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Binion Murder Story Index "You're not seeing the entire portrait. It's tough to even tell who they are talking about." RICHARD WRIGHT - TED BINION'S ATTORNEY "I remember him laughing about them saying that he was selling cocaine." BECKY BEHNEN - TED BINION'S SISTER Ted Binion appears at a May 1997 meeting of the Nevada Gaming Commission. Binion fought hard, but unsuccessfully, to regain the gaming license he lost for abusing drugs and associating with shady characters. Jimmy Chagra, right, and his attorney, Oscar Goodman, pause for a television reporter in February 1983 after a Florida jury acquitted Chagra in the May 1979 assassination of U.S. District Judge John H. Wood Jr. of San Antonio. Rick Tabish and Sandy Murphy listen to the May 2000 verdicts in which jurors found them guilty of murder in the September 1998 death of Ted Binion. Murphy was Binion's girlfriend, and Tabish was a friend of Binion's. Defense attorneys acknowledged the defendants were lovers. Ted Binion, whose brother Jack is seated at left in the background, listens as his attorney makes a point during a May 1997 meeting of the Nevada Gaming Commission. BINION WAS SUSPECT IN CAR BOMBING Federal agents suspected, but could not prove, that Ted Binion played a role in the 1972 car bombing of former FBI agent William Coulthard, recently released documents show. Coulthard was the FBI's first resident agent in Southern Nevada before leaving the bureau in 1945 to pursue careers in law and politics. Through an inheritance from his wife, he became a landlord of Binion's Horseshoe, according to published reports. On July 25, 1972, he died in a powerful blast triggered when he turned the ignition on his Cadillac, which was parked in a downtown garage. Documents obtained under the Freedom of Information Act indicate that FBI agents had their suspicions about who was responsible. "Due to particular circumstances and facts at that time, it was strongly believed by law enforcement officials that the Binions were directly involved, but nothing could be positively substantiated," one agent wrote in a 1984 report. In other reports, agents specifically named Ted Binion as a suspect in the killing. His sister, Becky Behnen, said she does not believe her brother was capable of such a crime, and he was never charged. Indeed, no one ever was charged in the slaying, which authorities continue to investigate. -- REVIEW-JOURNAL

Sunday, June 24, 2001
Copyright © Las Vegas Review-Journal

THE BINION FILES

Recently released documents show FBI kept extensive records on former casino executive

The day before he died, Ted Binion told his lawyer that he had calculated his net worth to be $73 million.

Attorney James Brown replied that he would have placed the tally closer to $50 million, but added the important thing was that Binion had all the money he would ever need. A skeptical Binion responded that he wasn't so sure.

"You never know when you'll get a catastrophic illness or a RICO action," Binion told him.

Some in the gallery chuckled when Brown recounted this conversation while testifying last year at the trial in which Rick Tabish and Sandy Murphy were convicted of killing Binion.

But previously secret documents the Review-Journal obtained under the Freedom of Information Act show Binion had every reason in the world to fear federal prosecution under the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act.

Before he died, the former casino executive was a target of at least three RICO investigations mounted by the FBI.

Two of the investigations, involving allegations of murder and drug trafficking, spawned no charges. A third resulted in a racketeering indictment, ultimately dismissed, that named Binion and others associated with the Horseshoe Club, the downtown casino made famous by Binion's father, Benny Binion.

Attorney Richard Wright, who often represented Binion, said it's not so significant that federal law enforcement had its suspicions about Binion and the family business.

What's noteworthy, he said, is that not one prosecutable case emerged from the federal investigations that employed hypnosis, physical surveillance, video surveillance, electronic monitoring, confidential informants and undercover operations.

"To me, this is almost a Good Housekeeping Seal of Approval being put on the Horseshoe and Ted Binion," Wright said after reviewing the FBI file, which covers a 12-year period beginning in 1981. "They went all out to nail them, and obviously found nothing."

The public long ago grew accustomed to news that Binion was involved in some transgression or other, and his exploits often had a bizarre twist.

When he tangled with a gas station attendant, the man turned out to be a fugitive who would later admit to beating a homeless man to death with a log.

When his drug abuse and association with shady characters cost him his gaming license, Binion passed dozens of random drug tests. But when one hair test came back positive for marijuana, he shaved his head, chest and armpits before submitting to a follow-up test that detected no drugs.

