John Jefferson
Robert Telles, a former Nevada politician, has been found guilty of murdering a Las Vegas reporter who wrote stories that were critical of him.
Telles, the former Clark County Public Administrator, pleaded not guilty to the September 2022 killing of Las Vegas Review-Journal reporter Jeff German. The 47-year-old now faces life in prison. The sentencing phase of his trial will begin on Wednesday afternoon, CNN reports.
Telles’s trial began on August 14, nearly two years after German was stabbed to death in the yard of his Las Vegas home.
During the trial, prosecutors argued said the 69-year-old wrote articles critical of Telles and the Clark County office. These stories included allegations that Telles had an inappropriate relationship with a subordinate employee.
Prosecutors argued this provided Telles with a motive for German’s murder.
The prosecution also played security footage from German’s neighbors of a man in a straw hat and orange vest on their street. They argued Telles wore this disguise and hid outside German’s home to kill him.
“He murdered him because Jeff’s writing destroyed his career, it destroyed his reputation, it threatened probably his marriage and exposed things that even he admitted he did not want the public to know,” prosecutor Christopher Hamner said on Monday, just before the jury went into deliberations, according to CNN. “He did it because Jeff wasn’t done writing.”
Telles argued he was framed for the murder and that law enforcement did not properly handle the investigation.
More to come…
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