LAS VEGAS — Casino mogul Lonnie "Ted" Binion, who kept a $7 million treasure trove of silver in a secret vault on his ranch, often joked that someone might kill him for his money, a witness testified Monday in the trial of Binion's former lover and business associate who are charged with the gaming heir's murder.

"He said that if anything were to happen to him, it meant he died because someone was coming after his money," said Tom Standish, Binion's divorce attorney.

Standish represented Binion during his divorce from his wife, Doris, as well as a "legal cohabitation agreement" that he entered into with ex-topless dancer Sandra Murphy, 23, now a co-defendant charged with Binion's murder.

Several witnesses testified Monday that Binion kept silver bars, coins, casino chips and bags of cash — piled three feet high — in a vault at his family's Horseshoe casino on the old downtown Vegas strip.

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But after losing his gaming license in 1998, partly due to his long-standing struggles with heroin addiction, Binion was barred from the casino by the Nevada gaming commission and set out to move his treasure closer to home. It took about five hours to load all of his riches into a 25-foot trailer, according to witnesses.

Binion also hired a business associate, contractor Rick Tabish, to excavate on his Pahrump Ranch property and install a secure, lighted vault to hold his silver.

Murphy, a one-time stripper at Vegas hotspot Cheetah's, was fast becoming involved in a romantic relationship with Tabish, a married father of two.

On Sept. 17, 1998, Binion was found dead on his living room floor. An empty bottle of Xanax lay at his side. An autopsy report revealed that the 55-year-old had ingested the entire 12 bags of black tar heroin he had purchased just a day before.

Prosecutors say that Tabish and Murphy conspired to murder the ill-fated millionaire, forcing him to swallow the drugs at gunpoint before suffocating him. Less than 48 hours after Binion's death, police caught Tabish and two other men in the process of digging up the buried treasure.

Tabish maintains that he was collecting the treasure to honor Binion's wishes.

Standish conceded during cross-examination Monday that Binion repeated at least twice in Tabish's presence that "somebody better get that silver out" if he ever died under suspicious circumstances.

The state won a conviction against the pair in 2000 on charges of murder, conspiracy, robbery and grand larceny.

Murphy and Tabish were serving 21- and 25-year sentences, respectively, when an appeals court granted them a retrial in July of 2003, due to errors by the judge that prevented the former lovers from receiving a fair trial.

$1 million 'not enough'

Dressed in a black pantsuit with white-stitch trim, Murphy listened intently during testimony Monday, often nodding her head or whispering to her attorney, Michael Christalli.

The defendant, now 32, appeared tan, yet slightly weathered for her age. She wore very little makeup.

Tabish, who sits about 10 feet to her right next to his defense team, did not appear to make eye contact with his former lover, although they were friendly to each other during breaks.

Jerry Keenan, a Binion friend and business partner, testified that prior to his friend's death, Murphy told him that Binion was abusing heroin again, stating, "He's killing himself, and I'm only getting a million dollars and that's not enough."

She was referring to the $1 million in stocks he had retained for her, along with the house and other property, including clothes, a $90,000 Mercedes and jewelry.

On cross-examination, Keenan conceded Murphy may have meant that $1 million was not enough to take care of a heroin addict, and that Murphy expressed to him that she felt "stranded" in the relationship.

Jurors also learned about the couple's lavish lifestyle through the testimony of Christopher Hendrick, a former salesman at Neiman Marcus and Gianni Versace who was fired from his $60,000-per-year Versace gig after giving police information about one of his star clients.

Hendrick said that he invited Murphy to a fashion show at Versace and the two discussed her crumbling relationship. Murphy allegedly told Hendrick that she had a new rich boyfriend and she was seeing an attorney about obtaining a settlement with Binion. She then ordered $7,000 worth of bed linens and a fur coat.

During cross-examination, Hendrick admitted that he was paid a $5,000 reward for his statements to detectives. The Binion family reportedly gave out $100,000 in rewards for witnesses who had any information.

An assistant manager at the posh Peninsula hotel in Beverly Hills also testified about two separate trysts Tabish and Murphy carried on at his hotel — registered under the names Mr. and Mrs. Rick Tabish — in the days before and after Binion's death.

According to Christopher Hovde, the pair spent more than $800 per night in a romantic suite with a king-size bed. Murphy requested that a bottle of red wine and two dozen long-stemmed roses be waiting for them when they arrived during a Sept. 11 stay, as a surprise for her "husband."

'Pump him full of drugs'

Tabish's former business associate Leo Casey also told jurors that Tabish mentioned meeting Binion sometime in April 1998, and that he often spoke of Murphy.

"Your honor, should I say exactly what was said?" Casey asked.

"Yes, we're all adults here," Judge Joseph Bonaventure replied,

"He said he was f---ing Sandra Murphy and that was going to be a big benefit to him to get the silver," Casey said.

Tabish shook his head and whispered to his attorney.

"He said Binion was taking a lot of drugs, drinking a lot and most of the time he was impotent," Casey said. "He said he was going to pump him full of drugs and that would do him in and he'd have access to all the silver."

Many jurors took notes during Casey's comments.

Due to a court ruling, however, they will not hear that Tabish was convicted of assaulting and blackmailing Casey in an attempt to force him to confess to embezzlement in a separate matter.

While Murphy is free during the retrial, Tabish's conviction still stands, per the appeals court, and he remains in custody.

Tabish's defense team also filed a motion Monday morning to dismiss all charges, alleging that the testimony of a witness during the first trial was "improperly influenced" with the promise of a $50,000-a-year job with the Las Vegas Metro police.

Tim Boileau testified in the original trial about statements Tabish allegedly made to a mutual friend about having Binion killed.

In an evidentiary hearing held outside the presence of jurors, Boileau said he was led to believe by state investigators who interviewed him that he was a "shoe-in" for a police job in Vegas that paid more than twice what he was making at the time.

"Honestly, I believe that I went along with saying negative things about Mr. Tabish and that's probably about it. I talked about things that I'd never been a witness to, things that were brought up. But I didn't color my statement," Boileau said.

Boileau never received the job. Defense attorney Tony Serra charged the state with "outrageous government conduct," and asked for a dismissal or, alternately, that Boileau's testimony be denied. The judge denied both requests.

The retrial is expected to last six to eight weeks. Court TV Extra is streaming the trial live on the Web.