LAS VEGAS, Nev. (FOX5) – Nearly two years after the crime made headlines around the world, the trial is set to begin next week for a former elected Clark County official charged with murdering a local newspaper investigative reporter who had written a series of critical reports about his office.
This week, prosecutors and defense attorneys told a judge they will be ready for trial Monday beginning with jury selection.
September 3rd, 2022, a neighbor found a man stabbed to death outside his Summerlin home on a Saturday morning.
The victim was quickly determined to be 69-year-old Jeff German.
Within 48 hours, Metro released images of a suspect and then held a press conference showing the suspect’s car.
Days later, Clark County Administrator Robert Telles was taken into custody after a SWAT standoff locking down his neighborhood.
A car matching the suspect’s vehicle was towed from Telles’s home. Police say they recovered shoes with blood on them and the straw hat Telles was wearing, cut up in an attempt to destroy evidence.
Police also say Telles’s blood was found under German’s fingernails.
As an investigative reporter at the Review Journal for 12 years, German wrote several reports on Telles who was still in office at the time of the murder but had lost a re-election bid. Telles slammed German in a series of tweets and on his campaign website.
Despite the damaging evidence against him, from the beginning, Telles has maintained his innocence and pleaded not guilty. Telles cried in court when a judge ruled, he would remain in jail until trial.
“I’m not some monster, someone who is out to do evil,” Telles told Joe Vigil during a jailhouse interview he agreed to with FOX5. During that interview, Telles refused to answer questions about the murder:
Vigil: how did your DNA get under the fingernails of Jeff German?
Telles: again, I cannot comment on the case. I’m sorry.
Vigil: we’re here for the truth. We just want to hear what happened. You’re accused of murder. You either didn’t do it or you did do it. So, here’s an opportunity to say the truth.
Telles: again, I’ve been advised by counsel not talk about the case whatsoever. So, I’m sorry.
Telles, or at least his defense team, will have to answer those questions next week. More than two dozen witnesses are set to take the stand and the trial is expected to last about 10 days. FOX5 will be in the courtroom so stay with us for complete coverage.
In addition to our reports here on FOX5, we will be live-streaming the court proceedings on our FOX5 News App.
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