The judges and jurors of social media weren’t pleased, but justice was tempered with mercy on Thursday in District Judge Michelle Leavitt’s courtroom in the murder trial of disgraced former Clark County Public Administrator Robert Telles.
Convicted of the Sept. 2, 2022, stabbing death of veteran Las Vegas investigative reporter Jeff German, Telles sat as hapless as he was hairless through 11 days of testimony, a time in which prosecutors Pamela Weckerly and Christopher Hamner presented withering circumstantial evidence against him that included a forensic analysis that identified the defendant’s DNA under the 69-year-old victim’s fingernails.
When Telles insisted on speaking on his own behalf against the advice of defense attorney Robert Draskovich, he unleashed a snake den of conspiracy riddled with culpable actors and him in the role of the unfortunate victim. After a rapier cross-examination by Hamner, Telles’ version of events was thoroughly exposed.
He was revealed as a little man with a big ego who had strived for years to make something of his life and a name for himself. As I monitored the trial via the Clark County livestream and Court TV, I got the sense time and again that the small-time politician who wore lifts in his shoes still couldn’t quite believe what he’d done. The true crime television network’s rolling viewer responses were largely sarcastic and even frothing over the prospect of Telles being locked away forever.
After much consideration, the jury sentenced Telles to life with the possibility of parole after 20 years — a less harsh term than his detractors on the internet would have preferred.
Thursday wasn’t about guilt or innocence. A thoughtful jury had already weighed the evidence and made that decision a day earlier. All that was left was to listen to the family members of the victim and his killer and then determine the appropriate punishment.
At such moments in other trials, I’ve watched prosecutors strike a righteous posture and hold forth about the nature of justice with Old Testament umbrage. I’ve seen defense lawyers do soap opera stars proud by reminding jurors that their client was a good boy with a loving mother before he embarked on his notorious criminal spree.
When it came time for the state to make its ask, there were no histrionics. Hamner called for a life sentence, but left the rest to the jury’s discretion and good conscience. Draskovich was equally measured, imploring jurors to give a broken man without a serious prior criminal history, a light of hope to one day be reunited with his family after serving a long but lesser sentence.
For me, what came next showed a strength of character displayed by both sides of the case.
German’s siblings talked about their big brother the athlete and sports fanatic, the positive influence who was generous with his time and guidance to brother Jay German and sisters Jill Zwerg and Julie Smith along with a family of nieces and nephews and a Las Vegas Review-Journal newsroom full of colleagues.
“It’s been really hard,” Jay German said. “It’s been a hard couple of years. Jeff was our leader, the older brother that we all leaned on.”
Youngest sister Zwerg read a letter in court in an effort to provide “a little insight to the man behind the byline of Jeffrey M. German.” She concluded by saying, “These holidays, they’ll never be the same without Jeffrey there. Ever. He was kind, he was loyal, he was loving, and he was fun. He was a good friend, uncle, brother, and a respected colleague to all who knew him.”
Smith recalled, “Everyone in our family pretty much looked up to Jeff. He was our oldest sibling, so he always had a very special place in our hearts. He just seemed to be the core of our family.”
Telles family members were also losing someone they loved, someone who has worked to help support his mother since age 13, a person who worked his way through law school and supported a wife and three children in a blended family.
After winning election in 2018 to the little-known public administrator’s office, he had made the grade by many measures. After a few damning newspaper articles written by German about his alleged office behavior in an election year, it all vanished with an embarrassing loss in the 2022 primary.
His wife Mary Ann Ismael described a man who was driven to succeed, but one who took time for his children.
“His work ethic is second to none,” she said. “I have never met anybody who worked so hard, who was so ambitious, and just wanted to do everything to not only move himself ahead, but to also make sure that he was able to provide for his family. He was a great provider. Not just monetarily, but also, he was there … I have my son, his daughter, and our youngest one together. He was always there for our kids.”
Telles’ former wife Tonia Burton had no animus toward him, just the opposite. She said she admired his drive and his attention to the children they had co-parented. More than that, she said, he was a person capable of change. “I believe he can get anything done if he chooses to, if he has that direction.”
Rosalinda Anaya was 18 when her first son, Robert, was born. She watched him grow to be a protective big brother who was willing to accompany his mother into the fields to pick buckets of chile to help the family make ends meet. As she finished, Anaya asked the jury to give her son a chance for parole one day.
And after deliberating, the collection of Telles’ fellow citizens tempered justice with mercy and agreed to let a little light into a very dark place.
John L. Smith is an author and longtime columnist. He was born in Henderson and his family’s Nevada roots go back to 1881. His stories have appeared in New Lines, Time, Readers Digest, Rolling Stone, The Daily Beast, Reuters and Desert Companion, among others.
