Las Vegas NowI-Team: Rick Tabish Talks of 10 Years Behind Bars

I-Team: Rick Tabish Talks of 10 Years Behind Bars

ELY, Nv. -- The sparse environment of the Ely prison courtroom is so far removed from the life Rick Tabish once had, it might as well be another solar system.

Outside, snow and wind pound gray concrete walls. Inside, a slow burn still radiates from Tabish. He's a minimum-security prisoner now, no longer a celebrity inmate. In an instant, though, the images come flooding back. Most people would be surprised to learn Tabish is still in prison. "June 22, 1999. I was arrested at Smith's Food King. I have been in jail ever since," he said.

In 1998, brilliant but troubled casino millionaire Ted Binion is found dead in his home of an apparent drug overdose.

The sexy siren of the story, Binion's longtime girlfriend Sandy Murphy, is barred from her home by the Binion family. She videotapes an authorized visit and finds the place ransacked by persons unknown.

Tabish gets arrested in Pahrump while emptying millions in silver from Binion's secret vault.

The Binion's hire private eye Tom Dillard to find out if Tabish and Murphy were lovers who conspired to make Binion's death look like an overdose. A year later, the two are charged with murder.

Ace prosecutors David Roger and David Wall lay out the case in a sensational trial that mesmerized the public for weeks. In the end, guilty verdicts, even though the heroin and Xanax that killed the casino heir were both purchased by Binion himself. "The further you get away from this case, the more preposterous it looks. If you want to go after somebody, go after the people giving him the dope," said Tabish.

Police never went after the doctor or the drug dealer involved in the case. "He's still out there peddling dope. You know how many times I've been approached in prison by people telling me they buy dope from Pete Sheridan? Hey, I know the dope dealer that gave Binion his dope. Numerous times. The guy testified four years later in the trial he had still been bumping dope," said Tabish. "If you look at the timeline of that guy's last day, there is no way he was murdered. He's up at 5:30 in the morning buying cigarettes. He's buying dope the day before and what does he die of? A drug overdose."

Tabish and Murphy spent nearly four years in prison before the Nevada Supreme Court ordered a new trial. The second time, they were acquitted of the murder but were convicted of conspiring to steal the horde of silver.

Tabish has always claimed he was carrying out Binion's wishes by securing the silver and thinks he could have beaten that charge if it hadn't been combined with the murder allegation.

He's asked that the years he wrongly served for killing Binion be applied to his sentences for the other crimes but the state insists his terms must be served consecutively, which is technically why he's still inside. But Tabish has suspicions that his incarceration may be punishment for the death of Binion.

Suspicions aside though, Rick Tabish was sent to prison because of his own poor choices, and he knows it. "I think what I should have been locked up for was felony stupidity. I'm very humbled and humiliated by this whole thing. I'm not going to point a finger at anyone but myself, I can tell you right now, because had I not been stupid enough to get involved with all these people and arrogant enough to actually think there was nothing to this, I probably wouldn't be involved in it," he said.

It got ugly in prison for Tabish when a former Aryan Warrior testified that he had been slipping confidential information to the white supremacist gang -- information about newly arrived inmates who might become recruits. Tabish said he knows the Aryan Warriors, but that he never used his job in the front office to obtain sensitive information.

The guy who made those claims was trying to get a deal for himself and made it up. But Tabish was transferred to Ely as a result.

In addition to losing 10 years of his freedom, Tabish also lost his wife and two kids. The wife remarried. The kids have had no communication with him.

But what about Sandy Murphy and the tangled web they created together? Tuesday at 5:00 p.m. Tabish spills about his relationship with Murphy and about others in the case.