So while it is not shocking that FBI agents investigated Binion, the depth and breadth of the allegations elicited surprise, and derision, from several people close to Binion, including himself.

His sister, Becky Behnen, said Binion obtained his FBI file about a year before he died and was amazed to discover some of the crimes that had been attributed to him.

Behnen, who now controls the Horseshoe, said Binion was dismayed by the accusation that he was the person who shot and killed Rance Blevins outside the family casino in May 1979. A Horseshoe employee pleaded guilty, but the FBI suspected Binion was the triggerman.

"Ted was very hurt by it," Behnen said.

She said her brother was less troubled by the allegation that in the early 1980s the FBI considered him "one of the major cocaine traffickers in Nevada."

Though her brother's own heroin habit was the stuff of legend, Behnen said he was amused by the suggestion he was a drug trafficker.

"I remember him laughing about them saying that he was selling cocaine," Behnen said. "To him, that was so absurd it was laughable."

In response to the Review-Journal's request for documents relating to Binion, the FBI reviewed 323 pages, of which 232 were released. The pages are heavy with redactions.

The earliest reports contained in the FBI file concerning the pre-dawn shooting of the 38-year-old Blevins.

Chief Deputy District Attorney Dan Bowman, who prosecuted the case, said Blevins was involved in a ruckus inside the casino and was ordered to leave. As he departed, he kicked and shattered a large plate-glass window.

Witnesses told police that a uniformed security guard and a man in civilian clothes chased Blevins down the street, where he fell to his knees. Witnesses said the man in civilian clothes then took the security guard's weapon and shot Blevins in the head.

"A contact wound," the prosecutor said.

Initially, three people who witnessed the shooting identified Binion as the man who pulled the trigger, Bowman said. Prosecutors were readying their case against Binion, then the secretary-treasurer of the casino, when a stunning development forced them to change direction.

"All three witnesses did a 180 and fingered Walter Rozanski, who was a pit boss at the Horseshoe," Bowman said.

Rozanski then was charged with murder, pleaded guilty to manslaughter and was sentenced to probation. Bowman said police and prosecutors always suspected that Binion was the actual gunman, though they had no chance of securing a conviction with all the witnesses pointing the finger elsewhere.

"I thought the witnesses had been paid to change their story, but I couldn't prove it," Bowman said.

Newspaper accounts of the slaying said witnesses told police the gunman was wearing a blue-plaid jacket. Police said the jacket, which was found in a casino count room, belonged to Rozanski.

In 1981, an unidentified source led the FBI to suspect that Binion was the actual gunman. Agents wrote that they then questioned three witnesses to the slaying who tended to corroborate the information provided by the source. But in at least one instance, a witness's account was not consistent with the physical evidence.

"One witness positively names ... Binion as forcibly striking the victim on the head with an automatic pistol. The autopsy report reveals only one wound to the victim's head which resulted in his death when the weapon discharged," an FBI agent wrote.

Agents sought and received permission to use hypnosis to interview two witnesses they deemed cooperative but unable to recall details of the slaying. Documents released by the FBI do not reveal whether this strategy was effective.

But agents did write that witnesses to the shooting were consistent in describing the gunman as a 5-foot-10-inch white man with dark hair and slender build, wearing a plaid jacket and dark pants. "Said physical description matches only that of Teddy Binion," an agent wrote.

The weapon used in the slaying never was recovered.

"Shortly after the shooting, (censored) witnessed a Horseshoe security guard carrying a gun wrapped in tissue paper out the back door of the Horseshoe Casino," an FBI agent wrote.

In December 1981, federal prosecutor Lawrence Leavitt, now a U.S. magistrate in Las Vegas, concluded that electronic monitoring was appropriate in the case.

"It was his opinion that based on a factual analysis of the case, there is probable cause to believe that (censored) was not responsible for the shooting death of Blevins, and that bribes were paid in order to shift the blame from Binion to (censored)," an agent wrote.

The probe led to no criminal charges, and the documents released by the FBI do not explain why.

Behnen said she has a document in which her brother recounted the events that transpired outside the Horseshoe the night Blevins was killed.

She declined to release the document, but said her brother was deeply pained by the incident and did not understand why some people were convinced he was responsible.

"There was an element in this community that wanted it to be Ted. But it wasn't," Behnen said.

