Ted Binion
Encyclopedia
Benny Binion
Lester Ben "Benny" Binion was a well-known American casino owner, mobster, poker enthusiast, and convicted felon.-Early history:...
, owner of Binion's Horseshoe
Binion's Horseshoe
Binion's Horseshoe, also known as the Horseshoe Casino or simply The Horseshoe, was a hotel and casino located in downtown Las Vegas, Nevada on what is now the Fremont Street Experience. The casino was named for its founder, Benny Binion and had 366 rooms, three restaurants and a rooftop pool.The...
. His death has been a subject of controversy; girlfriend Sandra Murphy and her lover Rick Tabish were initially charged and convicted in Binion's death, but were later granted a new trial and acquitted on the murder charges.
Early life
Ted Binion was born in Dallas in 1943. He had an older brother, JackJack Binion
Jack Binion is an American casino operator. Jack is the son of casino magnate Benny Binion and worked for his father at Binion's Horseshoe, a casino and hotel in Las Vegas, Nevada.- Biography :...
, and three sisters: Becky, Brenda, and Barbara.
Binion moved to Las Vegas with his father in 1947. He was involved early on in his father's casino, the Horseshoe.
While growing up, Ted spent summers at the family's Montana
Montana
Montana is a state in the Western United States. The western third of Montana contains numerous mountain ranges. Smaller, "island ranges" are found in the central third of the state, for a total of 77 named ranges of the Rocky Mountains. This geographical fact is reflected in the state's name,...
retreat, a cattle ranch in Jordan
Jordan, Montana
Jordan is a town in and the county seat of Garfield County, Montana, United States. The population was 364 at the 2000 census.-History:Originally settled in 1896, Jordan received a post office on July 11, 1899...
, to work with the ranch hands. Later, in the 1970s, Benny sent his three grandsons—his daughter Barbara’s sons—to Montana to run the ranch. By the 1980s, Benny had amassed an 85000 acres (344 km²) ranch, according to the county recorder’s office. The last parcel he purchased was in 1985. The family sold all the parcels in April 1998 to John Hillenbrand.
In 1964, Benny Binion regained full control of the Horseshoe after previously selling his interest to cover his legal costs defending himself from tax evasion and other charges. Since he was a convicted criminal, Benny was no longer allowed to hold a gaming license. His sons Jack and Ted took over the day-to-day operation of the casino. Jack filled the role of president, while Ted became the casino manager.
Career
In the role of manager, Ted was the face that was most seen during the peak evening hours of the casino operation and became well known as the host of the Horseshoe's pokerPoker
Poker is a family of card games that share betting rules and usually hand rankings. Poker games differ in how the cards are dealt, how hands may be formed, whether the high or low hand wins the pot in a showdown , limits on bet sizes, and how many rounds of betting are allowed.In most modern poker...
tournaments. Binion loved living the high life and partying, schmoozing with high-profile guests of the Horseshoe, and flirting with attractive women.
He was arrested in 1986 on drug trafficking charges and began drawing attention for his connection to organized crime figure "Fat Herbie" Blitzstein
Herbert Blitzstein
Herbert "Fat Herbie" Blitzstein was a loanshark, bookmaker and lieutenant to Tony "The Ant" Spilotro and the Chicago Outfit in Las Vegas, Nevada.-Biography:...
. From that point on, Binion was in hot water with the Nevada Gaming Commission
Nevada Gaming Commission
The Nevada Gaming Commission is a Nevada state governmental agency involved in the regulation of casinos throughout the state, along with the Nevada Gaming Control Board. It was founded in 1959 by the Nevada Legislature....
.
Besides his drug problems and association with mob figures, the Gaming Control Board suspected that he was using his live-in girlfriend, Sandy Murphy, as a bagwoman. Binion had met Murphy while she was working at Cheetah's
Cheetah's
Cheetah's Topless Club is a "gentleman's club" or topless bar located in San Diego, and Las Vegas, best known for being featured in the 1995 movie Showgirls, and also for having been owned by Mike Galardi, a nightclub owner who was investigated by the FBI with a controversial invocation of the...
