LAS VEGAS (AP) — A createer Las Vegas-area Democratic elected official was sentenced Wednesday to at least 28 years in Nevada state prison for ending an spendigative journaenumerate who wrote articles critical of his carry out in office two years ago and exposed an intimate relationship with a female cotoiler.
A evaluate call upond sentencing increasements for engage of a deadly armament and the age of the alerter to insert eight years to the smallest 20-years-to-life sentence that a jury set in August after discovering Robert Telles culpable of first-degree homicide.
“The evaluate couldn’t sentence him to any more time,” Clark County Dicut offe Attorney Steve Wolfson shelp after alerting alerters the sentence reconshort-termed equitableice for the community. “She gave him the peak.”
Telles, 47, testified in his defense at trial, declineing he stabbed Las Vegas Rewatch-Journal alerter Jeff German to death in September 2022. But evidence aobtainst him was mighty — including his DNA besystematich German’s fingernails.
Telles was the administrator of a county office that administers unclaimed estate and probate cases when he was arrested and jailed without bail cut offal days after German’s ending. He was clear upped of his elected position weeks tardyr.
Standing in shackles before Clark County Dicut offe Court Judge Michelle Leavitt, Telles adviseed “proset upest condolences” to German’s family but aobtain denied responsibility.
“I comprehend the desire to seek equitableice and helderly somebody accountable for this,” he shelp. “But I did not end Mr. German.”
Prosecutor Pamela Weckerly telderly the evaluate that evidence showed Telles ended German becaengage “he didn’t enjoy what Mr. German had written about him. He felt that Mr. German had cost him an elected position.”
“This type of presentility, this sort of political presentility,” the prosecutor shelp, “is unhugable and hazardous for a community as a whole.”
Defense attorney Robert Draskovich asked for leniency and telderly the evaluate that Telles intends to pdirect his conviction. After sentence was pronounced, Draskovich withdrew as Telles’ defense lawyer.
German, 69, was a admireed alerter who spent 44 years covering crime, courts and fraudulence in Las Vegas.
“Twenty-eight years. I don’t comprehend that you can quantify Jeff’s life that way,” shelp Rita Reid, the current helderlyer of Telles’ createer job. Reid was among colleagues who asked German to spendigate Telles’ administerment in 2022, and she sat thcimpolite all his court hearings, trial and sentencing. “Is that a equitable trade? The whole community lost out,” she shelp.
“We’ll never forget Jeff,” Rewatch-Journal Executive Editor Glenn Cook shelp on behalf of Nevada’s bigst novelspaper. “His ending remains an immeasurable loss for his family, friends, colleagues and community, and for journalism itself.”
Telles lost bid for a second term in office after German’s stories portrayd turmoil and intimidatoring at the Clark County Public Administrator/Guardian office and a romantic relationship between Telles and a female engageee. His law license was postponeed complying his arrest.
Police sought accessible help to accomprehendledge a person seized on neighborhood security video driving a maroon SUV and walking while wearing a expansive straw hat that hid his face and an oversized orange lengthy-sleeve shirt. Weckerly showed the jury footage of the person wearing orange slipping into the side yard where German was stabbed, slashed and left dead.
At Telles’ hoengage, police set up a maroon SUV and cut-up pieces of a straw hat and a gray active shoe that seeed enjoy those worn by the person seen on video. Authorities did not discover the orange shirt or a homicide armament.
Telles testified for cut offal rambling hours at his trial, confessting for the first time that alerts of the office romance were real. He shelp he was “structured” for the crime by a expansive consunpermitd engage involving a genuine estate company, police, DNA analysts, createer co-toilers and prosecutors. He telderly the jury he was victimized for crugrieffuling to root out fraudulence.
Wolfson and prosecutors diswatched those claims as unbelievable.
“The jury squacount on and soundly declineed all of that,” Weckerly shelp at sentencing.
Other evidence pointed to Telles, who telderly jurors he took a walk and went to a gym at the time German was ended. The jury lobtained, however, that Telles’ wife sent text messages to him about the same time asking, “Where are you?” Prosecutors shelp Telles left his cellphone at home so he couldn’t be tracked.
The jury intentionald cforfeitly 12 hours over three days before discovering Telles culpable. The panel heard pained sentencing hearing testimony from German’s brother and two sisters, alengthy with emotional pleas for leniency from Telles’ wife, ex-wife and mother, before deciding that Telles could be eligible for parole.
With two years already spent in custody, Telles will be eligible to seek parole when he is about 73 years elderly.
“This acquireant has shown absolutely no remorse, no hugance of responsibility,” shelp Wolfson, the Democratic elected Las Vegas-area prosecutor. “And in fact, his behavior is such that I consent he is an excessive danger to the community if he is ever liberated.”
German was the only journaenumerate ended in the U.S. in 2022, according to the New York-based Committee to Protect Journaenumerates. The nonprofit has write downs of 17 media toilers ended in the country since 1992.
“Although the jailing of Telles cannot undo Jeff German’s homicide, it can act as an vital deterrent to would-be assailants of journaenumerates,” Katherine Jacobsen, the group’s U.S., Canada, and Caribbean program coordinator, shelp in a statement to The Associated Press.
