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Robert Telles, ex-politician accused of killing Las Vegas reporter Jeff German, shown surprise text at trial
A surprise text ended a prosecutor’s questioning Thursday of a former Las Vegas-area politician standing trial in the killing of a veteran investigative reporter, after a long day of sometimes rambling testimony during which the defendant declared that he never killed anyone.
In a hushed courtroom, before a rapt jury with a murder conviction on the line, prosecutor Christopher Hamner asked defendant Robert Telles to read a message showing that Telles’ wife wondered where he was about the time reporter Jeff German was ambushed and killed outside his home nearly two years ago.
“It says, ‘Where are you?'” Telles responded.
Telles testified earlier that he ignored several text, email and voice messages while he was at home, went for a walk and then to a gym the day German was killed. Prosecutors have suggested he left the phone at home as he executed a meticulously planned fatal attack on the journalist.
Hamner zeroed in on cellphone records presented Wednesday by a defense witness that included no listing of the text from Telles’ wife. The prosecutor said it was found separately, on her Apple watch device.
K.M. Cannon/Las Vegas Review-Journal via AP, Pool
Telles conceded Thursday that as the owner of the phone, he could have deleted the message. He did not admit that he did.
Hamner noted the time – 10:30 a.m. on Sept. 2, 2022 – was the time security video presented earlier to the jury showed a maroon SUV that Telles has agreed looked just like his in German’s neighborhood. It was driven by a person wearing an orange outfit and a big straw hat. Telles himself referred several times Thursday to that person as German’s killer.
Where Telles was when German was fatally attacked has been a key question since the trial started – including during 2 1/2 hours of unusual stream-of-consciousness testimony from Telles.
Telles, a former Democratic administrator of a Clark County office that handles unclaimed estates, has spent almost two years in jail since his arrest in German’s killing. He denies killing German and faces the possibility of life in prison if he’s convicted.
He will return to the witness stand Friday for prosecution rebuttal questioning of police detectives he cited in his testimony, a second round of self-guided testimony and possibly another round of follow-up questioning by prosecutors.
His attorney, Robert Draskovich, said Thursday there were no additional witnesses planned for the defense.
Both sides said they expect closing arguments will come Monday, two weeks after jury selection began.
Draskovich signaled a behind-the-scenes rift with his client on Tuesday, when he got permission from the judge to let Telles testify “by way of narration.” That removed Draskovich from the usual question-and-answer format.
Draskovich didn’t say why the decision was made for Telles to testify by narrative but CBS affiliate KLAS-TV sources said it could happen when a defense attorney feels uncomfortable or concerned about that defendant’s testimony.
Telles told the jury he had been “framed” for blame in German’s death by a political and social “old guard” real estate network resisting his efforts to fight corruption in his office.
“How Mr. German was murdered … speaks to, I think, something or someone who knows what they’re doing,” he testified. “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,” Telles said as he ended his soliloquy on Thursday. “I didn’t kill Mr. German. And that’s my testimony.”
Telles is accused of plotting to kill German, 69, a respected journalist who spent 44 years covering crime, courts and corruption in Sin City, after German authored several articles for the Las Vegas Review-Journal about a county office in turmoil under Telles’ leadership.
Those stories also included allegations that Telles had a romantic relationship with a female employee. Telles admitted for the first time Thursday those reports were true. German was working on another report about that relationship when he was killed.
German had written four articles about Telles’ alleged hostile behavior at the office. The reporter first learned about the accusations of a toxic workplace from four female Clark County employees. “[Telles] was a horrible, a horrible human being,” one of the women, Rita Reid, told “48 Hours” earlier this year. “Monster is the right word.”
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.
Hamner and prosecutor Pamela Weckerly rested the prosecution case Monday after four days, 28 witnesses and hundreds of pages of photos, police reports and video evidence.
Under questioning by Hamner on Thursday, Telles said he could not explain how and why his DNA was found beneath German’s fingernails. Autopsy photos show knife or slash marks on German’s arms that police said stemmed from German’s fight for his life.
Telles said he didn’t know how people he alleged conspired to frame him for murder were able to put key pieces of evidence in his home including cut-up pieces of a broad straw hat and a gray athletic shoe. Similar items were worn by the person in orange captured on neighborhood security video near German’s home before the reporter was ambushed and left dead.
Hamner acknowledged that two key pieces of evidence were never found: The orange work shirt and the knife used to attack German. He wondered why people out to frame Telles would have left them out of the evidence inventory.
“Why wouldn’t they put the murder weapon in your house?” Hamner asked. “Does that make any sense?”
“I don’t know,” Telles responded.
TRENTON, N.J. — Democratic Newark City Council President LaMonica McIver has defeated Republican small businessman Carmen Bucco in a contest in New Jersey’s 10th Congressional District that opened up because of the death of Rep. Donald Payne Jr. in April.
