Friday, May 16, 1997 | 11:59 a.m.
Suspended Horseshoe Club executive Ted Binion has admitted to loaning $100,000 to a reputed Kansas City mobster to invest in a Las Vegas used-car dealership.
The State Gaming Control Board grilled Binion on Thursday about the loan and how he became a business partner of Peter Ribaste, identified by the FBI as a longtime associate of the Kansas City mob.
Earlier Thursday, the Control Board recommended against reinstating Binion in the casino industry after it concluded he violated an agreement to stay out of the Horseshoe's operations during his one-year suspension.
Concerns about Binion's relationship with Ribaste, a convicted felon indicted on a tax evasion charge last week in Kansas City, are expected to form the basis of a new Control Board complaint against Binion.
The complaint likely will be filed before Binion heads to the Nevada Gaming Commission on Thursday to ask for his license back without the board's blessing.
At Thursday's hearing, Binion said under oath that he was introduced to the 42-year-old Ribaste about 10 months ago by Barbara Brown, a real estate agent who indicated Ribaste had a business proposition for him.
Binion said he got acquainted with Ribaste during a lunch at the Aristocrat restaurant. After that, Ribaste began wooing him for several months, sending him a case of Scotch whisky and other gifts.
Eventually, Binion testified, he agreed to loan Ribaste the $100,000 for the venture into the dealership, Carriage Car III, at 3401 S. Decatur Blvd.
Binion said he wrote separate $50,000 checks in December to Ribaste, who promised to pay him $4,700 a month until Binion got his investment back, and then $2,350 a month for the next 60 months.
By January, Binion said, Ribaste began bringing a $4,700 check to his house each month until he asked him to start mailing the money May 1 after gaming agents had voiced concerns about his partnership at a secret investigative hearing.
Control Board member Steve DuCharme appeared irritated by Binion's association with Ribaste, which comes on top of concerns about Binion's dealings with the late underworld figure Herbie Blitzstein.
Binion had acknowledged palling around with Blitzstein, a top lieutenant to the late Chicago mobster Anthony Spilotro, prior to Blitzstein's Jan. 6 gangland-style slaying.
"Every time we unroll a rock, we get some notorious creature stumbling out from under it," DuCharme said.
Binion's lawyer, Richard Wright, countered that Ribaste has not had a notorious reputation in the business community and it was unreasonable to expect Binion should have known about his alleged underworld ties.
Wright said the Control Board never took action a decade ago against several casinos that allowed Ribaste to gamble there.
Ribaste, who allegedly once ran an illegal gambling operation for the Kansas City mob, was convicted in 1989 of mail fraud and hiding $90,000 in Las Vegas gambling debts on a government loan application for a car dealership in the Kansas City area.
Binion acknowledged he didn't do much to check out Ribaste's background and continued to associate with him even after learning of his conviction a couple of months ago.
But Wright said the licensed owners of Carriage Car found Ribaste to have a good credit rating.
Binion also testified that he found Ribaste to be a "pretty good fella" and felt comfortable dealing with him after he learned that Ribaste was the former son-in-law of well-known Las Vegas gambler Lem Banker.
Banker, one of the world's most recognized professional sports bettors, said after the hearing that he has not had contact with Ribaste for about a year.
Ribaste and Banker's daughter were married in 1987, Banker said, but Ribaste left his wife after he got out of prison in 1990.
Control Board Chairman Bill Bible said agents picked up on the Binion-Ribaste connection while making a case to nominate Ribaste for Nevada's Black Book of people barred from casinos.
Bible said agents had noticed a large number of phone calls from Ribaste to Binion's home through telephone records subpoenaed during the Black Book investigation.
The ties between the men also have attracted the attention of other regulatory agencies, including the Nevada Department of Motor Vehicles.
An investigator with the DMV's Enforcement Bureau met Thursday with the Clark County Business License Department, which is investigating Ribaste's interests in Carriage Car III.
DMV spokesman Steve Leon said today his agency has not launched a formal investigation, but is closely watching the county probe.
Ribaste is not listed as a company officer in records on file with the county and the secretary of state's office. But he takes messages there.
Records show Hamid Mahban is president and treasurer and Javad M. Sayar is secretary.
But sources said Mahban, who owns the other two Carriage Car lots, no longer is affiliated with the South Decatur Boulevard business, though it is said to still operate under his license.
The new owner reportedly is Joseph T. Ulrey, a veteran of the car business.
County Business License Director Ardel Jorgensen said her office is investigating Ulrey's takeover of the dealership.
Ribaste, sources said, needed the $100,000 from Binion to buy out Mahban's $5,300-a-month lease so he could sublease the property to Ulrey and his partner for $10,000 a month.
About a month ago, Jorgensen said, Ulrey filed papers at the county Business License Department seeking approval for a sublease.
Contacted at the dealership today, Ulrey declined comment about his reported dealings with Ribaste.
"The only thing I know is what I read in the newspapers," he said.
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