Clark County Elected Official Rob Telles Arrested in Reporter's Murder

**Photo of the suspect in the murder of reporter Jeff German beside comparison photo of Clark County Public Administrator Rob Telles. (LVMPD/LVRJ)**

Respected veteran journalist Jeff German of the Las Vegas Review-Journal was stabbed to death at his Las Vegas home over Labor Day weekend. The shocking murder of a local newsman stunned the Vegas community – and German’s work as an investigative reporter immediately triggered speculation that the slaying may have been related to one of his stories.

A few days after the murder, the Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department released images and video of a suspect. The man in the images is clad in the garb thousands of Vegas area landscapers and construction workers don for their job, including an orange shirt, gloves, and a large-brimmed hat. Police also alerted the public to be on the lookout for a red SUV potentially linked to the suspect.

Then on September 7, 2022, news broke that police were executing a search warrant at the house of the Clark County Public Administrator, Robert Telles. Reporters with the Las Vegas Review-Journal located an SUV similar to the one described by police parked in Telles’ driveway. Detectives scoured Telles’ suburban Las Vegas home located about six miles from the scene of Jeff German’s murder. In a somewhat bizarre turn, news footage from later in the day showed Telles entering his home dressed in coveralls that made him look like Walter White during a cook session.

**Local media broadcast Rob Telles outside his home in bizarre garb after being interviewed by Las Vegas police on September 7, 2022. (KLAS)**

By the end of the day, SWAT teams were dispatched to Telles’ neighborhood after he refused to answer the door for police. After a barricade situation, officers entered the home and arrested Telles, who had suffered a non-fatal self-inflicted stab wound. Police tied genetic evidence found at the crime scene to Telles, and the County Public Administrator now faces charges of open murder in relation to German’s killing.

As far as a motive, German had recently written several stories about Telles’ mismanagement of his duties as Public Administrator and an alleged affair with a staff member, with these articles potentially contributing to Telles’ loss of his primary election this past June. Telles angrily took to social media on several occasions to lambast German’s reporting.

**The *Las Vegas Sun* endorsed Telles in his race for Public Administrator during the 2018 election. (Las Vegas-Clark County Library District/LV Sun)**

If Telles is responsible for German’s murder, then what is currently known about the crime is disturbing in its calculated nature. The killer chose a disguise designed to blend into the background of the city and avoid drawing notice. And the use of a knife as a murder method was likely done to avoid the noise associated with a firearm, which could draw unwanted attention and render escape from the crime scene more difficult.

On a separate note, the arrest of Telles shocked many members of the relatively small legal community in Las Vegas. Telles had been a graduate of UNLV’s Boyd School of Law and operated his own firm - Accolade Law - for several years before election as Public Administrator. One of these writers remembers during his time as a judicial law clerk Telles’ frequent appearances at Family Court.

**Screenshots from site for Accolade Law, Telles’ former law firm, along with a biography written by Telles.**

While there is some satisfaction that the senseless murder of Jeff German appears to have been quickly solved, the Las Vegas community lost a diligent voice in the search for truth and accountability. In the course of writing stories for Mayhem in the Desert, we spend a good deal of time combing through various news archives, including those of the Las Vegas Sun and Las Vegas Review-Journal. We can’t count how many times German’s byline appeared in a well-crafted article about crime and corruption in Sin City.