Attorney Oscar Goodman, now the mayor of Las Vegas, represented Rozanski and said he knows of no evidence to indicate Binion was the gunman. "I wouldn't have made my deal for Mr. Rozanski as I did if there was any truth to it," he said.

The second RICO investigation, which also yielded no charges against Binion, began when the state Division of Investigation forwarded a tip to the FBI in August 1983.

At the heart of the ensuing investigation was the allegation that Binion was a member of a major cocaine ring that smuggled drugs into Florida from the Bermuda Islands.

"Teddy Binion is believed to be one of the main suppliers of cocaine in the Southern Nevada area, and is also a heavy cocaine user," one agent wrote.

In their reports, agents said they believed an unidentified courier would travel to Miami to obtain deliveries of about 10 kilos of cocaine. He then would divide this into smaller amounts, which were then mailed to Phoenix via Federal Express.

The courier then would fly to Phoenix, collect the packages, and drive to Las Vegas. FBI agents believed the cocaine was then distributed to those suspected of participating in the drug ring, all of whose names were censored with the exception of Binion.

"Binion uses the casino cage at the Horseshoe Hotel and Casino to launder the drug money," an agent wrote.

No cogent account of the investigation can be pieced together from the more than 150 pages of heavily redacted material released by the FBI.

What is clear is that the FBI, with the cooperation of the Internal Revenue Service, planned to make an undercover drug purchase. The FBI ultimately concluded that an undercover agent, who was intended to play a key role in the probe, would not be in a position to discuss illegal activities with any suspects.

Furthermore, an undisclosed amount of IRS funds was lost in an unspecified manner. And in September 1984 agents were ordered to take no further action pending an administrative inquiry into how the probe had been conducted. The results of that inquiry were not disclosed.

Wright said the money laundering allegations appear to be based on the notion that the Horseshoe permitted people to gamble with money obtained through shady activities.

He said Congress at that time was broadening the money laundering statute to include any transaction in which a person receives money that they know derives from criminal activity.

Previously, Las Vegas casinos had no interest in the source of a gambler's money, the attorney said. "They didn't care where the money came from, as long as it was money."

Tidbits of information contained within the FBI reports suggest that this investigation in some degree involved Jimmy Chagra, a legendary high roller who was acquitted in the slaying of a federal judge but convicted on federal drug charges.

In the late 1970s, Chagra faced federal drug conspiracy charges, and his trial was scheduled to be heard by U.S. District Judge John H. Wood Jr. of San Antonio. The judge's harsh sentences had earned him the nickname "Maximum John."

As the trial loomed in May 1979, Wood was shot to death outside his home. Authorities charged Chagra with hiring hitman Charles Harrelson, the father of actor Woody Harrelson, to kill Wood.

Charles Harrelson was convicted of murder and is serving a life sentence. Chagra was acquitted in a trial in which he was represented by Goodman.

Chagra's name appears nowhere in the unredacted portions of the Binion file, and he already was serving a 30-year federal drug sentence when the Binion drug and money laundering probe started in 1983.

However, agents in the Binion case said the illegal activity commenced in 1977. Chagra's federal drug conviction stemmed from a series of smuggling operations that landed cocaine and marijuana on the Florida coast between 1977 and 1979.

Also, Chagra hailed from El Paso, Texas. An FBI report in the Binion probe states that at least one associate of the smuggling ring lived there.

And when the FBI investigated Binion anew in the late 1980s, an agent who looked back on the 1983 probe indicated it involved a person linked to the Wood slaying.

"(Censored) was a principal subject in the FBI major case -- WOODMUR, dealing with the murder of San Antonio Federal Judge John Wood. Information indicated that it was the Binion family that introduced (censored) to (censored) in the Wood shooting. It is believed that their introduction took place at the Horseshoe Casino," the report reads.

In his book "Dirty Dealing," author Gary Cartwright said a Las Vegas associate of Chagra told the FBI that Charles Harrelson and Chagra met in May 1979 during a poker tournament at the Horseshoe. But the account states that it was Harrelson who took the initiative to introduce himself to Chagra, and there is no mention of any Binion family member being present.

"That guy is passing himself off as a killer, what do you think?" the report said Chagra asked his associate after the departure of Harrelson, whom the FBI confirmed was registered at the Horseshoe during this period.

