LAS VEGAS (AP) — A jury began deliberating Monday in the trial of a former Las Vegas-area Democratic politician accused of killing an investigative journalist who prosecutors said the official blamed for writing stories that destroyed his career, ruined his reputation and threatened his marriage.
“And he did it because Jeff wasn’t done writing,” prosecutor Christopher Hamner said during closing arguments of defendant Robert Telles and the reporter, Jeff German. “It’s like connecting the dots.”
Jurors deliberated for about 2 1/2 hours before sending the judge a note about 4:15 p.m. seeking more note paper and a court technician to show them how to zoom in on laptop video while in the jury room. They returned to deliberations and remained past the court’s usual 5 p.m. end time.
Telles lost his Democratic primary for a second term after German’s first stories for the Las Vegas Review-Journal in May 2022 about Telles’ conduct heading an obscure county office that handles unclaimed estates. The reports described turmoil and bullying in Telles’ workplace and a romantic relationship between Telles and a female employee.
The day before German was stabbed to death, Telles learned that Clark County officials were about to provide German with email and text messages that Telles and the woman shared, in response to the reporter’s request for public records. Another story was in the offing, Hamner said.
“The murder is the very next day … about 15 hours later,” prosecutor Pamela Weckerly said as she presented to the jury a timeline and videos of Telles’ maroon SUV leaving the neighborhood near his home a little after 9 a.m. on Sept. 2, 2022, and driving on streets near German’s home a short time later.
The SUV driver was seen wearing a bright orange outfit similar to one worn by a person captured on camera walking to German’s home and slipping into a side yard.
“That person stays, lying in wait,” Weckerly said, playing again a video from a neighbor’s home showing German’s garage door rise and German walk into the side yard where he was attacked just after 11:15 a.m.
A little more than two minutes elapse, then the figure in orange emerges and walks down a sidewalk. German does not reappear.
The prosecutor said the killing was first-degree murder because evidence showed it was willful, deliberate and premeditated. While prosecutors did not have the murder weapon, she said evidence was clear that one was used.
Weckerly also focused on a text message from Telles’ wife, which he failed to answer, asking, “Where are you?” about 45 minutes before evidence showed German was killed.
Hamner and Weckerly told the jury they believe Telles didn’t respond because he left his cellphone — and its ability to track him — at home.
German’s body was found the next day, and Telles’ DNA was found beneath German’s fingernails. When asked about the DNA, Telles said he believed it was planted.
None of German’s blood or DNA was found on Telles, in his vehicle or at his home, defense attorney Robert Draskovich said Monday, urging the jury to, “Ask yourself what is missing.”
Draskovich introduced a new clip of video for the first time, zeroing in on a view of a maroon SUV like Telles,’ seen through the passenger window with the shadowed silhouette of a driver at the wheel. The image was prosecution evidence that had not been shown to the jury.
That driver was not Telles, the lawyer said, noting that his client is completely bald.
The jury heard again about cut-up pieces of a broad straw hat and a gray athletic shoe found at Telles’ house that looked like ones worn by the person wearing the orange shirt, which was never found.
“You are the sole judges of the facts,” Draskovich told the jury during his closing arguments before the panel was pared to 12, broke for lunch and began just before 2 p.m. to deliberate whether they all believe Telles murdered German.
“I’m not crazy. I’m not trying to avoid responsibility,” Telles told the jury on Friday to end his second and final round of self-guided testimony in his defense. “I didn’t kill Mr. German, and I’m innocent.”
The testimony came the day German would have turned 71. Originally from Milwaukee, he was a respected journalist who spent 44 years covering crime, courts and corruption in Las Vegas.
Telles, 47, is an attorney who practiced civil law before he was elected in 2018. His law license was suspended following his arrest several days after German was killed. He faces up to life in prison if he is found guilty.
Jurors have been attentive throughout the trial, watching Telles in the witness box and the defense table. He sat Monday with his brow creased and his eyes slightly squinted at computer images in front of him as Weckerly and Hamner spoke.
In his testimony, he had named office colleagues, real estate agents, business owners and police he accused of “framing” him for German’s killing. He said it was retaliation for his crusading effort to root out corruption he saw in his office of about eight employees handling probate property cases.
“I am not the kind of person who would stab someone. I didn’t kill Mr. German,” Telles said Thursday. “And that’s my testimony.”
Where Telles was when German was killed remained a central focus during the trial, as Weckerly and Hamner presented 28 witnesses and hundreds of pages of photos, police reports and video.
Telles and five other people testified during trial for the defense. No Telles family members were called to the stand or identified in the trial gallery.
About a dozen German family members sat silently together in the hushed courtroom on Monday. They declined as a group to comment to The Associated Press.
The killing drew widespread attention. German was the only journalist killed in the U.S. in 2022, according to the New York-based Committee to Protect Journalists. The nonprofit has records of 17 media workers killed in the U.S. since 1992.