LAS VEGAS – A jury in a hushed courtroom saw security video of a person wearing bright orange clothing slip into the yard of a home where a veteran Las Vegas investigative journalist was ambushed and killed nearly two years ago as the trial of a former elected county official charged with the reporter's murder began Wednesday.
The video was from the home of Holly and Row Bailey, longtime neighbors and friends of Jeff German, a Las Vegas Review-Journal reporter. The Baileys each wept as they told the jury that they thought it was odd that German’s garage door remained open all day with his car inside, but they could not reach him by telephone or text message.
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“That person stays, lying in wait, for Jeff German,” prosecutor Pamela Weckerly told jurors during opening statements in the high-profile trial. “Mr. German opens his garage, goes into that side yard, and he is attacked.”
German, who lived alone, was found the next day in the side yard, slashed and stabbed to death. It was Labor Day weekend 2022. He was 69.
The killing of German, who spent 44 years covering Las Vegas mobsters and public officials, and the arrest several days later of Robert Telles, formerly the elected Democratic administrator of a Clark County office of unclaimed estates, stunned Las Vegas and the world of journalism.
Prosecutors say articles that German wrote critical of Telles and a county office in turmoil, including allegations that Telles had an inappropriate relationship with a subordinate employee, provided Telles’ motive for the killing.
Telles, 47, has pleaded not guilty to murder with a deadly weapon of a person age 60 or older, and could face life in prison if he’s convicted. Prosecutors aren’t seeking the death penalty. Telles has said he didn’t kill German, was framed for the crime and police mishandled the investigation.
After German's first articles appeared in May 2022, Telles lost a party primary to keep his elected position. Weckerly told the jury that German was preparing another article about Telles when he died.
German was the only reporter killed in the U.S. among 69 news media workers slain worldwide that year, according to data by the Committee to Protect Journalists.
On the video, bushes rustle but a view into the side yard is blocked. The prosecutor let the scene play silently for the packed courtroom. A little more than two minutes elapse, then the orange figure emerges and begins walking down a sidewalk. German does not reappear.
Other neighborhood video shows the person in orange getting into a maroon SUV like one that a Review-Journal photographer found Telles washing outside his home several days later. A day after that, Telles was arrested by Las Vegas police. He has remained jailed ever since.
The first images of German that the jury saw on Wednesday were autopsy photos: His throat cut; light blue T-shirt bloodstained; arms with multiple slash marks; darkened material beneath his fingernails. Some of about 10 German family members in the courtroom dabbed tears. Telles squinted his eyes and watched a defense table video monitor.
Defense attorney Robert Draskovich has said Telles intends to testify in his defense. That could come next week.
“Is Mr. Telles in a position to say who killed Mr. German? No,” Draskovich told the jury during his opening statement Wednesday.
But he promised to present evidence that the case is tainted and not as strong as prosecutors have said — including DNA believed to be from Telles found beneath German’s fingernails.
“There will be a great deal of testimony concerning DNA," Draskovich said. “Inferences will be made, inferences will be drawn and inferences will be attacked.”
Draskovich said he intends to show that some police body-worn camera video of Telles' detention before his arrest was destroyed, and suggested that key items may have been planted by someone else at Telles' home, including a cut-up straw hat like one worn by the person wearing orange.
“No blood whatsoever” from German “was found on Mr. Telles,” Draskovich said.
Draskovich cast his client as a self-made family man who put himself through law school and a corruption-fighting elected public servant who met political and social pushback from an “old guard” real estate network that Draskovich alleged reaped benefits buying and selling properties of people whose estates Telles’ office administered.
Social media posts, emails, texts and public statements by Telles that complained about German's articles were “a reasonable response to criticism which came from the job,” the defense attorney said. “He was upsetting the apple cart.”
“I am about nothing but justice, fairness and just being a good person,” Telles is heard telling German in an audio interview aired with the May 2022 Review-Journal articles about the public administrator office. “It's unreal the length they going ... to try to ruin my personal life.”
Testimony from prosecution witnesses on Wednesday also included police crime scene technicians who collected evidence. Weckerly and fellow prosecutor Christopher Hamner are expected to continue presenting the state's case through Thursday and into Friday.
German’s relatives have not spoken publicly about the killing and declined as a group in court Wednesday to comment.
Weckerly, in her opening statement, indicated the prosecution would be prepared for Telles’ lines of defense.
“In the end, this case is not about politics,” she told the jury. “It’s not about an alleged inappropriate relationship. It's not about who's a good boss or who's a good supervisor or favoritism at work. It's just about murder."
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This story has been updated to correct prosecutor's quote in third paragraph to ‘lying in wait,’ not ‘laying in wait.’