Ex-county official convicted of murdering Las Vegas reporter

A Nevada jury on Wednesday found a former county official guilty of murder in the fatal stabbing of investigative journalist Jeff German, in a case that shocked his media colleagues and the city he’d covered for decades.

The verdict ended an 11-day trial of Robert Telles, the former Clark County public administrator who was a subject of German’s stories for the Las Vegas Review-Journal before the reporter’s Sept. 2, 2022, killing.

The trial saw Telles take the stand against the advice of his attorney. During a winding, narrative testimony delivered across two days, Telles accused those he clashed with while in public office of framing him.

In the months before his death, German had written about Telles and his office, chronicling an alleged affair between the public administrator and a staffer and the tension that ensued among employees. The prosecution rested its case on Aug. 19 after four days of witnesses and presentations that relied heavily on the evidence police recovered from Telles’ home, photos and surveillance video from the day of the stabbing, and a match between Telles’ DNA and DNA recovered from underneath German’s fingernails.

The 12-member jury found Telles guilty of first-degree murder after three days of deliberation.

Telles stood in the courtroom with his head down, slightly shaking it as the guilty verdict was read. He faces a sentence of up to life in prison.

Following the verdict, Review-Journal Executive Editor Glenn Cook said in a statement that the jury had delivered a “measure of justice” for German.

“Jeff was killed for doing the kind of work in which he took great pride: His reporting held an elected official accountable for bad behavior and empowered voters to choose someone else for the job,” Cook said.

German was known for his expansive investigative work. He covered courts, politics and organized crime for more than 30 years, first at the Las Vegas Sun and later the Las Vegas Review-Journal, where he worked at the time of his death.

In a statement to the Washington Post at the time of German’s death, Cook said German’s slaying had left his staff with one question: “Why would someone kill Jeff?”

German’s Review-Journal colleagues investigated his death while they grieved. At the same time, police were releasing photos of a suspect and a vehicle associated with that person, requesting the public’s help.

Within days, police and Review-Journal reporters had both zeroed in on Telles.

In the months before his death, German wrote about Telles multiple times, including in a May 16, 2022, article that divulged unrest in the public administrator’s office. He detailed an alleged affair between Telles and a staffer and reported past and present employees’ accusations of favoritism, bullying and emotional stress. Telles, a Democrat, went on to lose his party’s primary the next month to Rita Reid, who worked as an assistant public administrator in their office, according to her campaign website. She decided to challenge his reelection bid “because of the brewing animosity” in the public administrator’s office, according to German’s reporting.

During an interview with German at the time, Telles denied having an affair with the staffer. On Thursday during cross-examination, Telles reversed course, saying in the hearing that he had lied and admitting that he and the staffer were romantically involved.

Police said Telles, who was arrested on Sept. 7, 2022, emerged as a person of interest early in the investigation as they examined grievances related to German’s reporting. When they searched Telles’ home, they said they found a pair of shoes and a straw hat matching the suspect photo they released – both of which had been cut up. Police also said the suspect was linked to a maroon GMC Yukon Denali, and a vehicle of the same type was registered to Telles’ wife.

Before his death, German had planned to write another story on Telles. German had been waiting for a public records request, which had focused on communications the public administrator had with Reid and the staffer he’d been accused of having an affair with.

When asked during cross-examination about whether he would have won his June 2022 primary if German had not written the articles, Telles responded: “Probably, yes.”

Telles had been angry with German over his reporting, which he expressed in messages to the reporter, in tweets – and during the cross-examination.

In one text to German, Telles said the reporter had written an article “that makes it sound like I’m the guilty one. That was not fair or balanced.” In a June 25 tweet, Telles wrote that German was a “Typical bully,” before adding: “You’d think he’d have better things to do.”

“I was upset with him,” Telles said in court Thursday. “And I told him I was upset with him.”

Defense attorneys characterized Telles’ reaction to the reporting as a “reasonable response to criticism, which comes from the job.”

“These articles were not a motive for a murder,” said Robert Draskovich, Telles’ attorney. “And we all know, killing a journalist does not kill a story. Killing Jeff German does not kill the investigation or the stories concerning Mr. Telles.”

Throughout the trial, Telles and his attorneys suggested that he had been the “target” of the investigation into German’s killing. They claimed that people within and outside Telles’ office, whom they described as the “old guard,” were upset over the changes he was trying to shepherd, including eliminating what he characterized as unnecessary overtime and examining business conduct from the office that he deemed unethical. During his testimony, Telles accused some of those people of trying to frame him for German’s killing.

In his statement Wednesday, Cook, the Review-Journal executive editor, said Telles had “carried out a premeditated revenge killing with terrifying savagery.” German’s murder, Cook wrote, “remains an outrage. He is missed.”

“Let’s also remember that this community has lost much more than a trusted journalist,” Cook said. “Jeff was a good man who left behind a family who loved him and friends who cherished him.”