff German: Tabish team hits a new low

Friday, Jan. 28, 2005 | 11:07 a.m.

In one unbelievably absurd letter, Joseph Caramagno gave us a rare look this week at the underhanded approach the defense has been known to take in the Ted Binion murder case.

This strategy of deception and manipulation -- engineered by the defendants themselves, Sandy Murphy and Rick Tabish, with a seemingly endless supply of cash -- has never been about seeking justice, but rather about beating the system.

It has been about swaying witnesses, hoodwinking the media, influencing the judge, putting out disinformation, disparaging the prosecution, hiring high-priced legal talent and simply laying the blame on anyone but themselves.

For the most part the strategy has worked. Murphy and Tabish were acquitted the second time around in November of the most serious charge -- killing Binion, the 55-year-old drug-addicted casino man. Both defendants, however, were convicted of stealing Binion's silver and now face a March 11 sentencing.

They will be sentenced under a cloud of suspicion, thanks to Caramagno's letter.

Caramagno, who represents Tabish, wrote the letter to Tabish's brother, Greg, in an effort to add well-known New York lawyer Bruce Cutler to the defense team as a way to influence Bonaventure to go lightly on Tabish at the sentencing.

Cutler would have no qualms about personally attacking the prosecutors in the case to challenge their credibility, Caramagno wrote.

He also would be willing to spar with Bonaventure and try to bait the judge into making prejudicial statements that could be grounds for an appeal if things didn't go the defense's way.

And Cutler would participate in a plan to drum up support for Tabish in the national media prior to the sentencing to put Bonaventure in a "very stressful position."

Caramagno said he already had the Las Vegas Review-Journal in his hip pocket. The paper, he told Tabish's brother, had committed to doing a front page story on Cutler's addition to the defense team.

Cutler, however, isn't likely to join the defense now.

At an extraordinary hearing Wednesday, in which Bonaventure vented his anger in dramatic fashion and professionally castrated Caramagno from the bench, the judge said he wasn't inclined to approve Cutler's presence in the case.

This conniving "win-at-all-cost approach" by the defense, Bonaventure said, is not the way the legal system is supposed to work.

And though it's not the first time someone, as Bonaventure put it, has tried to "wreak havoc" on the system, it may be the first time someone was stupid enough to put it in writing.

Caramagno's letter came to light after Tabish's lead trial attorney, J. Tony Serra of San Francisco, attached it to a motion to withdraw from the case. Serra, who played a key role in winning Tabish's murder acquittal, wanted no part of the sleazy scheme.

For his part, Caramagno apologized profusely to the judge in court, saying he was puffing up his words to persuade the Tabish family to come up with money to hire Cutler.

But Caramagno's feelings of remorse can be debated.

After the hearing, as he did prior to the hearing when talking to reporters, Caramagno appeared more concerned about the letter being made public than the unethical acts suggested in the letter.

Tabish also has left us with the impression that he's not totally displeased with Caramagno's actions.

In court Tabish told Bonaventure that he didn't approve of Caramagno's strategy. But since the hearing, Tabish hasn't exactly jumped to fire his lawyer.

It makes me wonder how many other schemes concocted by the defense are waiting to be discovered.