Jason Frazer testified Wednesday afternoon that his friend Rick Tabish asked him to bribe witnesses. (COURT TV)

By Laura Barandes
Court TV

Rick Tabish was so desperate to beat murder and assault charges that he tried to buy false testimony from his employees and even some strangers, a state witness testified Tuesday.

"My life is on the line and we need to fight fire with fire," Tabish wrote in a 1999 jail house letter to friend and business associate Jason Frazer.

A key witness for the state, Frazer took the stand under a grant of immunity. He was the second-to-last witness in the state's case against Tabish and his lover, Sandy Murphy. The pair are accused of killing her live-in boyfriend, millionaire Ted Binion, in a bid to steal his silver fortune and free Murphy from an allegedly abusive relationship with him.

Shortly after his arrest, Tabish summoned Frazer to the Las Vegas jail from his Missoula, Mont. home.

"He wanted me to contact some people to help with his alibi," Frazer said.

Frazer outlined three categories of witnesses Tabish said he needed for his defense. First, Frazer said, he wanted several of his gravel pit employees to provide him with an alibi for July 28, 1998, the day prosecutors claim he assaulted Las Vegas businessman Leo Casey.

Frazer testified he gave employees Roger Davis and Marty Frye letters from Tabish that stated "what Rick wanted Roger and Marty to testify to" concerning the July 28 "timeframe."

The prosecutors did not introduce the letters and Frazer did not say what the testimony was to be.

Secondly, Frazer said, Tabish wanted him to secure alibi testimony from employee Jim Mitchell and mechanic Larry Eckhart for Sept. 17, 1998, the day Binion died.

Frazer said he approached Mitchell who at first refused to go near a courtroom, citing an outstanding warrant for his arrest on unrelated charges. Frazer reported this to Tabish, who responded in a letter.

"Tell Mitchell we will take care of any legal concerns he has but his testimony on this is crucial to me being set free," wrote Tabish.

As for Eckhart, whom Frazer had trouble tracking down, Tabish told him, "Tell Larry they are trying to send me to the gas chamber and I need his help."

Finally, Frazer said, Tabish asked him to contact a man identified only as "Ishma" as part of a plan to cast suspicion on Tom Dillard, the Binion family's private investigator and the catalyst for the homicide investigation.

"('Ishma') was going to provide some guys that would testify Tom Dillard had offered them money to testify for the prosecution," said Frazer.

He said he actually met with "Ishma" and later paid his representative $2,500 as a down payment for the testimony of three men. Prosecutors did not identify "Ishma" and Frazer did not say what the plan's outcome was.

On cross-examination, Tabish's attorney suggested Frazer was coerced into testifying by the state while Murphy's lawyer implied that his client had nothing to do with the allegations. She does not face charges from the alleged bribery scheme, but her attorney has expressed concern that it will taint her in the jury's eyes.

Frazer was arrested in February after his estranged wife gave Montana police a tablet containing notes he wrote to Tabish during jail visits. Under questioning by Tabish's attorney Louis Palazzo, Frazer said police told him he could face an accessory to murder charge if he didn't agree to cooperate with Las Vegas authorities. Frazer was on his way to Nevada and he had a choice: he could face a judge on an arrest warrant or a material witness warrant.

Palazzo also asked if prosecutors had suggested to Frazer that he could stay out of jail if he agreed to come voluntarily.

"They led me to believe that," said Frazer, noting that after he agreed to cooperate, they arrested him anyway. He also said he had no lawyer when he made the decision to testify, and that later, when he tried to make his $50,000 bail, authorities "jacked it up to $1 million."

Under questioning from John Momot, Murphy's attorney, Frazer acknowledged that Murphy never asked him to talk to potential witnesses for her, nor to come up with an alibi.

Frazer testified that he lived with Murphy for five months while Tabish was in jail and during that time, she seemed paranoid and genuinely frightened by her situation. She thought their home was bugged and insisted on keeping the television loud during conversations and at other times communicating through notes.