, a topless club. His dalliances with her had caused his estranged wife and daughter to pack up and leave for Texas.
In 1996, he was provisionally banned from participating in the management of, or even entering, his family's casino. He struggled to avoid falling afoul of Commission drug tests, and at one point shaved off every hair on his body to avoid a hair test that would reveal his history of usage. In 1998, Binion's gaming license was permanently revoked, and he was never to be associated with the family business again. Inside the basement of the casino was Ted's silver collection, housed in a floor-to-ceiling vault at the Horseshoe Club. When Ted’s ties to the family casino were severed, he had to either sell the silver or relocate it to a secure spot.
After Binion lost his license and the family sold the Montana ranch, he became even more involved in drugs, especially marijuana, Xanax, and the street drug tar heroin
Black tar heroin
Black tar heroin is a type of illicit opiate narcotic drug formed from the incomplete acetylation of morphine. It is also called brown.Black tar can contain a variable percentage of heroin, but despite the name, what makes Black Tar specific as a type is not actually its heroin content, but rather...
, which he smoked. Whenever he smoked heroin, he was known to "chase the dragon
Chasing the dragon
"Chasing the dragon" refers to inhaling the vapor from heated morphine, heroin, oxycodone or opium that has been placed on a piece of foil...
" (inhale the smoke). The dealers knew when he was around due to the telltale odor of marijuana smoke whenever he used the eye in the sky to keep an eye on the action.
Personal life
Binion was once the target of a near-kidnapping, a dramatic attempt that left bodies strewn across the desert. Later in life, he developed a severe heroin addiction.Ted was an avid reader of magazines and books. He was a history buff, particularly American Civil War
Civil war
A civil war is a war between organized groups within the same nation state or republic, or, less commonly, between two countries created from a formerly-united nation state....
history, and enjoyed watching History Channel and Discovery Channel
Discovery Channel
Discovery Channel is an American satellite and cable specialty channel , founded by John Hendricks and distributed by Discovery Communications. It is a publicly traded company run by CEO David Zaslav...
programming. In addition, he was mathematically gifted - easily able to mentally calculate odds or the "house take" in gambling transactions with no aid. He was known to help people he knew to be in difficult financial straits.
Buried treasure
After his death, it was discovered by Nye County sheriff's deputies that Ted had had a 12-foot-deep vault built on the desert floor on a piece of property he owned in PahrumpPahrump, Nevada
-Demographics:As of the census of 2000, there were 24,631 people, 10,153 households, and 7,127 families residing in the CDP. The population density was 82.7 people per square mile . There were 11,651 housing units at an average density of 39.1 per square mile...
, 60 miles (97 km) west of Las Vegas. The concrete bunker contained six tons of silver
Silver
Silver is a metallic chemical element with the chemical symbol Ag and atomic number 47. A soft, white, lustrous transition metal, it has the highest electrical conductivity of any element and the highest thermal conductivity of any metal...
bullion, Horseshoe Casino chips
Casino token
Casino tokens are small discs used in lieu of currency in casinos. Colored metal, injection molded plastic or compression molded clay tokens of various denominations are used primarily in table games, as opposed to metal token coins, used primarily in slot machines...
, paper currency, and more than 100,000 rare coins, including Carson City silver dollars—many in mint condition—estimated to be worth between $7 million and $14 million—that were once housed in the Horseshoe vault. The Pahrump underground vault would play a major role in the investigation into Binion's death.
After Ted Binion was banned from the casino, he contracted construction of the underground vault with MRT Transport, a trucking company owned by Rick Tabish. MRT trucks were used to transport the silver to the vault, and the only two people who had the combination to the vault were Binion and Tabish.
The vault was discovered two days after Binion died, whereupon Nye County sheriff's deputies arrested Binion's associate Rick Tabish and two other men unearthing the silver.
