LAS VEGAS (AP) — A former Las Vegas-area Democratic elected official was set Wednesday to begin telling his story to a jury that will decide whether he goes to prison or goes free in the killing of an investigative reporter who wrote articles critical of him and his workplace conduct.
Robert Telles sat and took notes as a cellphone data expert testifying in his defense, Robert Aguero, conceded during questioning by a prosecutor that there was no outgoing activity on Telles’ phone during a period on Sept. 2, 2022, in which evidence has shown reporter Jeff German was killed. Aguero testified he found multiple incoming voice, text and data messages on the phone during the more than five-hour period.
“Just to be clear, if we look at his phone, from 8:48 to 2:05 there’s nothing outgoing from Mr. Telles’ phone on the day that Mr. German is murdered, isn’t that correct?” prosecutor Christopher Hamner asked.
“That’s correct,” Aguero answered.
Telles has not given statements accounting for his whereabouts that day. Police and prosecutors have said they think he left his phone at home the day German was stabbed to death by an attacker outside his own home.
Telles’ defense attorney, Robert Draskovich, said that Telles was scheduled to take the witness stand by the end of the day after two more witnesses testify. One was expected to say that records show Telles checked in at an athletic club the day German was killed.
Prosecutors allege Telles was motivated to kill after German authored articles for the Las Vegas Review-Journal about a county office in turmoil under Telles’ leadership, including allegations that Telles had an inappropriate relationship with a female co-worker. Telles subsequently lost his bid for re-election as Clark County Public Administrator and Guardian, and he derided German and the newspaper on social media.
Telles, an attorney who served as the county’s administrator of unclaimed estates, has said he didn’t kill German, but did not say during jailhouse interviews with The Associated Press what he was doing that day.
Prosecutors rested their case Monday after presenting 28 witnesses and hundreds of pages of photos, police reports and video evidence against him.
The trial judge, Clark County District Court Judge Michelle Leavitt, made sure Telles acknowledged on Tuesday — outside the presence of the jury — that he was not compelled to testify.
Telles said he understood.
Draskovich and co-counsel Michael Horvath said outside court that they advised Telles against testifying but that he has insisted.
“This is a very difficult case for the defense,” observed Joshua Tomsheck, a veteran former prosecutor who is now a prominent Las Vegas defense attorney. He has no connection to the Telles case.
“I think the state did a really good job of isolating what the case is about,” Tomsheck said.
Prosecutor Pamela Weckerly, in her opening statement on Aug. 14, asked the jury to remain focused on German’s killing and not other issues.
“In the end, this case is not about politics,” she said. “It’s not about an alleged inappropriate relationship. It’s not about who’s a good boss or who’s a good supervisor or favoritism at work. It’s just about murder.”
Much of what the jury has heard weighs against Telles.
His DNA was found beneath German’s fingernails. He had family ties to a maroon SUV seen in German’s neighborhood about the time German was killed. Police found on Telles’ cellphone and computer hundreds of photos of German’s home and several pages of German’s identity records, including time stamps showing they’d been collected just weeks before the killing.
At Telles’ house, police found cut-up pieces of a broad straw hat and a gray athletic shoe that looked like those worn by a person captured on neighborhood security video wearing an oversized orange long-sleeve shirt, carrying a big cloth satchel and seen slipping into a side yard of German’s home before the reporter was ambushed and left dead in a pool of blood.
Robbery wasn’t an apparent motive for the killing, prosecutors said. The jury learned that German’s wallet, money, car keys and cellphone were still in the pockets of his shorts. Nothing was amiss in German’s home, although his garage door remained open, to the puzzlement of his across-the-street neighbors. They sobbed on the witness stand as they remembered finding his body the next day.
Neither an orange shirt nor a murder weapon was entered as evidence.
Telles has complained that he was being victimized by a political and social “old guard” real estate network for trying to fight corruption that he saw in his office.
A police intelligence unit detective who was investigating those allegations, Derek Jappe, also became a key figure in Telles’ arrest several days after the killing. Through questioning of prosecution witnesses, Draskovich has shown that Telles believes Jappe shaped the murder investigation against him.
“I am about nothing but justice, fairness and just being a good person,” Telles told German in an audio interview aired with a May 2022 Review-Journal article about the public administrator office. “It’s unreal the length they’re going … to try to ruin my personal life.”
German spent 44 years covering Las Vegas mobsters and public officials at the Las Vegas Sun and then at the larger Review-Journal. About 10 of his family members and friends have attended each day of Telles’ trial. They have declined to speak to the media.
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