Democrat Las Vegas Official Accused of Murdering Journalist Keeps His Paycheck and Position
Las Vegas Review-Journal investigative reporter Jeff German wrote many articles about Clark County Public Administrator Rob Telles.
Clark County Public Administrator Rob Telles is accused of murdering Las Vegas Review-Journal investigative reporter Jeff German.
Telles could remain in his role.
“For now, he’s still an elected officer and he’ll get paid while he’s in jail,” confirmed Democratic Clark County Commissioner Tick Segerblom.
Segerbloom thinks the commission could take action by ordering a recall. From KLAS:
That would require a recall petition and other work, including gathering and verifying more than 100,000 signatures. Before Telles’ arrest, an election was already in the works to choose his replacement since Telles lost his June primary.
“We can take the scope of work away from him, but as far as him having the title and getting the salary, it is that way, because the voters picked him,” Segerblom said.
Telles could also resign.
Judge Elana Lee Graham denied bail for Telles on Thursday. If a judge sets bail and Telles is released pending trial, he will not have access to his office or other county buildings, officials said Thursday.
“People don’t need to worry that the place isn’t being run or he’s still running it,” Segerblom said. Former Clark County coroner Michael Murphy was hired to mend tension in the office earlier this year.
The public administrator “runs the office that administers a deceased person’s estate is no family is found or if the family is unable.”
Telles gained his position in 2019. Gov. Steve Sisolak (D) placed him on the Board of Indigent Defense.
The board removed Telles, who also lost the privilege as a voting member after the governor signed the paperwork.
Telles also lost a three-way primary in June for the job to his deputy.
Telles faces an open murder charge:
Telles, 45, a Democrat, was taken into custody Wednesday in the murder of Las Vegas Review-Journal investigative reporter Jeff German. Telles faces one charge of open murder.
German, 69, was found deceased outside his home on Saturday. He had published several stories about Telles’ office, saying it was in “turmoil” in the months leading up to his stabbing death last weekend.
Telles’ DNA was discovered under German’s fingernails, sources told the 8 News Now Investigators on Thursday.
German covered Telles many times. He was working on a story at the time of his murder. Previous stories covered the hostile work environment caused by Telles and an inappropriate relationship.
From The Las Vegas Review-Journal:
The criminal complaint — a document used to charge defendants — was filed on Monday. It shows that Telles faces a charge of murder with the following enhancements: use of a deadly weapon and victim being an older person.
Enhancements on criminal charges can result in longer sentences.
The one-page criminal complaint alleges that the killing was “willful, deliberate and premeditated,” “perpetrated by lying in wait for” German, and/or “perpetrated by abuse of an older person.”
It also alleges that German was stabbed with a knife.
The law firm Hofland & Tomsheck explained what an “open murder charge” is in Nevada:
In Nevada, a person accused of a homicide will generally be charged by the prosecutor with “open murder” – – meaning that they are charged with a general allegation of Murder, which includes each of the following types of homicide: First Degree Murder, Second Degree Murder, Voluntary Manslaughter and Involuntary Manslaughter. These types of homicide are defined generally as follows:
- 1st Degree Murder – the unlawful killing of a human being with malice aforethought. First Degree Murder must contain the elements of willfulness, premeditation and deliberation or be perpetrated by means of poison, lying in wait or torture, committed during the perpetration of certain felonies (arson, burglary, home invasion, kidnapping, sexual assault/abuse, robbery, abuse of an older person or vulnerable person), committed to prevent arrest or imprisonment or to facilitate escape from custody, committed on school grounds or intended to risk of death or harm to others;
- 2nd Degree Murder – is literally all other kinds of murder which are not first degree.
- Voluntary Manslaughter – is defined as the unlawful killing of another human being – – and can occur without malice or deliberation – – usually voluntary manslaughter occurs during the “sudden heat of passion” and/or a “provocation which made the passion irresistible.
- Involuntary Manslaughter – The unintentional killing of a human being under certain circumstances.