Binion hid millions in and around his Las Vegas home, all of which went missing after his death. It is rumored to be buried on the property under odd mounds in the front and back yards. After the trial much of the silver was given to his daughter, but a large portion still remains unclaimed at the courthouse.
Death and aftermath
Ted Binion was found dead on a small mattress on the floor of his Las VegasLas Vegas, Nevada
Las Vegas is the most populous city in the U.S. state of Nevada and is also the county seat of Clark County, Nevada. Las Vegas is an internationally renowned major resort city for gambling, shopping, and fine dining. The city bills itself as The Entertainment Capital of the World, and is famous...
estate home, 2408 Palomino Lane near Rancho Drive and Charleston Boulevard, on September 17, 1998. Empty pill bottles were found near the body, and an autopsy and toxicology report revealed that he died of a lethal dosage combination of the prescription sedative Xanax and heroin, with traces of Valium. The day before, Binion had himself purchased 12 pieces of tar heroin from a street drug dealer, and had earlier gotten a prescription from his next-door neighbor, a doctor, for Xanax, and evidence introduced at trial showed that Binion personally took the prescription to be filled at a local pharmacy.
Binion's death was initially treated as a probable suicide. His live-in girlfriend, Sandy Murphy, said that Binion had been suicidal ever since losing his gaming license a few months earlier. His sister Barbara, afflicted with the same kinds of drug problems as her brother, committed suicide in 1977, which also helped contribute to the perception that Ted could have been vulnerable to suicide as well. However, his sister Becky discounted any talk of suicide, saying that in her conversations with him that he didn't sound despondent.
Las Vegas homicide detectives suspected that the scene had been staged, as his body didn't show the typical signs of a drug overdose. Also, the stomach contained heroin and the police thought that neither an addict nor a suicide would take heroin in that manner. However, despite the urgings of Becky Behnen and Jack Binion, they refused to open a full-scale homicide investigation. Six months later, chief medical examiner
Medical examiner
A medical examiner is a medically qualified government officer whose duty is to investigate deaths and injuries that occur under unusual or suspicious circumstances, to perform post-mortem examinations, and in some jurisdictions to initiate inquests....
Lary Simms ruled Binion had died of a heroin and Xanax overdose. After six months, however, the coroner's office reclassified Ted's death a homicide on May 5, 1999. Although there were no specifics, law enforcement sources cited evidence that the death scene had been staged, as well as witness statements implicating Murphy and Tabish. Detectives had suspected for some time that Murphy and Tabish had been romantically involved, and had learned that Binion suspected Murphy was cheating on him.
In June 1999, Sandy Murphy and Rick Tabish were arrested for Binion's murder, as well as for conspiracy, robbery, grand larceny and burglary. The prosecution contended that Murphy and Tabish had conspired to kill Binion and steal his riches, drugging Binion into unconsciousness and burking him, a form of manual suffocation
Suffocation
Suffocation is the process of Asphyxia.Suffocation may also refer to:* Suffocation , an American death metal band* "Suffocation", a song on Morbid Angel's debut album, Altars of Madness...
. The suffocation, in this theory, was done because the overdose was taking too long, and the pair feared discovery. They were each charged with murder and burglary charges connected to the removal of his fortune from the vault on the desert floor in Pahrump.
Murder trial and re-trial
Later that year, David Roger
David Roger
David Roger is the current District Attorney of Clark County, Nevada. He was born in Oakland, California in the summer of 1961. He moved to Las Vegas, Nevada when he was a teenager along with his family where he graduated from Bishop Gorman High School in 1979. He then majored in Business at the...
, who prosecuted the case, was elected Clark County district attorney, and David Wall, who second-chaired the prosecution, was elected district judge.
