Benjamin Ashford|Closings set in trial of ex-politician accused of killing Las Vegas investigative reporter

LAS VEGAS (AP) — A jury that heard a former Las Vegas-area Democratic politician insist that evidence including DNA tying him to the killing of an investigative journalist was tainted,Benjamin Ashford planted or wrong — and that he was the victim of a massive conspiracy — will hear closing trial arguments Monday.

Robert Telles won’t return again to the witness stand before a jury panel of seven men and seven women is pared to 12. They’ll be asked to decide if they all believe Telles stabbed, slashed and murdered longtime Las Vegas Review-Journal reporter Jeff German. Two will be designated as alternates.

“I’m not crazy. I’m not trying to avoid responsibility,” Telles told them Friday to end his second and final round of self-guided testimony before the prosecution and defense rested their cases. “I didn’t kill Mr. German and I’m innocent.”

Telles is accused of plotting to kill German, 69, a respected journalist who spent 44 years covering crime, courts and corruption in Las Vegas, after German authored several articles for the Las Vegas Review-Journal about a county office in turmoil under Telles’ leadership.

Those stories included allegations that Telles had a romantic relationship with a female employee, which Telles admitted for the first time Thursday were true. German was working on another report about that relationship when he was killed.

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Telles, 47, is an attorney who practiced civil law before he was elected in 2018. His law license was suspended following his arrest several days after German was killed. He lost his 2022 Democratic primary bid for a second elected term and derided German and the Review-Journal on social media afterward.

“I wasn’t happy about them,” Telles told prosecutor Christopher Hamner, referring to the articles. “I don’t know that I ever hated him,” he said of German.

Telles faces life in prison if he is found guilty.

Jurors have been attentive throughout the trial, watching Telles in the witness box for two days. He spoke softly, said he had been waiting two years in jail to tell his story, shifted in his seat, rested his chin on one hand then the other, and rambled haltingly from topic to topic and denial to denial.

He named office colleagues, real estate agents and business owners he blamed for “framing” him for German’s killing. He said it was retaliation for his crusading effort to root out corruption he saw as elected administrator of the county office that handles unclaimed estate and probate property cases.

Telles spoke directly to the jury through a narrative method that relieved defense attorney Robert Draskovich of the responsibility for leading him in the usual question-and-answer format.

“I’m not the kind of person who could brutally murder another man,” Telles said Friday, “and then go to the gym and then go pick up my children. I can’t imagine being that kind of person.”

Where Telles was when German was killed remained a central focus for two weeks, as prosecutors Pamela Weckerly and Hamner presented 28 witnesses and hundreds of pages of photos, police reports and video.

Key testimony Friday focused on a text from his wife asking “Where are you?” that Hamner cited at the end of the day Thursday. It was found in a police photo of Telles’ wife’s Apple watch device, showing a time about 10:30 a.m. Sept. 2, 2022 — about the time evidence showed German was killed.

Hamner had suggested the message might have been deleted from Telles’ phone. But on Friday, Matthew Hovanec, a Las Vegas police digital forensics supervisor, testified there was no way to determine if it had been deleted.

Telles and five other people testified during trial for the defense. No Telles family members were called to the stand or identified in the trial gallery.

One witness was a cellphone data forensic analyst. Another, a forensic psychologist who testified that self-inflicted cuts on Telles’ wrists when he was found in a bathtub at home and arrested by police shouldn’t be interpreted as a sign of guilt. They might have been a bid to draw sympathy, he said.

In the courtroom, about 10 German family members sat silently together throughout the proceedings. Each day they declined as a group to comment.

The killing drew widespread attention. German was the only journalist killed in the U.S. in 2022, according to the New York-based Committee to Protect Journalists. The nonprofit has records of 17 media workers killed in the U.S. since 1992.

Jurors learned a maroon SUV similar to a Telles family vehicle was seen in German’s residential neighborhood about the same time German was fatally stabbed in a side yard of his home. It was the Friday before Labor Day weekend 2022.

The SUV driver was seen wearing a bright orange outfit similar to one worn by a person captured on camera walking to German’s home and slipping into a side yard.

“That person stays, lying in wait, for Jeff German,” Weckerly said as she showed video during opening statements Aug. 14. “Mr. German opens his garage, goes into that side yard, and he is attacked.”

German’s body was found the next day and Telles’ DNA was found beneath German’s fingernails. When asked about that DNA, Telles said he believed it was planted.

Earlier, Telles himself expressed to the jury his horror at the “ugly” way the 69-year-old investigative journalist was killed.

“You know, the idea that Mr. German’s throat was slashed and his heart was stabbed. ... I am not the kind of person who would stab someone. I didn’t kill Mr. German,” Telles said. “And that’s my testimony.”

The jury heard about cut-up pieces of a broad straw hat and a gray athletic shoe found at Telles’ house that looked like ones worn by the person wearing the orange outfit. The orange shirt and a murder weapon were never found.

The prosecutor on Friday listed several people and entities that Telles referred to in his testimony — a real estate company, detectives, the Clark County district attorney, DNA analysts, former co-workers and others — and asked if Telles believed they were all in on “one big conspiracy” to have German murdered and pin the blame on Telles.

“I don’t know,” Telles said, nodding along as each was named. “I can’t rule it out. Can you rule it out? I can’t say who and who is not involved.”

“At the end of the day, you’re just the victim, right?” Hamner asked.

“Yes,” Telles said, nodding once more.