In cases where a criminal defendant is charged with open murder, it is up to the judge or jury to decide which level of offense occurred.
Christopher Oram, a defense attorney not associated with the case, thinks the prosecutors will charge Telles with first-degree murder.
The “willful, deliberate and premeditated” and “lying in wait” parts of the criminal complaint “are the standards, the elements of first-degree murder.”
Telles’s term expires in January.
This is America. Everyone is innocent until proven guilty. No one should lose their job or salary until proven guilty in a court of law, even if the evidence is strong against the defendant.
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Nothing new…
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Narciso_Gener_Gonzales
Shades of Ted Kennedy and Chappaquiddick!!
10 out of 10 medical students, the “cream of the crop,” couldn’t tell me what Chappaquiddick was all about….
Of course he did. He’s a Democrat.
That wouldn’t happen if he was a ‘MAGA Republican’. He’d be destitute and out on the street.
And the leftwing Dem propaganda media complex would be judging and condemning him 24/7, fabricating ties with Trump and J6 in every way they could.
That is absolutely not true. Exactly the same thing would happen to a Republican, and you know that very well. Truth matters, and you have no right to just make stuff up, just because it makes you feel good.
And sure, the Dems would condemn him. Why shouldn’t they? Note that nobody is defending this guy, not even the Dems. But none of that can affect his position or his pay. If you want to remove an elected official there are sometimes ways to do so, but you have to go through them. You can’t just wave a wand and do it.
D*mn you, Milhouse, for countering rhetoric with facts! /sarcasm
“That is absolutely not true. Exactly the same thing would happen to a Republican, and you know that very well.”
Woops, hit the wrong button before I finished. To continue… from the website of a “J6 widow”:
Yup, equal protection of the laws is in no danger at all in modern America.
Their benefits are being suspended because that is what the law explicitly requires. The law very specifically says that when the VA secretary is informed that someone has been indicted for one of a specific list of crimes he is to immediately suspend their gratuitous benefits. If they are acquitted the benefits are retroactively restored as of the day they were suspended; if they are convicted their eligibility is retroactively canceled since the day they committed the offense. There is no wiggle room in the law.
Publish and Perish.
Looks like Fetterman without the beard.
…or the lump.
My first thought was: DC Comics villain.
“Everyone is innocent until proven guilty. No one should lose their job or salary until proven guilty in a court of law, even if the evidence is strong against the defendant.”
On the other hand, every local and state level party official should be visiting him in jail to ask for his resignation. Then, if he refuses, they can say so publicly and wash their hands of the whole situation.
It should also be legally possible to suspend his pay until or unless he is acquitted of charges. If there is no such law, this is a good time for state reps to make themselves look good by submitting a bill.
Just shrugging their shoulders as if there’s nothing that can be done is pathetic.
Why should there be such a law? On what grounds would you deprive someone of their lawful income just because they’ve been accused of something? Would you apply that to yourself too?
Why should there be such a law? Well, common decency comes to mind. Telles plotted the murder of a reporter who was rightly questioning many of his actions. Telles laid in wait, attacked, stabbed and killed the man. Telles’ DNA is under German’s fingernails. At the very least he should be suspended without pay, and someone appointed to fill his position until the case is tried. If his pay continues and he is found guilty, he should be forced to repay his salary from the point of the murder. You usually have a good take on things, but on this you’re dead wrong. If this had been a Republican office holder, the media firestorm would ensure that the perp would be suspended without pay immediately, evidence or no evidence, law or no law, and you know it. It would make the Rittenhouse case look like a kindergarten class. The point that has been made about the January 6 protestors is valid. These people, many of them veterans, most of whom were waved into the building by Capitol Police, have had their habeas corpus rights stripped away, many are or were being held in solitary confinement, and now they are having their VA benefits stripped away by a vindictive government before any trial or conviction. If the rights of people who by and large were legally protesting the handling of the last Presidential election aren’t being protected, why should a person accused of murder continue to be paid just because they’re an elected official? And yes, I would apply any law about this to everyone, me included. I would have no worries, because unlike Telles, I’m not a murdering POS.
