Friday, July 7, 2000 | 11:05 a.m.
Rare Carson City-minted silver dollars worth millions may have been stolen from Ted Binion following his September 1998 slaying, a prosecutor said Thursday.
Chief Deputy District Attorney David Roger said he understood the silver dollars, which have never been found, were worth $10 million to $15 million.
"That concerns me," Roger said during a taping of the Sun's "POV Vegas" broadcast on Las Vegas ONE. "And if I find out -- if the investigators find out -- who has possession of them, they're going to have some problems."
Binion's girlfriend, Sandy Murphy, and her lover, Montana contractor Rick Tabish, were convicted in May of killing Binion on Sept. 17, 1998, and stealing his valuables.
The disappearance of the silver dollars, Roger said, is one reason the Binion murder case "will never be closed."
Roger said he plans to ask District Judge Joseph Bonaventure to give Murphy and Tabish significantly more jail time at their Aug. 11 sentencing on all of the charges related to Binion's death. In May the jury that convicted the two defendants recommended life in prison with the possibility of parole after 20 years on the first-degree murder charge.
Binion's $55 million estate, meanwhile, is leading the way in the search for the Carson City coins.
"We're making some inquiries," estate investigator Tom Dillard said this morning.
Added attorney James J. Brown: "We know that there is more collectible silver and gold that's unaccounted for, and we're going to try to find it."
Brown said he only found one Carson City coin among the 135,000 silver dollars in Binion's $6 million silver fortune that once was stored in an underground vault in Pahrump.
He said it was "inconceivable" to him that Binion would not have had many more of the dollars.
"Ted was a coin collector," Brown said. "Logic tells you he had Carson City silver dollars someplace else."
In a May 25, 1999, interview with Dillard, Beverly Hills coin broker Mark Goldberg said the Carson City silver dollars were valuable because they only were minted between 1878 and 1893.
Goldberg, who once tried to broker a deal to sell Binion's Pahrump silver, said the rarest dollars were minted in 1879 and 1889.
He said Binion told him at his Pahrump ranch in May 1998 that he had a bag of 1889 Carson City dollars.
Goldberg estimated that a bag would contain about 1,000 of the coins.
"OK, what would be the approximate value of say 1,000 of those coins," Dillard asked Goldberg in a copy of the interview obtained by the Sun.
"That would depend on the condition, but lots of millions of dollars," Goldberg replied. "Lots of them."
Goldberg said he had several conversations with Murphy and Tabish, who were helping him arrange the sale of Binion's silver prior to his death, about the Carson City dollars.
But Murphy and Tabish, he said, told him they couldn't find the coins.
Goldberg, a witness at the murder trial, never got a chance to sell Binion's silver because the colorful gambling figure decided to store the fortune at the underground vault in the heart of downtown Pahrump.
Two months before his slaying, Binion hired Tabish to remove the silver, 48,000 pounds in all, from a vault at his family's Horseshoe Club hotel-casino and haul it to Pahrump.
Less than 36 hours after Binion's death, Tabish and two other men were caught digging up the silver in Pahrump with heavy equipment in the middle of the night. Tabish and Murphy later were convicted of trying to steal the buried treasure.
As the search for the rare silver dollars continues, Binion's estate is moving to liquidate his assets, which will be put in a trust for his 19-year-old daughter, Bonnie.
The 38 acres of vacant Pahrump land that once housed the underground vault recently was sold to casino executives Mike Ensign and Bill Richardson for $6.5 million, Brown said.
And Brown said he currently is accepting sealed bids for the $6 million in silver bars and coins. Those interested in buying the silver have until Aug. 8 to submit a bid.
Brown said the estate also is looking for a number of double eagle $20 gold pieces seen at Binion's home just before his slaying.
Also missing is Binion's prized collection of antique coins and currency dating back to the Civil War, Brown said.
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