By Andrew Hay
LAS VEGAS (Reuters) – A Las Vegas jury on Wednesday convicted a former elected official of killing an investigative journalist who wrote critical articles about him and sentenced him to life in prison with the possibility of parole after 20 years.
Robert Tellis, a former Clark County public administrator, was convicted of murdering Las Vegas Review-Journal reporter Jeff German in 2022 in a case that highlighted the growing dangers facing journalists in the United States.
The jury found the killing was “willful, deliberate and premeditated,” and said Telles “lurked” for German, 69, before stabbing him to death outside his home in a Las Vegas suburb.
“A journalist wrote a story or a series of stories and lost his life because of it because someone, an open politician, didn’t like him,” said District Attorney Christopher Hamner.
Tellis’ attorney, Robert Draskovic, asked the jury to show leniency and grant him a chance at parole because he has no prior criminal record.
Tellis shook his head as the court clerk read the verdict. In the audience gallery, German’s family members cried and hugged. Clark County Sheriff’s Office employees, some of whom had asked German to investigate Tellis, hugged and wiped away tears, all wearing red shirts and pins showing the reporter’s face.
“Jeff was murdered because he was doing the kind of work he took the most pride in: his reporting held an elected official accountable for misconduct and empowered voters to choose someone else for the job,” Glenn Cook, editor of the Las Vegas Review-Journal, said in a statement.
“In many countries, the killers of journalists go unpunished, but that’s not the case in Las Vegas,” Cook said.
German spent months reporting complaints that Telles oversaw an abusive workplace and had an inappropriate relationship with a subordinate.
State evidence included Tellis’ DNA found under German’s fingernails, and a video of a car driven by the attacker that matched a car registered to Tellis’ wife.
The former official told the court he was implicated in Germain’s murder after trying to uncover an alleged bribery scheme.
Las Vegas defense attorney Robert Langford, who was not involved in the case, said the DNA evidence under German’s fingernails was “insurmountable evidence.”
Shortly after one of German’s stories about Telles, 47, was published in June 2022, the former official lost his bid for re-election in the Democratic primary to a challenger from within the CEO’s office.
The day before German was killed, Telles learned that the reporter had obtained information by requesting records of communications between Telles and the colleague with whom he was having an affair.
“This conviction sends an important message that the killing of journalists will not be tolerated,” said Katherine Jacobsen, U.S., Canada and Caribbean coordinator for the Committee to Protect Journalists, a press rights group.
German is best known for his decades-long reporting on corruption and organized crime in Nevada’s largest cities. His book, “Murder in Sin City,” inspired the 2008 film, “Sex and Lies in Sin City,” which dealt with the murder of businessman Ted Binion.
He is the only journalist killed in the United States in 2022, out of 69 media workers and journalists killed worldwide, according to data from the Committee to Protect Journalists.
The United States fell 10 places to 55th in the 2024 ranking of the safety of journalists, according to the World Press Freedom Index published by Reporters Without Borders.
The study pointed to declining public confidence in the media and hostility from political officials as factors behind this decline.
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