Wednesday, June 20, 2007 | 7:07 a.m.
Herb Sachs is just one in a line of lawyers who have defended Sandy Murphy on criminal charges stemming from the mysterious 1998 death of her live-in boyfriend, casino boss Ted Binion,
Sachs' legal reputation may not rival that of others who have represented Murphy, such as Las Vegas Mayor Oscar Goodman and Harvard University law professor Alan Dershowitz.
But Sachs has one up on his esteemed colleagues: He's on his second stint as Murphy's lead lawyer in a seemingly never-ending sensational case filled with twists and turns.
He took the job while locked in a contentious legal battle with the man footing Murphy's legal bills, her 90-year-old benefactor, William Fuller, who in court records last year disclosed that he had paid $4.5 million toward Murphy's defense.
That defense included two high-profile criminal trials - one in which Murphy and her secret lover Rick Tabish, a Montana contractor, were convicted of killing Binion and stealing his silver, and the other in which both were acquitted of murder but convicted a second time of the silver theft.
Sachs contends in a lawsuit against Fuller, set to go to trial this fall, that Fuller wasn't as charitable toward him as he was with Murphy. He claims Fuller still owes him more than $225,000 in legal fees from when he last represented Murphy between her May 2000 murder conviction and her October 2004 retrial. Sachs worked with Dershowitz during that period.
At a July deposition in the lawsuit, Fuller, a mining executive, verbally sparred with Sachs, denying the attorney's claim that there was an oral agreement for Fuller to pay Sachs on Murphy's behalf.
The two still aren't very friendly, but this time around money isn't an issue because Fuller is paying Sachs upfront.
"She wanted me to represent her, and I'm being compensated for the work and feel comfortable doing it," Sachs said.
Sachs has been retained to help Murphy try to overturn her criminal conviction for stealing Binion's silver and, in a separate civil case, to fend off an eight-year-old wrongful death lawsuit that Binion's daughter, Bonnie, filed against Murphy and Tabish.
In another case, he also is expected to help Murphy try to gain a share of the casino heir's multimillion-dollar estate.
Murphy claims Binion, the son of colorful Horseshoe Club founder and gaming pioneer Benny Binion, willed her the $1 million ranch house the couple shared, its contents and $300,000 in cash two months before the younger Binion died on Sept. 17, 1998.
At the time of the 55-year-old Binion's death, Murphy was 26 and had been living for about six months at the 6,000-square-foot home, which the estate has since sold.
The couple met at a topless nightclub, where Murphy, a former Southern California beauty queen, was selling costumes and dancing to recoup $13,000 in gambling losses she incurred on a visit to Las Vegas.
In the two highly publicized criminal trials, prosecutors argued that Murphy and Tabish, who were involved in a romantic relationship behind Binion's back, pumped the casino executive with drugs and suffocated him to get to his wealth. Murphy and Tabish contended that Binion, a known heroin addict who drank heavily, died of a self-induced drug overdose.
Sachs' return to the unpredictable case isn't the only new twist.
All the civil cases were recently assigned to controversial District Judge Elizabeth Halverson, who has been under scrutiny at the county courthouse because of allegations of inappropriate judicial conduct.
Halverson is to hear a motion July 10 that Sachs filed to dismiss the wrongful death suit.
Sachs replaced Michael Cristalli, who withdrew as Murphy's lead lawyer May 14.
Cristalli, who won Murphy's murder acquittal at the second trial, represented Fuller during his acrimonious deposition with Sachs.
Murphy, who spent time in prison between the two trials, is waging her legal fight from Southern California. Because of the time she already has served behind bars, she does not face additional prison time regardless of the outcome of the appeal in the silver theft case.
Tabish remains in a Nevada prison on the theft conviction and a separate conviction stemming from an assault that prosecutors linked to the Binion case. He will be eligible for parole on April 1, 2009.
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