A Democratic elected official was arrested on suspicion of murdering a Las Vegas reporter whose news articles contributed to his primary defeat.
Summary
A Democratic elected official was arrested on suspicion of murdering a Las Vegas reporter whose news articles contributed to his primary defeat.
- Clark County Public Administrator Robert Telles was arrested by SWAT officers in connection with the death of Jeff German, a Las Vegas Review-Journal reporter who uncovered turmoil in Telles’ office.
- The local elected official’s DNA was found under the fingernails of the slain reporter. German was reportedly ambushed outside of his home and stabbed seven times.
- German’s reporting uncovered allegations of “bullying and favoritism in the public administrator’s office and an inappropriate relationship by Telles with a female subordinate.”
- Las Vegas police said they found shoes and pieces of a straw hat at Telles’ home that tied him to the murder. The public administrator was “lashing out” after German’s reporting “ruined his political career, likely his marriage,” said Chief Deputy District Attorney Richard Scow.
- Telles is charged with one count of murder with the use of a deadly weapon and is being held without bail, but has not resigned his post. Clark County revoked Telles’ access to government buildings, and officials are reportedly looking into options to remove him from his elected position.
- The Washington Post profiled Jeff German and his career spent “chasing corruption.” German’s reporting on organized crime in the 1980s earned him death threats from the mob.
- CNN collected the Las Vegas Review-Journal stories German wrote about Robert Telles that uncovered bullying and “turmoil” in the Clark County Public Administrator office and apparently lead to his murder.
- The Daily Beast chronicled “how an obscure Democrat became the scariest man in Las Vegas.” Robert Telles’ pre-meditated slaying of Jeff German has rattled the Las Vegas political community and media. As Telles’ predecessor told the Daily Beast, “None of it makes any sense.”
- The New York Post noted German had several defensive wounds and apparently fought for his life against German before succumbing to “multiple sharp force injuries.”
- The Washington Examiner reported a group of journalists tracked down the man suspected of murdering Jeff German, their coworker. The location data they gathered directly contributed to Telles’ arrest.
- National Review’s Jim Geraghty asked, “Do the Democrats have a… murder problem?” Geraghty linked the Nevada case to a New Jersey Democratic consultant who pled guilty to murder-for-hire charges and Democratic megadonor Ed Buck. Buck was sentenced to thirty years in prison trading meth for sex with male prostitutes which resulted in two overdose deaths. Geraghty pointed to the “old maxim in journalism that if you see something happening three times, you can justify writing a piece that it’s turning into a trend.”
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© Dominic Moore, 2022
