Trial starts for Las Vegas politician accused in reporter's murder

A jury heard opening statements on Wednesday in the trial of a former Las Vegas official accused of murdering a reporter who wrote negative articles about him.

Former Clark County Public Administrator Robert Telles has been jailed since 2022 for allegedly stabbing Las Vegas Review-Journal investigative reporter Jeff German.

Mr Telles has pleaded not guilty and says he was framed by police.

He faces a life sentence if convicted.

Mr German, 69, was stabbed to death outside his Nevada home on 2 September 2022.

As part of his coverage of crime and government corruption, he had written four articles about Mr Telles, who was elected in 2018, alleging hostile behaviour in his office and an affair with a subordinate. Mr German had one more article to publish about Mr Telles at the time of his death.

After the first story came out, Mr Telles, a Democrat, lost his primary bid for re-election.

Four women had told Mr German the agency turned into a toxic workplace, beginning after Mr Telles took office in January 2019. They alleged that Mr Telles, 47, threatened them and ordered them not to speak to each other.

They also took video of him in the backseat of a car with a subordinate, which appeared to be part of an inappropriate relationship.

Mr German was off work at his home on the day he was killed.

Surveillance video shows an individual, wearing a straw sunhat and an orange reflective shirt, approach his yard and sneak in through a gate.

The video also shows Mr German fall to the ground.

A neighbour discovered his body 24 hours later.

He was stabbed seven times - four in the neck and three in the torso. According to the Committee to Protect Journalists, Mr German was the only journalist in 2022 killed in the United States.

Former Clark County Public Administrator Robert Telles, right, talks to Review-Journal reporter Jeff German in his Las Vegas office in 2022.

The staff of the Las Vegas Review-Journal began investigating Mr German's death almost immediately, brainstorming a list of people to look into based on Mr German's prior reporting.

One of those names was Mr Telles.

The journalists discovered he was arrested while in office on charges of domestic battery and resisting arrest for choking his wife.

They turned also to the surveillance video. A photographer who had filmed Mr Telles walking during an interview said the assailant had the same gait.

When police released a photo of the suspect's car, an editor searched Mr Telles' home address on Google Earth and found the same vehicle parked in the driveway.

Then a photographer went to the Telles house and got a shot of the former public administrator washing the car.

Five days after Mr German's murder, police brought Mr Telles in for questioning and began executing search warrants.

Detectives collected DNA from Mr Telles that matched samples taken from under Mr German's fingernails.

They also found a straw sunhat cut into pieces in his garage.

Mr Telles was booked into the Clark County Detention Center and indicted by a grand jury for murder with use of a dead weapon.

He pleaded not guilty and has been awaiting trial since his arrest. The jury for the trial was selected on Monday and Tuesday.