Ex-politician due to testify in his trial in killing of Las Vegas investigative journalist

LAS VEGAS (AP) — For two years, from behind bars and in courtrooms, to journalists and judges, a former Las Vegas-area Democratic elected official has insisted he wants to tell his story to the jury that will decide whether he goes to prison or goes free after trial in the killing of an investigative journalist who wrote articles critical of him and his workplace conduct two years ago.

On Wednesday, murder defendant Robert Telles gets his chance.

“He has said he is going to tell his story. I anticipate him telling that story tomorrow,” Telles’ defense attorney, Robert Draskovich, told reporters after a Tuesday court hearing during which Telles told the Nevada judge handling his murder trial that he knows he has no obligation to testify.

With the jury out of the courtroom, Clark County District Court Judge Michelle Leavitt questioned Telles directly for several minutes about whether he wanted to risk answering questions under oath from prosecutors who rested their case Monday after four days, 28 witnesses and hundreds of pages of photos, police reports and video evidence against him.

“Mr. Telles, you understand you have heard all of the evidence that the state intends to present in this case,” the judge said. “You understand that you cannot be compelled to testify in this matter?”

“Yes, your honor,” Telles responded.

Draskovich and co-counsel Michael Horvath said outside court that they advised Telles against testifying, but he has insisted.

The defense might still call three other witnesses, Draskovich said, including a witness who might corroborate Telles’ account that he visited a local membership gym the day of the murder. Telles is expected to be the last person called in the defense case, the defense attorney said. No family members or character witnesses are scheduled. Telles’ testimony could take more than a day.

“He’s entitled to his defense,” Draskovich told reporters. “This is the defense that he wants to present.”

Telles, an attorney who was once the county administrator of unclaimed estates, has been jailed for almost two years while preparing for trial. He has said he didn’t kill Las Vegas Review-Journal reporter Jeff German, but did not say during jailhouse interviews with The Associated Press and other media what he was doing the day German was killed.

His defense team called two witnesses Tuesday. A clinical and forensic psychologist testified that slashes found on Telles’ wrists when he was arrested at home by Las Vegas police should not be interpreted as a sign of a guilty conscience. In response to a question from the judge, the expert witness, Mark Chambers, acknowledged that such wounds could have been an attempt to draw sympathy.

Also Tuesday, a woman testified she called police to report she thought a person seen on a video news report wearing an orange outfit walking near German’s home resembled someone she saw at a park a few days before the killing. She did not identify Telles in court.

Much of what the jury and the public have heard during the last week weighs against Telles.

His DNA was found beneath German’s fingernails. He had family ties to a maroon SUV seen in German’s neighborhood about the time German was killed. Police found on Telles’ cellphone and computer hundreds of photos of German’s home and several pages of German’s identity records, including time stamps showing they’d been collected just weeks before the killing.

At Telles’ house, police found cut-up pieces of a broad straw hat and gray athletic shoes that looked like those worn by a person captured on neighborhood security video wearing an oversized orange long-sleeve shirt, carrying a big cloth satchel and seen slipping into a side yard of German’s home before the reporter was ambushed and left dead in a pool of blood.

Robbery wasn’t an apparent motive for the killing, prosecutors said. The jury learned that German’s wallet, money, car keys and cellphone were still in the pockets of his shorts. Nothing was amiss in German’s home, although his garage door remained open to the puzzlement of his across-the-street neighbors who sobbed on the witness stand as they remembered finding his body the next day.

Neither an orange shirt nor a murder weapon was entered as evidence.

Prosecutors allege Telles was motivated to kill after German authored articles for the Las Vegas Review-Journal about a county office in turmoil, including allegations that Telles had an inappropriate relationship with a female co-worker. Telles lost his bid for re-election as Clark County Public Administrator and Guardian, and derided German and the newspaper on social media.

Telles complained that he was being victimized by a political and social “old guard” real estate network for trying to fight corruption that he saw in his office. A police intelligence unit detective who was investigating those allegations, Derek Jappe, also became a key figure in Telles’ arrest several days after the killing. Through questioning of prosecution witnesses, Draskovich has shown that Telles believes Jappe shaped the murder investigation against him.

“I am about nothing but justice, fairness and just being a good person,” Telles told German in an audio interview aired with a May 2022 Review-Journal article about the public administrator office. “It’s unreal the length they’re going … to try to ruin my personal life.”

German spent 44 years covering Las Vegas mobsters and public officials at the Las Vegas Sun and then at the larger Review-Journal. About 10 of his family members and friends have attended each day of Telles’ trial. They have declined to speak to the media.