Saturday, August 07, 2004
Copyright © Las Vegas Review-Journal

BINION SLAYING: Tabish gets public funds

Defense lawyers plan to use money for medical experts, toxicologists, pathologists

Rick Tabish and defense attorney Tony Serra appear Friday in District Court, where Judge Joseph Bonaventure ruled the defense can use public funds to hire expert witnesses. Tabish and Sandy Murphy will be retried in the slaying of Ted Binion. Their earlier convictions were overturned. Photo by John Gurzinski. Sandy Murphy and defense attorney Shari Greenberger appear Friday in District Court, where a judge decided Murphy and co-defendant Rick Tabish cannot be sentenced to life without possibility of parole if they are convicted of murder. Photo by John Gurzinski.

A judge granted lawyers for murder defendant Rick Tabish permission to use public funds to gather expert testimony Friday.

Tabish and his former lover, Sandy Murphy, are scheduled to be tried in October in the September 1998 death of former casino executive Ted Binion. Their prior murder convictions were overturned.

In granting the defense access to public funds, District Judge Joseph Bonaventure cited a Nevada Supreme Court ruling that allows defendants to claim indigence even if they already have a private attorney.

Before issuing his order, the judge asked Tabish if he has any stocks, bonds or bank accounts that he is not utilizing.

The son of a Montana businessman, Tabish told Bonaventure that his murder defense and subsequent appeal drained his parents' finances.

"My parents are completely spent," Tabish said. "I know they don't have retirement anymore. We're definitely hurt here."

Prosecutors opposed the request, saying Tabish, who made a similar request prior to his first trial, is not indigent.

"The court heard that in 1999, and somehow he's able to maintain six lawyers," Chief Deputy District Attorney Christopher Lalli said, referring to the number of attorneys on Tabish's defense team that year.

Ultimately, the judge told the defense team it was entitled to a "reasonable amount" of taxpayer funding.

In 2000, jurors found Tabish and Murphy guilty of murder and related charges in the death of Binion, with whom Murphy lived. The Nevada Supreme Court last year granted them a new trial.

Prosecutors have said Murphy and Tabish drugged and suffocated Binion. The defense says he was a drug addict who overdosed on Xanax and heroin, whether on purpose or by accident.

Shari Greenberger, one of four lawyers representing Tabish, said that one lawyer on the defense team is working for free, and the rest are working for one-tenth of their pay.

"He's been incarcerated for five years. He has no money," Greenberger said of Tabish.

Greenberger said the public funds will be used to gather medical experts like toxicologists and pathologists and not to pay attorney fees.

Bonaventure also decided Tabish and Murphy cannot be sentenced to life without possibility of parole if they are convicted of murder in the trial that begins Oct. 11.

This is because the jury in their first trial rejected a possible sentence of life without parole. That jury instead opted for life with parole beginning after 20 years.

Under the law, the judge said, the defendants cannot be subjected to a penalty harsher than the one levied in the first trial.

Also Friday, one of Murphy's defense attorneys, Herb Sachs, resigned from the case with the approval of Bonaventure. Sachs said William Fuller, a businessman funding Murphy's defense, owes him hundreds of thousands of dollars.

Sachs said he will file a lawsuit against Fuller if he is not paid, and Murphy's defense will have a void without him.

"She would be better off with me than without me," Sachs said outside court.

Sachs is the second lawyer to resign from Murphy's defense team in the last two months.