Las Vegas politician argues frame job in closing of trial over murdered journalist

(CN) — In Monday’s closing arguments in the murder trial of Robert Telles, a former Las Vegas politician accused of killing an investigative reporter, prosecutors pushed back on the defense’s argument that there isn’t enough evidence to convict Telles, and said the insinuation that he’s been framed for murder is an absurd deflection.

“The evidence is absolutely clear. The defendant murdered Jeff German. He murdered him because Jeff’s writing destroyed his career. It destroyed his reputation. It threatened his marriage. It exposed things that even he admitted he did not want the public to know. And he did it because Jeff wasn’t done writing,” said prosecutor Christ Hamner on Monday.

Prosecutors accuse Telles of stabbing German, a reporter for the Las Vegas Review-Journal, in September 2022 in retaliation for writing career-damaging articles about him while Telles was in office as Clark County Public Administrator, including that Telles created a hostile workplace and was engaged in an inappropriate relationship with a staff member.

They also say Telles was motivated to harm German after Telles heard that his internal communications would be turned over to the reporter in a public records inquiry, implying another story was on the horizon.

Throughout three days of testimony, Telles maintained his innocence and implicated the police, DNA labs and a local realty company in a vast conspiracy to frame him for the crime. He said he believes he was targeted due to his investigation into an reported fraudulent housing kickback scheme run by the realty company.

That argument, Hammer said, is based on Telles’ gut feelings about their being a vast conspiracy surrounding him. A vast conspiracy that doesn’t have any evidence tying it to actual factual reality, he said.

“Who’s the one that wouldn’t want another article written about him engaging in an affair?” Hammer asked. “He’s the only one that would have a stake in making sure that article never got written.”

Instead, Hammer added, German’s writing exposed Telles’ behavior, causing him to lose a reelection bid, which caused Telles’ to start using the power of his office, including his office computer, to find private details about the reporter, and then murder him.

Robert Drashovich, Telles’ attorney, argued in his closing that Telles’ blood or DNA wasn’t at the murder scene, and German’s blood was not in either Telles’ clothing or the vehicle that prosecutors claim he used. No murder weapon was recovered either, he added.

“The facts, in common sense, would dictate that if he was the murderer, there would be evidence,” Draskovich said.

Stopping short of declaring an outright conspiracy against his client, Draskovich suggested that the evidence collected from Telles’ work computer of searches for the type of car German drove, and where he lived, could have also been from a cell phone connected to Telles’ Google account.

“We don’t know specifically, who accessed, who searched for those images, and we don’t know when they were created and the state should explain that to you,” Draskovich said, adding that whatever happened could be connected to the “turmoil” at the public administrator’s office.

Draskovich then showed surveillance footage from the day of the murder which he claimed showed the car prosecutors say Telles drove. Zooming in on a frame of the video, Draskovich told the jury the driver, completely in silhouette, appeared to be wearing an orange shirt similar to the one prosecutors say Telles was wearing the day of the murder. But the person in the freeze frame, Draskovich claimed, had hair. Telles is bald.

“The profile doesn’t match that of Mr. Telles,” he said. “It’s not open to dispute.”

But Hammer did dispute, telling the jury there was a construction project in the area, and that it’s possible the person in the image was a construction worker.

Telles admitted on the stand to lying to German during an interview about his relationships, Hammer said. He was willing to lie when the states were lower in order to protect his job and marriage, but now the stakes are even higher, he said.

“He took the life of an individual who was simply doing his job because he didn’t like how it impacted him personally. Please hold him accountable for murdering Jeff German,” Hammer told the jury.

Telles faces life in prison if convicted in German’s death.