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Video footage, played for a packed courtroom in Las Vegas on Wednesday, revealed a person in a straw hat and bright orange vest, nonchalantly strolling along a suburban street.
Prosecutors say that this is the elected county official who was “lying in wait” at the home of veteran Las Vegas investigative journalist Jeff German who was ambushed and killed on Labor Day weekend in 2022.
The murder trial of Robert Telles began on Wednesday, two years after German, 69, a Las Vegas Review-Journal reporter, was slashed and stabbed to death in the side yard of his Las Vegas home.
Surveillance footage shown during the prosecution’s opening statements was from the home of German’s longtime neighbors and friends, Holly and Row Bailey. The couple wept as they told the jury that they thought it was odd that his garage door remained open all day with his car inside but said they could not reach him by telephone or text.
“That person stays, lying in wait, for Jeff German,” Clark County Deputy District Attorney Pamela Weckerly told jurors at the high-profile trial. “Mr. German opens his garage, goes into that side yard, and he is attacked.”
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.
Another neighborhood video shows the person in orange getting into a maroon SUV.
Several days later, a photographer colleague of German found Telles washing a similar vehicle outside his home. Telles was arrested the following day and has been in custody since.
In the days after Telles’ arrest, investigators recovered a straw hat matching the one seen in the video, as well as a pair of shoes the suspect was described as wearing, Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Captain Dori Koren said at the time.
Telles, 47, pleaded not guilty to murder 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 but was framed for the crime and police mishandled the investigation.
Prosecutors say that the news articles that German wrote were critical of Telles and a county office in turmoil. This included allegations that the lawmaker had an inappropriate relationship with a subordinate employee, which provided Telles’ motive for the killing.
“In the end, this case isn't about politics,” the DA said. “It's not about alleged inappropriate relationships. It's not about who's a good boss or who's a good supervisor or favoritism at work -- it's just about murder.”
The killing of German, who spent 44 years covering Las Vegas mobsters and public officials, stunned Las Vegas and the world of journalism.
After German’s first articles appeared in May 2022, Telles lost a party primary to keep his elected position. Prosecutors told the jury that German was preparing another article about Telles when he died.
German was the only reporter killed in the US among 69 news media workers slain worldwide that year, according to data by the Committee to Protect Journalists.
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 the politician’s 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 became a corruption-fighting elected public servant. Telles met political and social pushback from an “old guard” real estate network which reaped benefits buying and selling properties of people whose estates Telles’ office administered, the defense attorney claimed.
Social media posts, emails, texts and public statements made by Telles 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 are going ... to try to ruin my personal life.”
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.
Testimony from prosecution witnesses on Wednesday 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.”
The Associated Press contributed to this report
