Grayson County TXGenWeb

The Dallas Morning News
16 December 1953

BINION TO PLEAD GUILTY IN DALLAS ON THURSDAY
by Stewart M. Doss

  Benny Binion, once one of Dallas' most powerful gambling overlords, will plead guilty here at 2 p.m. Thursday to operating a policy wheel in 1948.
  Binion is scheduled to get a four-year sentence on recommendation of Dist. Atty. Henry Wade and by agreement of Binion himself and J.E. Newberry, Binion's lawyer.
  The state time is to run at the same time as a five-year sentence given Binion Monday in federal court at San Antonio where he pleaded guilty to income tax evasion. He also was fined $20,000 in federal court.
  Criminal Dist. Judge Henry King late Tuesday signed a writ commanding the United States marshal at San Antonio, where Binion is now in custody, to deliver Binion to Dallas.
  The developments crystallizing in the long-time efforts to bring Binion to Dallas were climaxed Tuesday. There were long-distance conversations with federal prison officials and with officials of the Attorney General's Department in Washington.
  While here, Binion will be in the constant custody of federal officers. Binion and his federal escort, or escorts, are to leave San Antonio for Dallas early Thursday.
  From here Binion will go on to the federal penitentiary, perhaps Leavenworth, said Wade.
  Wade told The News he believed that acceptance of a guilty plea and a four-year sentence, the maximum, to run at the same time as Binion's federal sentence was "the best way to clear it up."
  Wade said the state sentence would guarantee Binion's actually serving time. Even if Binion should be paroled, after serving twenty months in the federal pen, he would have to spend the remainder in the state pen at Huntsville, Wade pointed out.
  Wade said it would cost about $50,000 to try Binion on the state gambling charge in a long, drawn-out trial that might not be possible until Binion cleared up his federal sentence.
  Wade added that cases are increasingly harder to try as they become older.
  Newberry first talked to Wade about a guilty plea by Binion when he (Newberry) returned to Dallas Monday night from San Antonio.
  Newberry said he would ask for a change of venue if the state case were pressed and in the alternative offered to plead Binion guilty if Wade would recommend only a few years, Wade said. The District Attorney held out for a minimum of four years and that Newberry finally agreed.
  Both the federal and state cases involved gambling operations here, said Wade. The 1948 operation alone took in more than $1,000,000, he explained.
  Binion resisted extradition for years when he moved on to legal gambling in Nevada after a December, 1949, raid which led to a four-year sentence for Harry Urban, Binion's partner.
  Binion, who was born in 1905 at Pilot Grove, Grayson County, used to have four bodyguards, officials say. He recently sold his Las Vegas, Nev., gambling casino to pay $637,000 to the government.
  Binion, although known for many years to police here, never has served much time. His first arrest, according to records, was in 1924 on a charge of theft. No disposition is shown.
  In 1931, Binion was given a two-year suspended sentence for murder. Twice in 1932 he was arrested for carrying a concealed weapon. He was released on one of the charges and in the other got sixty days.
  Binion was picked up in 1933 for vagrancy, but the case was dismissed. In 1936 he was charged with murder, but the case was dismissed. He was fined $10 for vagrancy in 1938.