Saturday, March 12, 2005
Copyright © Las Vegas Review-Journal

Tabish, Murphy face prison for Binion theft

Judge sentences pair for taking $8 million in vault

Rick Tabish leaves District Court on Friday after being sentenced for the theft of Ted Binion's silver. Photo by Clint Karlsen. Sandy Murphy, left, talks to her sister Friday in District Court, where she was sentenced in the theft of silver belonging to Ted Binion. Photo by Clint Karlsen. A tearful Sandy Murphy hugs her father, Kenneth Murphy, after she was sentenced on Friday. Murphy was released on bail pending appeal. Photo by Clint Karlsen. District Judge Joseph Bonaventure talks to Sandy Murphy's attorney, Michael Cristalli, during Friday's sentencing of Sandy Murphy and Rick Tabish. Photo by Clint Karlsen. Click image for enlargement. Graphic by Mike Johnson.

Rick Tabish and Sandy Murphy continued to assert their innocence Friday.

But District Judge Joseph Bonaventure disagreed, sentencing the pair to 1 to 5 years in prison for what he described as a calculated effort to steal $8 million that Ted Binion had buried in a vault in Pahrump.

"This is not like Ms. Murphy or Mr. Tabish grabbed an armful of clothes from Wal-Mart and ran out of the store, or they got popped stealing stereos out of a car," Bonaventure said. "I believe they knew what was going on. I believe they knew everything they did."

Tabish told the judge he was acting on behalf of Binion when he unearthed the treasure two days after Binion died in September 1998. He said the former casino executive had asked him to secure the silver in the event of his death.

"If there was a charge of felony stupidity, that is what I should be guilty of," Tabish said. "I should have never gone up there. I was wrong."

Murphy declined to address the judge. But after the sentence was imposed, Murphy said she is confident her felony convictions will eventually be overturned by the state Supreme Court.

"I'm tired," Murphy said. "I've lost a tremendous amount. I lost somebody I loved. I lost my home. I lost my life as I knew it. I lost my freedom. I lost years of quality time with my family, holidays, birthdays, time with my nephew, perhaps a man and children of my own. I wasted a lot of my years of youth in prison.

"Even when I am ultimately vindicated, I still lost so much there is no way that anybody other than God could give it back to me," Murphy said.

Tabish must finish serving a sentence for extorting a former business associate before he can start serving the sentence Bonaventure handed down Friday. That means he still faces a total of 2 to 15 years in prison. His attorney, Joseph Caramagno, said Tabish could be paroled in less than two years with credit for good behavior in prison.

Bonaventure ruled that Murphy can stay out of jail on $250,000 bail while she appeals her convictions. With credit for nearly four years already served in prison, the most she could end up serving if her appeal fails is about 13 more months.

Her attorney, Michael Cristalli, said that even if Murphy's appeal fails, he believes she will never spend another day in jail because she would immediately be eligible for parole.

Murphy was Binion's live-in girlfriend when she commenced an affair with Tabish, a contractor from Montana who was a friend of Binion. The son of gaming legend Benny Binion was found dead at his Palomino Lane home in September 1998.

Police initially believed Binion, who by his own estimation spent $1 million on heroin in his lifetime, had succumbed to his addictions.

But two days after Binion died, Nye County deputies caught Tabish and two other men digging up Binion's silver fortune from an underground vault in Pahrump.

Authorities subsequently charged Tabish and Murphy with murder, claiming the lovers suffocated Binion after forcing him to ingest heroin and Xanax.

In 2000, jurors found the pair guilty of murder and charges relating to the silver theft. They were sentenced to life in prison.

The Supreme Court granted them a new trial in 2003, however, and last year a new jury found them not guilty of murder. Jurors found the pair guilty of charges arising from the silver theft.

During Friday's sentencing hearing, prosecutor Christopher Lalli described the silver theft as possibly "the largest grand larceny in the history of the state of Nevada."

"When someone dies, the buzzards start to circle, and that's exactly what happened in this case," Lalli said of the defendants. "(They were) consumed by greed."

In urging prison time for the defendants, prosecutors cited the magnitude of the theft and Tabish's prior criminal history. Prosecutor Robert Daskas noted that, as a young man in the 1980s, Tabish was caught stealing a $600,000 painting from a lawyer's office in his native Montana. Tabish also has a prior criminal history for assault, and he served time in prison for a drug charge.

"At some point, a criminal's background catches up with them, and for Mr. Tabish, that day is today," Daskas said. "He's an opportunist, he's a manipulator, and he's a con man."

Tabish, in his remarks to the judge, took issue with being called a con man. He also said his life has been forever tarnished by being called a murderer for a crime he did not commit.

"If I wanted to go out on a date and someone called up my name on the Internet, they'd get about 1,875 hits all saying I'm a murderer," Tabish said.

"Have I learned my lesson? Absolutely. You'll never see me in a court again, and I would never even consider a crime or doing anything stupid."

Tabish's father, Frank, said he believes his son will be going home to Montana soon.

"We want to get him home so badly and get reconnected," Frank Tabish said. "It is hard on us, but we are getting closer."

Caramagno urged Bonaventure to show leniency to Tabish, a father of two whose wife filed for divorce after the first trial. "He is a person who has lost it all," Caramagno said.

Cristalli told the judge that Murphy already served nearly four years on a murder that she eventually was cleared of.

"The time she has already served is sufficient punishment," he said.

Bonaventure noted the juries in both trials were asked to "reach into an unknown and try to decipher the truth."

"It was originally treated as an overdose," Bonaventure said. "It resulted in an after-the-fact homicide investigation by (private investigator Tom) Dillard. That may have clouded the situation.

"There was never any forensic evidence on the body," the judge continued. "He or she did it? Nothing caught on tape. No admissions. No smoking guns. No eyewitnesses. Just a string of circumstances that were eventually tied into a loose knot."