Cartwright also wrote that the news media, citing a leaked FBI memorandum, reported in 1978 that a federal grand jury in El Paso was examining the relationship between Binion, notorious mobster Tony Spilotro and Chagra's older brother Lee, a controversial lawyer who later was shot to death. This was the same grand jury that was probing the criminal activities of Jimmy Chagra.

Goodman scoffed at the suggestion that Binion and Chagra were colleagues in crime.

"The only connection that I knew of between Jimmy Chagra and Ted Binion was that Jimmy loved to lose his money playing at the Horseshoe," Goodman said.

While discussing matters other than Chagra, Wright said it is dangerous, if not foolish, to draw inferences from redacted material. When documents are heavily redacted, as in the Binion FBI file, the danger is multiplied, he said.

"You're not seeing the entire portrait," Wright said. "It's tough to even tell who they are talking about."

Wright was among the attorneys who defended the eight people charged in an April 1990 indictment stemming from the FBI's final RICO investigation involving Binion.

The indictment alleged a series of beatings, robberies and kidnappings between June 1977 and October 1986 of "undesirable patrons" at the Horseshoe. Prosecutors dismissed the indictment in August 1992, about two months before the case was scheduled to go to trial.

"The evidence we obtained didn't stand up. As we got deeper and deeper and deeper into it, the evidence wasn't there and we had to do the right thing," Kurt Schulke, head of the U.S. attorney's Organized Crime Strike Force in Las Vegas, said Tuesday.

Wright, who represented one of Binion's co-defendants, said he was shocked to read in the early FBI reports the objectives that agents believed the case would serve.

It was not inaccurate to say that the probe would examine allegations that included murder, kidnapping, robbery and civil rights violations. But the end result of the case demonstrated that agents had cast these allegations in the most heinous light possible, probably in hopes of convincing their superiors that the operation merited funding, Wright said.

"It mischaracterized the nature of the case," he said.

Agents had hoped to prove money laundering was occurring at the Horseshoe. The FBI believed the practice was widespread in Las Vegas, and agents were eager to make an example.

"An indictment for money laundering involving a casino owner would have a major impact on the casino industry in Las Vegas and would send a clear message to casino operators that the FBI is cracking down on the activity," one agent wrote.

Toward this end, agents contemplated an undercover operation. The results of this venture were not disclosed, though agents seemed skeptical from the start.

"The Binions are very cautious of who they conduct business with, and it is practically impossible for someone unacquainted with the Binions to get close to them," an agent wrote.

The files released by the FBI contain no documents generated between the August 1992 dismissal of the indictment and the September 1998 death of Binion.

At the trial of Tabish and Murphy, prosecutors said the victim was suffocated after he was forced to ingest potentially lethal amounts of heroin and the prescribed sedative Xanax. Jurors found the pair guilty of murder, and they are serving life in prison.

Defense attorneys had contended that Binion overdosed on heroin, forfeiting his life in much the same way he earlier had forfeited his once promising gaming career.

Witnesses detailed Binion's heroin habit, including his own estimate that he spent a total of $1 million on the drug. And jurors learned that Binion associated with some shady characters.

But jurors did not hear of the allegations contained within the FBI documents released under the Freedom of Information Act. Had they possessed these documents, defense attorneys would have had to convince District Judge Joseph Bonaventure that they were relevant to the murder trial.

Clark County District Attorney Stewart Bell, a former top criminal defense attorney, said defense attorneys often try to delve into the past to show jurors that a victim had other enemies with motive and opportunity to kill. Prosecutors likewise seek to inform jurors of the relatively distant felony convictions of a defendant.

The greater the passage of time, the more difficult it is for attorneys to convince a judge that a given piece of evidence is material to the case at hand, Bell said.

"The state wouldn't be able to get in evidence that Ted Binion was voted most likely to succeed in his high school class," he said by way of example.

Bell said trying to convince a judge of the relevance of events that occurred two decades ago is typically an uphill battle. He added that jurors in the Binion case were well aware of the victim's familiarity with the drug culture.

"That was the defense, and it wasn't accepted by the jury," he said.

Behnen, the sister who spurred authorities to treat her brother's death as a homicide when all signs pointed to an accidental overdose, put little stock in the litany of allegations contained within the FBI reports.

In her opinion, the reports simply reflect all of the tips that informants lodged against Binion. Agents had a duty to record this information, whether they believed it or not, Behnen said.

"I don't think they did," she said.