A former liberal elected official in the Las Vegas region was sentenced to spend at least 28 years in a state prison after he was found guilty of killing an investigative journalist.
Robert Telles, a Democrat, was found guilty of first-degree murder in August. On Wednesday, the judge in the case invoked sentencing enhancements because of the victim’s age and because he used a deadly weapon. That added eight years to his minimum sentence of 20 years to life.
In speaking with reporters after the sentencing, Steve Wolfson, the district attorney in Clark County, said the decision represented justice for the community. As he said:
“The judge couldn’t sentence him to any more time. She gave him the maximum.”
Testifying at his own trial, the 47-year-old Telles denied that he stabbed Jeff German, who was a reporter for the Las Vegas Review-Journal, to death back in September of 2022.
However, the evidence that prosecutors presented at trial was ultimately too strong. That included Telles’ DNA being found under German’s fingernails.
Several days after German was found dead, Telles was arrested and put in jail without bail. He was working as the administrator of an office at the county level that handles probate and unclaimed estate cases.
A few weeks after he was arrested, Telles was removed from his elected position.
At the sentencing hearing, Telles offered his “deepest condolences” to German’s family, but he continued to deny responsibility for it. As he said:
“I understand the desire to seek justice and hold somebody accountable for this. But, I did not kill Mr. German.”
Pamela Weckerly, one of the prosecutors in the case, said at the sentencing hearing that the evidence in this case showed that Telles decided to kill 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, is unacceptable and dangerous for a community as a whole.”
Robert Draskovich, Telles’ defense attorney, requested leniency at sentencing, telling the judge that they intend to appeal the conviction. Once the sentence was announced, though, Draskovich withdrew as his client’s attorney.
Before he was murdered, the 69-year-old German was well respected in the community, having worked for 44 years covering corruption, courts and crime in Las Vegas.
Rita Reid, who holds the job that Telles once did, was one of the colleagues who asked German to investigate Telles’ management back in 2022. She sat through every court hearing, the full trial and sentencing.
Telles sought a second term in office but lost following stories German reported on that described bullying and turmoil at the Clark County PUblic Administrator/Guardian office.
His reporting also uncovered a romantic relationship that Telles had with a female employee.
Following German’s murder, police were searching for a maroon SUV that they saw on a neighborhood security video, as well as someone who might have been wearing a broad straw hat.
When they searched Telles’ house, they found that maroon SUV as well as pieces of a straw hat that had been cut up.
However, they never found the murder weapon.
