Former Nevada politician Robert Telles was sentenced to life in jail Wednesday after he was discovered responsible of homicide within the 2022 stabbing demise of a distinguished Las Vegas investigative journalist over unflattering articles he had written about Telles’ management in workplace.
After two days of deliberations, the 12-member jury discovered Telles responsible of first-degree homicide Wednesday.
He will likely be eligible for parole after a minimum of 20 years in jail. He had confronted a attainable sentence of life with out parole; prosecutors didn’t search the demise penalty.
“Robert Telles determined to be decide, jury and actually the executioner of a person who was merely making an attempt to his job — to report the information. He executed him,” Clark County Deputy District Legal professional Christopher Hamner informed jurors in asking that they impose a life sentence.
Telles was convicted of killing Las Vegas Overview-Journal journalist Jeff German in September 2022. German had written a sequence of adverse tales about Telles, who was Clark County’s public administrator and had misplaced his bid for re-election in a main earlier that 12 months.
German, 69, was discovered stabbed to demise outdoors his residence within the Bronze Circle neighborhood of Las Vegas on Sept. 3, 2022.
Telles, 47, was arrested 4 days later and charged with open homicide with a lethal weapon. He has been in jail with out bail ever since.
German had written tales about allegations of bullying and favoritism in Telles’ workplace. He additionally reported allegations that Telles had a romantic relationship with a feminine worker — which Telles admitted for the primary time in courtroom final week was true.
Telles was indignant that German was pursuing different tales about attainable misdeeds, police have stated.
Telles narrowly misplaced his bid for re-election for his workplace, which oversees the estates of Clark County residents who die with out authorized subsequent of kin, in a June 2022 main. After he misplaced, he took to social media to criticize German’s reporting and the Overview-Journal.
In the course of the trial, prosecutors stated Telles was motivated by revenge for German’s reporting. Telles, who testified in his personal protection, claimed that he was framed and that police mishandled the investigation.
The jury was proven safety video that depicted an individual sporting shiny orange clothes and a straw hat coming into German’s yard, the place the particular person stayed “mendacity in wait” for German. When German opened his storage and entered the facet yard, he was attacked and brutally stabbed. One other video confirmed an individual in orange getting right into a maroon SUV, just like a Telles household automobile.
When investigators searched Telles’ residence with a warrant shortly after German’s homicide, they discovered partly destroyed sneakers and cut-up items of a straw hat resembling the garments of the particular person within the video.
Prosecutors additionally stated Telles’ DNA was discovered underneath German’s fingernails. Telles testified that he believed it was planted.
Prosecutors additionally offered a textual content from Telles’ spouse that stated, “The place are you?” The textual content got here at 10:30 a.m. Sept. 2, 2022 — the time the safety video confirmed the maroon SUV in German’s neighborhood.
Telles proclaimed his innocence on the stand.
Requested about German’s articles, he stated that “I wasn’t pleased about them” however added, “I don’t know that I ever hated him.”
Telles named colleagues in his workplace, actual property brokers and enterprise house owners who he claimed framed him for the killing in retaliation for what he stated have been his efforts to uproot corruption when he was public administrator.
Nonetheless, Telles couldn’t present an evidence for the way individuals who he claimed conspired to border him for the homicide have been in a position to put key items of proof in his residence.
“You already know, the concept that Mr. German’s throat was slashed and his coronary heart was stabbed … I’m not the form of one that would stab somebody. I didn’t kill Mr. German,” Telles stated. “And that’s my testimony.”
Telles was convicted of first-degree homicide, with sentencing enhancements that he used a lethal weapon and that he dedicated the crime in opposition to an aged particular person.
Telles’ legal professional, Robert Draskovich, had informed jurors that any sentence would contain an extended interval in jail and requested for mercy. “To ensure that justice to be justice, there needs to be a component of mercy,” he stated.
After the decision, District Legal professional Steve Wolfson rejected the claims that Telles was framed.
“I feel they’re ludicrous,” Wolfson informed reporters. “There was no conspiracy. The one conspiracy was between him and his evil thoughts.”