Tabish to seek parole for kidnapping charge

Tuesday, Nov. 29, 2005 | 8:46 a.m.

CARSON CITY -- Rick Tabish, who was convicted and then acquitted of the murder of gaming figure Ted Binion, goes before the Parole Board next month for his sentence on another offense.

Tabish, 40, was sentenced to 18 to 120 months for kidnapping and extortion in the 1998 beating of his former business partner, Leo Casey.

Tabish was convicted of kidnapping Casey, beating him with a phone book, putting a gun in his mouth and placing a knife under his fingernails while trying to force him to turn over his interest in a sand pit he operated in Jean.

John Joseph and Steve Wadkins, who were charged with Tabish, reached plea agreements with the Clark County district attorney on related charges.

Tabish and Sandy Murphy were initially convicted of killing Binion in September 1998. The prosecution alleged the two suffocated Binion in hopes Murphy would end up with some of Binion's fortune.

The Nevada Supreme Court overturned the convictions and ordered a new trial. The two were acquitted at the second trial. The defense maintained Binion died of a drug overdose.

Tabish has completed his other sentences of false imprisonment, assault and conspiracy in the Casey kidnapping. He is serving a sentence for use of a deadly weapon with enhancement. He could get parole effective April 1.

If Tabish wins that parole, he then starts serving concurrent one to five year terms for his convictions on burglary and grand larceny involving the theft of Binion's silver collection.

Both Tabish and Murphy were convicted in stealing the silver collection from an underground vault near Pahrump after Binion's death. Murphy also received a one to five year term. Their convictions have been appealed to the Nevada Supreme Court.

A three-member panel of the Parole Board will hear Tabish's case Dec. 12. Tabish is at the High Desert State Prison near Indian Springs. Murphy, now 33, was released from prison earlier this year.

Meanwhile the Pardons Board will meet Dec. 14 to consider reducing the terms of three killers from Clark County, serving life terms without the possibility of parole.

Michael Anselmo of Las Vegas was convicted of the 1971 strangulation-stabbing of college student Trudy Hiler, who was working at a Lake Tahoe casino at the time of her death. She had been stabbed at least 18 times.

The Pardons Board, at least on one occasion in 1990, denied his application to reduce his term to allow for parole. In 1992 he wrote to a Reno newspaper, admitting he killed Hiler, but said he knew she forgave him. And he said the best way to pay his debt is to be released and work on the outside.

The Pardons Board, consisting of the governor, attorney general and the seven Nevada Supreme Court justices, will also consider the plea of Bennie Ficklin, 39, who in 1981 shot and killed Thomas Turk, a Las Vegas bar customer during a robbery. The board has at least once denied his bid to lower his sentence. He was 15 at the time of the killing.

Also scheduled to appear is Lawrence Baccari, 60, who killed Debra Harrison, 25, the mother of four in Las Vegas in 1977. He tried to pick her up, and when she refused, he shot and stabbed her.

He also has been denied at least once by the Pardons Board.

Cy Ryan can be reached at (775) 687-5032 or at cy@lasvegassun.com.