LAS VEGAS (AP) — A former Las Vegas-area Democratic official was set to tell his story Wednesday to a jury that will decide whether he goes to prison or goes free in the killing of an investigative reporter who had written articles critical of him and his workplace conduct.
Robert Telles sat taking notes while a cellphone data expert testifying in his defense, Robert Aguero, admitted under questioning by a prosecutor that there was no outgoing activity on Telles’ phone during a period on Sept. 2, 2022, when evidence shows reporter Jeff German was killed. Aguero testified he found several incoming voice, text and data messages on the phone during the more than five-hour period.
“Just to be clear, when we look at his phone, there are no outgoing messages from Mr. Telles’ phone between 8:48 a.m. and 2:05 a.m. on the day Mr. German was murdered, right?” asked prosecutor Christopher Hamner.
“That’s true,” Aguero replied.
Telles has not provided any information about his whereabouts that day. Police and prosecutors believe he left his phone at home when German was stabbed to death by an attacker outside his own home.
Telles’ defense attorney Robert Draskovich said Telles was expected to take the stand later in the day after two more witnesses testified, one of whom was expected to testify that records show Telles checked into a sports club on the day of German’s murder.
The prosecution claims that Telles was motivated to commit the murder after a German wrote articles for the Las Vegas Review-Journal about a District office in turmoil under Telles’ leadership, including allegations that Telles had an inappropriate relationship with a female colleague. Telles subsequently lost his re-election as Clark County Public Administrator and Guardian and mocked German and the newspaper on social media.
Telles, a lawyer who served as the county’s unclaimed property administrator, has said he did not kill German, but in jail interviews with the Associated Press he did not say what he did that day.
Prosecutors completed their indictment on Monday after presenting 28 witnesses and hundreds of pages of photographs, police reports and video evidence against him.
Presiding judge Michelle Leavitt, district judge of Clark County, made sure that Telles acknowledged on Tuesday – in the absence of the jury – that he was not compelled to testify.
Telles said he understood.
Draskovich and his co-counsel Michael Horvath said outside court that they had advised Telles not to testify, but he insisted.
“This is a very difficult case for the defense,” noted Joshua Tomsheck, a veteran former prosecutor who is now a prominent criminal defense attorney in Las Vegas. He has no connection to the Telles case.
“I think the state did a really good job of getting to the heart of the case,” Tomsheck said.
Prosecutor Pamela Weckerly asked the jury in her opening statement on August 14 to focus on German’s killing and not address other issues.
“Ultimately, this case is not about politics,” she said. “It’s not about an alleged inappropriate relationship. It’s not about who is a good boss or supervisor or about nepotism in the workplace. It’s just about murder.”
Much of what the jury heard speaks against Telles.
His DNA was found under German’s fingernails. He had family ties to a maroon SUV that was seen in German’s neighborhood when German was killed. Police found Telles’ cellphone and computer Hundreds of photos from German’s apartment and several pages of German’s identity card, including time stamps showing that they were collected just weeks before the murder.
Inside Telles’ home, police found cut-up pieces of a wide-brimmed straw hat and a gray athletic shoe that looked like the shoes of a person seen on neighborhood surveillance video. She was wearing an oversized orange long-sleeved shirt, carrying a large cloth bag and was slip into a side yard from German’s house before the reporter was attacked and left dead in a pool of blood.
Robbery was not an obvious motive for the murder, prosecutors said. The jury heard that German’s wallet, money, car keys and cellphone were still in his pants pockets. Everything was fine inside German’s house, although his garage door was open, surprising his neighbors across the street. They sobbed on the witness stand as they recalled finding his body the next day.
Neither an orange shirt nor a murder weapon were presented as evidence.
Telles complained that he had been harassed by an “old guard” political and social real estate network because he tried to fight the corruption he witnessed in his office.
A detective in the police intelligence unit, Derek Jappe, who investigated these allegations, also became a key figure in Telles’ arrest a few days after the murder. Through interviewing prosecution witnesses, Draskovich has shown that Telles believes Jappe manipulated the murder investigation against him.
“I’m all about justice, fairness and just being a good person,” Telles said in an audio interview with German that aired in May 2022 with a Review-Journal article about the public administrator’s office. “It’s unbelievable the lengths they’ll go … to try to ruin my personal life.”
German spent 44 years of reporting on Las Vegas Mobsters and government officials at the Las Vegas Sun and then at the larger Review-Journal. About ten of his family members and friends were present each day of Telles’ trial. They declined to speak to the media.
