Columnist Jeff German: This affair was stormy from start

Jeff German is the Sun's senior investigative reporter. His column appears Tuesdays,Thursdays and Sundays. Reach him at [email protected] or 259-4067.

IN A MURDER case that sets new standards for sensationalism, even the way Ted Binion met Sandy Murphy, his girlfriend and accused killer, seems extraordinary.

Sid Lewis, a longtime Binion friend and former Horseshoe Club pit boss, provides new insight into how the relationship got started. He talks about the stormy love affair in a interview with private detective Tom Dillard, who has been investigating Binion's Sept. 17 death for his $30 million estate.

I've obtained a 28-page transcript of the interview, which took place on Nov. 18.

Lewis says Binion told him he met Murphy one night in 1995 at Cheetah's adult nightclub, where a then 23-year-old Murphy worked as a topless dancer.

Murphy acknowledges once being associated with Cheetah's, but she denies being a dancer.

Binion, on the other hand, never hid his love for the topless nightclub scene. His late-night jaunts to the clubs with slain mob figure Herbie Blitzstein contributed to his demise in the casino industry. Gaming regulators revoked his license as a co-owner at the Horseshoe Club because of his ties to Blitzstein, who was murdered in January 1997.

When Dillard asks Lewis to explain how Murphy had latched onto his good friend, Lewis says Binion partied with her one night at Cheetah's. As he was leaving, Lewis adds, Binion handed her a wad of $100 bills (a couple thousand dollars worth) and said, "well this ought to take care of your time."

But Murphy threw the bills back in his face and told Binion: "I don't want your god-damn money."

Lewis says that impressed the casino man.

"So he picked up his money, put it back in his pocket and said, 'Well maybe this little gal is different' ... That's what got his attention."

From then on, Lewis says, Binion started asking for Murphy every time he went to Cheetah's.

"And then the next thing I know," Lewis says, "he started messing with her ... and every time I turned around, she was there."

Early in their courtship, Lewis says, Binion told an amusing story about how he tried to impress Murphy with his stature in the community.

The couple, Binion explained, was driving in a limousine when he instructed the driver to head to the Horseshoe. Binion rolled down the window, summoned a security guard and told him to "tell this girl who I am."

But the security officer, according to the way Binion told the story, said he had no idea who he was, leaving him embarrassed in front of Murphy. Binion, Lewis says, later would laugh about the story.

Not too long after Binion met Murphy, Lewis says, he separated from his wife and 30-year companion, Doris Binion, and allowed Murphy to move into his 2408 Palomino Lane home.

"Alright," Dillard asks. "When she moved in, so to speak, did she have anything? What did she come with?"

Lewis replies that as far as he could tell, Murphy came to Binion's house with nothing but the clothes on her back.

"I don't think she even had a car to tell you the truth," he says.

About a year after Murphy moved in, Lewis says, Binion bought her a $100,000 Mercedes. He later had to buy her another Mercedes after his daughter, Bonnie, totaled the first one in a car crash.

Lewis says he ultimately came to the conclusion that Murphy, a transplanted Southern Californian, was only after Binion's money and looking "to get her grips" in him.

"Do you think she manipulated Ted?" Dillard asks.

"Oh I know so," Lewis responds. "I know so ... because ... Ted told me one time that she was good in bed, you know."

Lewis says he was at Binion's home about five weeks before his death and saw Binion fighting with Murphy.

Binion, he says, appeared to have had enough of the relationship.

"He looked at me and said ... "'I don't know why I put up with this bull s...t. I'm getting rid of that bitch.' "

Five weeks later, Binion was dead, the victim of a forced overdose of heroin and the prescription sedative Xanax.

Murphy, the woman who had seduced him at a topless nightclub, was charged in his murder nine months after his death.

She's currently under house arrest -- not at Binion's Palomino Lane home -- but at a Green Valley apartment she once shared with her co-defendant and latest reported lover, Rick Tabish.

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