A former Las Vegas-area Democratic elected official was sentenced Wednesday to at least 28 years in Nevada state prison for killing an investigative journalist who wrote articles critical of his conduct in office two years ago and exposed an intimate relationship with a female co-worker.
A judge invoked sentencing enhancements for use of a deadly weapon and the age of the reporter to add eight years to the minimum 20-years-to-life sentence that a jury set in August after finding Robert Telles guilty of first-degree murder.
“The judge couldn’t sentence him to any more time,” Clark County District Attorney Steve Wolfson said after telling reporters the sentence represented justice for the community. “She gave him the maximum.”
Telles, 47, testified in his defence at trial, denying he stabbed Las Vegas Review-Journal reporter Jeff German to death in September 2022. But evidence against him was strong – including his DNA beneath German’s fingernails.
Telles was the administrator of a county office that handles unclaimed estate and probate cases when he was arrested and jailed without bail several days after German’s killing. He was stripped of his elected position weeks later.
Standing in shackles before Clark County District Court Judge Michelle Leavitt, Telles offered “deepest condolences” to German’s family but again denied responsibility.
“I understand the desire to seek justice and hold somebody accountable for this,” he said. “But I did not kill Mr. German.”
Prosecutor Pamela Weckerly told the judge that evidence showed Telles killed German because “he didn’t like what Mr. German had written about him. He felt that Mr. German had cost him an elected position.”
“This type of violence, this sort of political violence,” the prosecutor said, “is unacceptable and dangerous for a community as a whole.”
Defense attorney Robert Draskovich asked for leniency and told the judge that Telles intends to appeal his conviction. After sentence was pronounced, Draskovich withdrew as Telles’ defence lawyer.
German, 69, was a respected reporter who spent 44 years covering crime, courts and corruption in Las Vegas.
“Twenty-eight years. I don’t know that you can quantify Jeff’s life that way,” said Rita Reid, the current holder of Telles’ former job. Reid was among colleagues who asked German to investigate Telles’ management in 2022, and she sat through all his court hearings, trial and sentencing. “Is that a fair trade? The whole community lost out,” she said.
“We’ll never forget Jeff,” Review-Journal Executive Editor Glenn Cook said on behalf of Nevada’s largest newspaper. “His killing remains an immeasurable loss for his family, friends, colleagues and community, and for journalism itself.”
Telles lost bid for a second term in office after German’s stories described turmoil and bullying at the Clark County Public Administrator/Guardian office and a romantic relationship between Telles and a female employee. His law license was suspended following his arrest.
Police sought public help to identify a person captured on neighbourhood security video driving a maroon SUV and walking while wearing a broad straw hat that hid his face and an oversized orange long-sleeve shirt. Weckerly showed the jury footage of the person wearing orange slipping into the side yard where German was stabbed, slashed and left dead.
At Telles’ house, police found a maroon SUV and cut-up pieces of a straw hat and a grey athletic shoe that looked like those worn by the person seen on video. Authorities did not find the orange shirt or a murder weapon.
Telles testified for several rambling hours at his trial, admitting for the first time that reports of the office romance were true. He said he was “framed” for the crime by a broad conspiracy involving a real estate company, police, DNA analysts, former co-workers and prosecutors. He told the jury he was victimized for crusading to root out corruption.
Wolfson and prosecutors dismissed those claims as unbelievable.
“The jury squarely and soundly rejected all of that,” Weckerly said at sentencing.
Other evidence pointed to Telles, who told jurors he took a walk and went to a gym at the time German was killed. The jury learned, however, that Telles’ wife sent text messages to him about the same time asking, “Where are you?” Prosecutors said Telles left his cellphone at home so he couldn’t be tracked.
The jury deliberated nearly 12 hours over three days before finding Telles guilty. The panel heard pained sentencing hearing testimony from German’s brother and two sisters, along with emotional pleas for leniency from Telles’ wife, ex-wife and mother, before deciding that Telles could be eligible for parole.
With two years already spent in custody, Telles will be eligible to seek parole when he is about 73 years old.
“This defendant has shown absolutely no remorse, no acceptance of responsibility,” said Wolfson, the Democratic elected Las Vegas-area prosecutor. “And in fact, his behaviour is such that I believe he is an extreme danger to the community if he is ever released.”
German was the only journalist killed in the U.S. in 2022, according to the New York-based Committee to Protect Journalists. The non-profit has records of 17 media workers killed in the country since 1992.
“Although the jailing of Telles cannot undo Jeff German’s murder, it can act as an important deterrent to would-be assailants of journalists,” Katherine Jacobsen, the group’s U.S., Canada, and Caribbean program co-ordinator, said in a statement to The Associated Press.