Former Nevada official receives life sentence for murder of reporter

Aug 28 (Reuters) – A jury in Las Vegas, Nevada, found a former elected county official guilty on Wednesday of killing an investigative reporter who had written articles critical of him and sentenced him to life in prison with the possibility of parole after 20 years.

Robert Telles, a former Clark County public administrator, was convicted of the 2022 murder of Las Vegas Review Journal journalist Jeff German. The case highlighted the increased risks facing journalists in the United States.

The jury found that the murder was “random, deliberate and planned.” Telles “ambushed” 69-year-old German and then stabbed him to death in front of his home in a Las Vegas suburb.

“A journalist wrote a story or a series of stories and lost his life in the process because someone, a politician, an outgoing politician, simply didn't like them,” said District Attorney Christopher Hamner.

Telles' attorney, Robert Draskovich, asked the jury for leniency and asked them to give him a chance at parole because he had no previous convictions.

Telles shook his head as a court clerk read the verdict. In the gallery, German's family members cried and hugged each other. Employees of the Clark County Public Clerk's Office, some of whom had asked German to investigate Telles, hugged each other and wiped tears from their eyes. All wore red shirts and pins bearing the reporter's face.

“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 choose someone else for the job,” Glenn Cook, editor in chief of the Las Vegas Review Journal, said in a statement.

“In many countries, journalist murderers go unpunished,” Cook said. “Not so in Las Vegas.”

German spent months investigating complaints that Telles had an abusive workplace and an inappropriate relationship with a subordinate.

Prosecutors' evidence included Telles' DNA found under German's fingernails and a video of a car driven by the attacker that matched the vehicle registered to Telles' wife.

The former official told the court that he was framed for German's murder after he tried to expose an alleged bribery scheme.

Las Vegas defense attorney Robert Langford, who was not involved in the case, said the DNA evidence found under German's fingernails was “an irrefutable piece of evidence.”

Shortly after one of German's stories about 47-year-old Telles was published in June 2022, the former official lost his re-election bid in a Democratic primary to a rival from the state clerk's office.

The day before German's murder, Telles learned that the reporter had made a request for information about the communications between Telles and the colleague with whom he was having an affair.

“The conviction sends an important message that the killing of journalists will not be tolerated,” said Katherine Jacobsen, U.S., Canada and Caribbean coordinator for the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ), a press rights advocacy group.

German was known for decades as a reporter covering corruption and organized crime in Nevada's largest city. His book “Murder in Sin City” inspired the 2008 film “Sex and Lies in Sin City” about the murder of gambling executive Ted Binion.

According to CPJ data, he was the only journalist murdered in the United States in 2022, among 69 media workers and journalists killed worldwide.

According to the Press Freedom Index published by the advocacy group Reporters Without Borders, the United States has fallen ten places to 55th in a ranking of journalists' safety for 2024.

The study cited declining public trust in the media and hostility from political officials as reasons for the decline.

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