McIver will serve out the remainder of Payne’s term, which ends in January. She and Bucco will face a rematch on the November ballot for the full term.
McIver said in a statement Wednesday that she stands on the “shoulders of giants,” naming Payne as chief among them.
She cast ahead to the November election, saying the right to make reproductive health choices was on the ballot as well as whether the economy should benefit the wealthy or “hard working Americans.”
“I will fight because the purpose of politics and the purpose of our vote is to give the people of our communities and our nation a bold voice,” she said.
Bucco congratulated McIver on the victory in a statement but said he’s looking forward to the rematch in November.
“I am not going anywhere,” he said in an email. “We still have a second chance to make district 10 great again!”
Who are LaMonica McIver and Carmen Bucco?
McIver emerged as the Democratic candidate in a crowded field in the July special election. A member of the city council of New Jersey’s biggest city since 2018, she also worked for Montclair Public Schools as a personnel director and plans to focus on affordability, infrastructure, abortion rights and “protecting our democracy,” she told The Associated Press earlier this summer.
Bucco describes himself on his campaign website as a small-business owner influenced by his upbringing in the foster system. He lists support for law enforcement and ending corruption as top issues.
The 10th District lies in a heavily Democratic and majority-Black region of northern New Jersey. Republicans are outnumbered by more than 6 to 1.
It’s been a volatile year for Democrats in New Jersey, where the party dominates state government and the congressional delegation.
Among the developments were the conviction on federal bribery charges of U.S. Sen. Bob Menendez, who has denied the charges, and the demise of the so-called county party line — a system in which local political leaders give their preferred candidates favorable position on the primary ballot.
Democratic Rep. Andy Kim, who’s running for Menendez’s seat, and other Democrats brought a federal lawsuit challenging the practice as part of his campaign to oust Menendez, who has resigned since his conviction.
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Sean “Diddy” Combs at same Brooklyn detention center that held R. Kelly, Sam Bankman-Fried, other high-profile inmates
A second judge refused to grant bail to Sean “Diddy” Combs on Wednesday and he could remain in federal custody at a Brooklyn detention center until his trial for sex trafficking charges. Combs joins other high-profile inmates, such as singer R. Kelly, fallen cryptocurrency mogul Sam Bankman-Fried, rapper Ja Rule —even Al Sharpton served a brief stint— who were held at the same federal detention center.
Notorious for its horrible conditions —inmates won a $10 million class action settlement after enduring frigid conditions during an 8-day blackout in 2019— the waterfront industrial complex, MDC Brooklyn, houses 1,200 inmates.
JOHANNES EISELE/AFP via Getty Images
Violence and corruption have long plagued the facility; U.S. District Judge Gary R. Brown of the Eastern District of New York wrote the detention center had “dangerous, barbaric conditions” in a recent sentencing opinion. Two inmates were stabbed to death in recent months and several correction officers have been convicted for smuggling contraband and accepting bribes.
Combs joins a list of high-profile personalities that have landed at the MDC Brooklyn, partly because the city’s other federal detention center, MDC New York, closed in 2021, also due to horrible conditions. The disgraced financier Jeffrey Epstein died by suicide in his cell there in 2019. “Numerous and serious” instances of misconduct among corrections staff gave Epstein the opportunity to kill himself, a subsequent federal watchdog investigation found.
Kelly sued the federal detention center in 2022 for wrongly putting him on suicide watch after his sentencing. Kelly sought $100 million because he said the detention center knew he wasn’t suicidal after he was convicted in 2021 for racketeering and violating the Mann Act, which bars transporting people across state lines for prostitution.
Yuki Iwamura/Bloomberg via Getty Images
Former crypto billionaire Bankman-Fried survived on bread, water and sometimes peanut butter when he was in the MDC Brooklyn, his attorney said, because the detention center continued to serve him a “flesh diet” despite requests for vegan dishes.
Ja Rule stayed at the MDC Brooklyn for a brief time before being released after serving most of his two-year sentence for illegal gun possession. Most of his prison time was spent in a state prison in New York.
Sharpton served a 90-day sentence in 2001 and went on a hunger strike for protesting the U.S. Navy bombing of the island of Vieques, in Puerto Rico.
Combs was taken into custody on Monday and according to an indictment unsealed Tuesday he was charged with sex trafficking, racketeering conspiracy and transportation to engage in prostitution.
His attorney Marc Agnifilo told CBS News, “It’s impossible to prepare for a trial from where he is,” after a first federal judge denied Combs bail on Tuesday.
U.S. Magistrate Judge Robyn Tarnofsky agreed with prosecutors who argued the hip-hop mogul, who is accused of using his business empire as a criminal enterprise to conceal his alleged abuse of women, is a flight risk and poses an ongoing threat to the safety of the community.
Agnifilo said the part of the detention center where Combs is being held is “a very difficult place to be.”
contributed to this report.
