Convictions upheld

CARSON CITY -- The Nevada Supreme Court has upheld the convictions of Sandy Murphy and Rick Tabish for stealing $7 million in silver from the late Las Vegas casino executive Ted Binion's underground vault in Nye County.

Justices ruled in separate decisions that ample evidence exists for convicting the one-time lovers on conspiracy, burglary and grand larceny charges.

The decision blocks Murphy, 35, in her effort to clear her name. She was released from prison in April 2005 for time served on the charges and now lives in California.

Tabish, 42, remains incarcerated in the Southern Desert Correctional Center but could be paroled later this year.

They were convicted in 2000 of murdering Binion in a conspiracy to steal his silver and prevent him from cutting Murphy, his live-in girlfriend, out of his will.

Murphy and Tabish each received life prison sentences requiring them to spend at least 22 years behind bars, but those convictions were overturned in 2003 by the Supreme Court.

A second jury in 2004 acquitted them of the murder charges, but upheld the charges in connection with the silver theft.

Binion, 54, was found dead on Sept. 17, 1998, in his home in Las Vegas from what appeared to be a drug overdose since pills and heroin were found near his body.

He earlier had lost his gaming license over his heroin use. At one point he showed up at a Nevada Gaming Commission hearing after shaving off every hair on his body in a move to escape drug detection.

In its latest Murphy decision, issued late Monday, the Supreme Court voted 2 to 1 to uphold the charge she participated in the conspiracy to steal Binion's silver.

Justices said prosecutors showed at Murphy's trial that she had told her beautician prior to Binion's death that Tabish intended to steal silver from the vault and she stood to inherit considerable wealth.

They also noted that when Tabish was removing the silver from Binion's vault, four phone calls were placed to him from Murphy's cell phone.

"Based on this evidence, a rational trier of fact could have found the essential elements of a conspiracy beyond a reasonable doubt," Justices Ron Parraguirre and Michael Douglas stated in the majority decision.

In voting against upholding the burglary convictions, Justice Jim Hardesty said that Murphy's statements to her beautician about Tabish stealing the silver "does not establish that Murphy agreed to cooperate in the conspiracy."

In addition, Hardesty stated that Murphy never told the beautician that she stood to gain money from the silver theft. Instead she said she would receive $3 million, Binion's home, a car and a jewelry store as her inheritance, he stated.

Hardesty said that just because four calls were made to Tabish from Murphy's phone does not positively identity her as the person who made the calls.

Similar findings were made in upholding Tabish's convictions, which was made on a 3-0 vote.

In upholding Murphy's convictions, justices shot down his arguments that the silver charges should have been dismissed because the trial was conducted in Clark County and the crime had been committed in Nye County.

Justices stated that "several acts that were requisite to the theft occurred in Clark County. It was in Clark County, according to the decision, that Binion commissioned Tabish to build an underground vault, and thus it was there that Tabish saw the silver" and developed his plan to steal it.

In addition, they said there was evidence to support the silver theft convictions because Tabish admitted he lied to Nye County sheriff's deputies who approached him at the vault when he was removing silver.

Tabish told them he was cleaning up concrete and then they discovered silver in his equipment.

Justices also rejected Tabish's request that the more than seven years he spent in jail and in prison on the murder conviction should be credited toward his sentences on the silver theft convictions.

But the court ruled the reversal of the murder charges did not apply to the silver convictions.

The silver theft convictions were imposed to apply consecutively to the murder convictions, and, therefore, Tabish was not entitled to time-served credits, according to the court.

Contact Capital Bureau Chief Ed Vogel at evogel@reviewjournal.com or (775) 687-3901.