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When prosecutors showed him the text message, his expression said it all. Robert Telles had erased it from his own phone but investigators retrieved it from his wife’s. Right about the same time Las Vegas reporter Jeff German was brutally stabbed to death, the defendant’s spouse wondered “where are you?” Obviously, not where she expected him to be. That’s not the only evidence against him but it was a dramatic moment in court.
Text conflicts with alibi
Robert Telles claims he ignored “several text, email and voice messages” but he was home most of the day Jeff German was killed. Except for when he went for a little walk. Then over to a gym. Prosecutors found DNA from the defendant under the victim’s finger nails but the 47-year-old Democrat civil servant continues to insist he didn’t do it.
He wasn’t expecting prosecutors to make him read one of his wife’s messages in court. “It says, ‘Where are you?‘” Telles sheepishly replied, with obvious anguish in his body language saying “I messed up. How do I fix this?” He instantly started looking like the guilty suspect from a Colombo Episode.
The victim was a veteran investigative reporter with The Las Vegas Review-Journal, who just happened to publish nasty things about Telles. The “newly unearthed text message” adds a surprise sense of mystery.
"[DNA] was planted because I did not kill Mr. German." #RobertTelles claims someone took his DNA and planted it underneath victim #JeffGerman's fingernail.
On cross, the State pressed Telles "if you are being framed, why isn't the murder weapon in your house?" #CourtTV What do… pic.twitter.com/k0bB1lv9u8
— Court TV (@CourtTV) August 22, 2024
The former Democratic Clark County administrator of estates “faced tough questioning during cross-examination on Thursday,” August 22. The message from his wife obviously rattled his cage. He thought deleting it from his phone made it go away. He thought wrong.
Right about the same time German was ambushed and killed outside his home she wondered where he was. Prosecutor Christopher Hamner “suggested that he had left the phone at home as he executed a meticulously planned fatal attack on the journalist.”
He wanted to know why the defense witness Telles called the day before didn’t list that text message under oath when testifying about cellphone records. The defendant hemmed and hawed without coming up with a good answer.
Found on her Apple Watch
Prosecutors had no trouble finding the text message. It was on his wife’s “Apple Watch device.” Obviously, it had been “deleted from Telles’ phone.” To set him up ahead of time, they had previously asked him about his phone.
He testified under oath that “he had been in possession of the phone all day and that he had had the ability to save and delete messages.” He wouldn’t admit to deleting that specific one though.
Another thing the prosecutor wanted to talk about was the vehicle Telles rides around in. The timestamp on the text message, 10:30 a.m. on September 2, 2022, was the same time depicted in “security video presented earlier to the jury.”
"It wasn't me!" On cross, #RobertTelles claims a professional assassin "in a large sun hat" was hired to kill #JeffGerman and frame him.#CourtTV What do YOU think?
Watch LIVE: https://t.co/cVt9IYmb6g pic.twitter.com/IxXvFp0MNM— Court TV (@CourtTV) August 22, 2024
The video “showed a maroon SUV that Telles had agreed looked just like his, was in German’s neighborhood.” He also had “hundreds of photos of German’s home and neighborhood on his cell phone and computer.”
Surveillance video indicates it “was driven by a person wearing an orange outfit and a big straw hat.” Telles testified that must be the killer, it’s just not him. Even though he had motive, a matching SUV and DNA matching what was recovered from the victim’s fingernails.
The political corruption German was writing about was also baseless fiction. He insists. Besides the new text message, police also found “cut-up pieces of a straw hat” at Telles’ house, along with shoes “that resembled those worn by the person seen on video outside German’s home.” The assassin waited patiently in ambush, then sprang in for the kill.