However, in July 2003, the Nevada Supreme Court overturned the murder convictions, ruling that Clark County District Court Judge Joseph Bonaventure erred in deliberation instructions to the jury. The justices found that Tabish should have received a separate trial for the assault and blackmail of another businessman. While the prosecution was never able to prove a link between this crime and Binion's murder, the justices said, testimony regarding the separate assault prejudiced the jury against Tabish. The justices also ruled that jurors should have been told to consider statements by Binion's estate attorney as statements of the attorney's mind, not fact.
The defendants were granted a new trial, which began on October 11, 2004 in Judge Bonaventure's courtroom. This time, Murphy, who was represented by Michael Cristalli, and Tabish, represented by famed civil rights lawyer J. Tony Serra
Tony Serra
J. Tony Serra is an American civil rights lawyer, activist and tax resister from San Francisco.-Education:Serra received a bachelor's of art in philosophy from Stanford University and a law degree from Boalt Hall School of Law, UC-Berkeley.-Biography:...
, were each acquitted of murder but were convicted on lesser charges of burglary (12 to 60 months) and grand larceny (12 to 60 months) connected with the Binion case. Tabish also was convicted of use of deadly weapon (18 to 60 months). Murphy was sentenced to time served and did not return to prison.
Tabish was originally sentenced to serve consecutive terms and was denied parole in 2001, 2004 and 2005. On January 26, 2009 he was brought into Las Vegas where the Nevada parole board granted him "Parole to Consecutive," meaning the three convictions were to run concurrently.
Tabish received another parole hearing in Las Vegas on January 13, 2010. The Nevada Board of Parole Commissioners announced January 26, 2010 that Tabish, 44, would be granted parole. His younger brother described the news as “pretty wonderful.”
Tabish was released on May 18, 2010. His parole started on April 2, 2010, but negotiating the terms of his release delayed his actual exit from prison.
Print and electronic media
A prosecution death theory, which the jury ultimately rejected, formed the basis for "Burked", a September 27, 2001 episode of the TV series CSICSI: Crime Scene Investigation
CSI: Crime Scene Investigation is an American crime drama television series, which premiered on CBS on October 6, 2000. The show was created by Anthony E. Zuiker and produced by Jerry Bruckheimer...
. After the jury in the re-trial found Tabish and Murphy not guilty of murder news accounts reported that jurors had been unwilling to find them guilty because the forensic evidence introduced by the prosecution had not met the standards of the television show.
The case was covered extensively in Death in the Desert, a biography by author Cathy Scott
Cathy Scott
Cathy Scott is an American true crime writer and investigative journalist, born and raised in San Diego, United States growing up in nearby La Mesa, California...
, in Positively Fifth Street by James McManus
James McManus
James "Jim" McManus is an American poker player, teacher and writer living in Kenilworth, Illinois.-Poker and Positively Fifth Street:...
, which is about a poker tournament at the Binion family's Horseshoe, and in "An Early Grave", written by Gary C. King and released in 2001 as part of the 'St. Martin's True Crime Classics' series. The case was also covered in the 2008 made-for-tv movie "Sex and Lies in Sin City
Sex and Lies in Sin City
Sex and Lies in Sin City: the Ted Binion Scandal is a 2008 Lifetime Television movie starring Johnathon Schaech, Marcia Gay Harden, Matthew Modine, and Mena Suvari.-Plot:...
", partly based on the book Murder in Sin City by Jeff German which took the prosecution's point of view. However, the title of the movie was changed to allow for other theories about Ted Binion's death. Also, Las Vegas columnist John L. Smith published a pictorial summary of the case titled Quicksilver.
A&E released an hour-long video which covers the case, called Who Wants to Kill a Millionaire—part of its "American Justice" series—and includes interviews and film clips of the characters surrounding Binion's death and aftermath.
None of the sources above covers the re-trial. This can be found at trutv.com under "Ted Binion" and in the 48 Hours Mystery episode "Buried Secrets of Las Vegas". Also, in 2005 "An Early Grave" was re-published with appendices covering the re-trial and acquittal.