A former county official was found guilty Wednesday of murdering a longtime Las Vegas reporter who had written articles critical of him, a highly unusual case that has raised concerns about press freedom in the United States and, in particular, the risks faced by local journalists.
Reporter Jeff German was stabbed to death outside his home in September 2022. Police investigators and now a Clark County jury concluded that his attacker was Robert Telles, who ran a county office that manages the estates of those who die without identifiable heirs.
A few months before his death, German wrote an article for the Las Vegas Review-Journal detailing employee complaints that Telles had created a toxic work environment, practiced favoritism and had an inappropriate relationship with a female employee. Telles denied the allegations. A month after the article appeared, he lost his re-election bid, and German continued reporting.
Prosecutors suspect that this was why he went to Mr. German’s suburban home on a hot September day, hid in the bushes on the side of the house, waited for Mr. German and then stabbed him.
The jury was convinced and convicted Mr. Telles of premeditated murder. He was sentenced to life imprisonment with the possibility of parole after 20 years.
Pamela Weckerly, Clark County’s assistant district attorney, said the history of the case is less important than the crime itself.
“Ultimately, this case is not about politics,” Ms. Weckerly said in her opening statement. “It’s not about alleged inappropriate relationships. It’s not about who is a good boss or supervisor or about nepotism in the workplace. It’s just about murder.”
Prosecutors said DNA found on Mr German’s hands matched that of Mr Telles. Police recovered surveillance footage of the attacker, who was wearing a wide-brimmed straw hat and sneakers and carrying a gray bag. They found matching items in Mr Telles’s home, although the hat and sneakers had been chopped up. The attacker drove a car that looked like Mr Telles’; video footage showed the car driving back and forth between Mr German’s home and Mr Telles’s neighborhood on the day of the murder.
Mr Telles’s defense attorney, Robert Draskovich, said his client had tried to push through reforms in the district office he headed, angering the “old guard” who sought to push him out by giving information to Mr German and launching a bribery investigation into Mr Telles.
Mr Draskovich argued that police had ignored evidence that could have pointed to other suspects, saying no blood belonging to Mr German was found in Mr Telles’ vehicle or on shoes found at his home, suggesting his client had been framed.
“There is no reasonable explanation for why the hat and shoes were cut into pieces, other than to make them easier to conceal and place,” he said.
Mr Draskovich described Mr German as a good journalist and said Mr Telles had responded appropriately to his reporting when he made jokes about it online.
“These articles were not a motive for murder,” Draskovich said. “And we all know that killing a journalist does not mean destroying a story.”
Mr. Telles, who was in the courtroom, nodded in response.
A week after the trial began, Mr Telles testified in his own defense.
“This whole thing has been a nightmare,” he said. “I want to say unequivocally: I am innocent. I did not kill Mr. German. And I have a lot to tell you all.”
Instead of answering questions from his lawyer, he spoke for nearly three hours, claiming that he was framed and that the murder was part of a convoluted conspiracy involving corrupt local businessmen who wanted to prevent Mr. Telles from investigating them. He suggested that police officers, DNA analysts, the district attorney and others may also have been involved in the killing.
Since 1992, the Committee to Protect Journalists has identified 15 journalists killed in the United States in connection with their work, including five people killed in 2018 by a gunman who broke into their newsroom in Annapolis, Maryland.
Katherine Jacobsen, the group’s program coordinator for the United States, Canada and the Caribbean, said local journalists face particular risks, working in newsrooms with fewer resources and living among the people they report on – sometimes critically – at a political time when the news media is increasingly being attacked as unreliable.
She found that Mr. German was killed in front of his own home.
“It is frightening to think that there is no safe place for local journalists to go,” she said.
Mr. German had moved to Las Vegas from his native Wisconsin because he wanted to cover organized crime, friends and colleagues said after his death. For more than four decades, he covered mobsters, elected officials and casino titans.
He stayed in office even as local newsrooms across the country fired journalists who did not have the experience and resources to deliver the responsible reporting that Mr. German did.
“The public would never know if Jeff didn’t point it out,” Tom Pitaro, a criminal defense attorney who met Mr. German shortly after he arrived in town, said in an interview. “We lost that.”
Glenn Cook, editor in chief of the Las Vegas Review-Journal, said in a statement that the jury “did some justice for Jeff German.”
“Jeff was killed because he was doing the kind of work he took great pride in: his reporting held an elected official accountable for bad behavior and empowered voters to elect someone else to the job,” Cook said.
During sentencing testimony Wednesday afternoon, Mr. German’s three siblings described their older brother as a devoted uncle who loved sports, family gatherings and “Seinfeld.” Over the years, the siblings followed Mr. German to Las Vegas.
His youngest sister, Jill Zwerg, said she once asked him why he always turned down offers to leave town to pursue other opportunities.
She remembered his answer: “This is Las Vegas. This is the city of sin. This is where I need to be.”
At age 69, Mr. German had no plans to retire.
Before his death, German had also begun reporting on a Las Vegas lawyer accused of running a $500 million Ponzi scheme involving hundreds of investors. He left behind folders of court documents, and a Washington Post reporter picked up where he left off.
The article was published last year.
