Tuesday, July 20, 2004
Copyright © Las Vegas Review-Journal

Murphy defense team probed

Inquiry delves into allegations of witness tampering

Kurt Gratzer

As many as three people from Sandy Murphy's defense team are the subject of a witness-tampering investigation involving the payment of $35,000 in legal fees for a key witness in the Ted Binion murder case, District Attorney David Roger said Monday.

The witness in question, Kurt Gratzer, received as much as $35,000 in paid legal fees from individuals associated with Murphy's team, Roger said.

"As a result of our investigation, which included electronic surveillance, at least three individuals were involved in paying Kurt Gratzer's legal fees of $35,000," Roger said. "It is an ongoing investigation."

Roger went on to say that "Kurt Gratzer met with prosecutors within the last couple of weeks and acknowledged he had received financial benefits from these individuals."

Roger declined to identify the people who are the subjects of the investigation.

Murphy's defense attorney, Michael Cristalli, said Monday an unidentified "third party" has helped Gratzer with legal bills, but he said the financial assistance had nothing to do with a controversial affidavit signed by Gratzer that was filed in court last week.

In that affidavit, Gratzer claimed he repeatedly told authorities in 2000 that Murphy had no knowledge of a plot to kill Binion. Roger, then a chief deputy district attorney, former prosecutor David Wall and police told Gratzer to keep quiet about the potentially exculpatory information, the affidavit says.

"Those fees, to the best of my knowledge, had nothing to do with the information in Gratzer's affidavit, nor was he promised anything," Cristalli said.

Cristalli said Monday that Gratzer gave a series of affidavits to defense investigators during the past two years. In Cristalli's opinion, prosecutors are using the witness-tampering investigation to deflect problems the state faces with Gratzer as a witness in Murphy's upcoming murder trial.

"The only thing left for the state to do is protect themselves," Cristalli said. "It's an attempt to keep their case together because it is completely falling apart at the seams."

Binion was found dead at his Palomino Lane home in September 1998. Murphy, who was Binion's live-in girlfriend, was later charged with murder, as was Murphy's lover, Rick Tabish.

Authorities said Binion was killed as part of a scheme by Murphy and Tabish to steal Binion's millions. Murphy and Tabish were convicted of murder in 2000 and sentenced to life in prison, but in 2003, the Nevada Supreme Court overturned the pair's convictions on appeal.

Murphy and Tabish's second trial is now scheduled for October.

During the pair's first trial, Gratzer was viewed by many as a valuable witness for the prosecution because he said Tabish tried to hire him to kill Binion less than a month before Binion died. Gratzer, however, has at times been an erratic witness who has multiple arrests related to drunken driving and drugs.

On Friday, Cristalli filed a motion alleging prosecutorial misconduct by Roger and his office during the first Binion trial. As evidence, they offered Gratzer's claim in the affidavit that he repeatedly told authorities that Murphy did not know of any plot to kill Binion.

"I was told by the above mentioned prosecution team not to mention that fact to anyone at any time," Gratzer stated in the affidavit. "Each of them told me during the interviews that they didn't care about my opinion, and that they believed Sandy Murphy was guilty."

Roger has said any accusations of prosecutorial misconduct are simply not true. He also said that the investigation into witness tampering is not a new inquiry and that Murphy's defense attorney was told weeks ago that an investigation was ongoing.

After the first trial, Cristalli said, the Binion estate paid Gratzer $20,000 in reward money, leading Cristalli to call the witness tampering investigation "somewhat hypocritical."

"The state is now doing this in response to this new information, which hurts them tremendously," Cristalli said. "They are put on the defensive because their star witness is now accusing them of suppression of information that would have exculpated Sandy at her first trial."

In Nevada, bribing or intimidating a witness to influence testimony is a Class C felony punishable by one to five years in prison. It is also a Class C felony for a witness to accept a bribe.