Really? He did those things? How do you know? As a matter of law it has not yet been established that he did any of those things, so he must be presumed under the law not to have done them. If he is convicted, which may or may not happen, then he will be subject to the penalties prescribed by law.
On the contrary, you know very well that this is not true. You are making up lies, just because it makes you feel better and will make you more popular among the liars who infest this forum.
The VA benefits are being suspended, not terminated, because that is what the law says must happen. 38 USC 6105. If they are acquitted they will get everything paid. But that is a specific law about specific charges, and only about benefits that only exist by Congress’s grant in the first place, not something they’re inherently entitled to. Here we’re talking about someone elected to an office, and thus entitled to the lawful salary for that office. A mere indictment is not enough to deprive them of it.
It seems very likely that Telles is guilty, based on what little I have read in the news. But news reports are sometimes wrong.
The purpose of a trial is to establish guilt or innocence in a forum where all facts are brought forward. Kevin, you should know that reports are not 100% reliable. Would you like to be deprived of your rights based on what a reporter said?
Roper: So now you’d give the Devil benefit of law?
More: Yes. What would you do? Cut a great road through the law to get after the Devil?
Roper: I’d cut down every law in England to do that!
More: Oh? And, when the last law was down, and the Devil turned round on you – where would you hide, Roper, the laws all being flat? This country’s planted thick with laws from coast to coast – man’s laws, not God’s – and, if you cut them down – and you’re just the man to do it – d’you really think you could stand upright in the winds that would blow then? Yes, I’d give the Devil benefit of law, for my own safety’s sake.
It’s better to be a Democrat, I guess.
‘When vindictive leftists get in charge’: VA suspends benefits for Jan. 6 prisoner held in DC gulag
And that quote is a f*cking lie. Whoever told this reporter that the law says “upon conviction” is a f*cking liar, and the reporter is incompetent for not checking it. The guy’s benefits have been suspended, not terminated. If he’s acquitted the benefits will be restored retroactive to the day of the suspension. If he’s convicted he will have to pay back anything he received since the day of the offense. That is what the law requires
VA Benefits – Incarcerated Veterans
Harrelson has been in pre-trial confinement for 475+ days, not convicted of anything.
As you so ardently state above, “On what grounds would you deprive someone of their lawful income just because they’ve been accused of something?”
Nothing in that reference mentions suspending benefits prior to conviction, Perhaps you have one that supports your claim?
That is NOT the law in question, and you know it, because the law is cited in the article you linked to. 38 USC § 6105. ” After receipt of notice of the return of an indictment for such an offense the Secretary shall suspend payment of such gratuitous benefits pending disposition of the criminal proceedings.” There’s nothing ambiguous about that.
“And that quote is a f*cking lie”
So is your post, Milhouse. Get off your fucking high horse.
Income delayed is income denied… especially when your wife and kids depend on that income TO LITERALLY EXIST.
Milhouse’s persona.
https://www.flamewarriorsguide.com/warriorshtm/nitpick.htm
Sometimes, he makes good points. Most times, he’s 100% this.
Imagine having to be around him in person.
Milhouse, you always miss the point because you are laser-focused on minutiae. NONE of these people should be held, period. They are accused of “parading” and “trespassing,” yet have been held in truly appalling conditions for almost three years? I don’t care if it’s “legal,” it’s wrong, and that is where you always fail. You’re so busy busting the trees that you don’t care about or even see the forest.
Obscure Canadian minutiae follows:
During the FLQ Crisis of the 1970s, the RCMP in Quebec were known to burn down the barns and rural properties of vocal separatists. When asked about this, the Prime Minister (the Sr. Trudeau) said that perhaps he’d make it legal for the RCMP to burn down barns.
Mark Steyn commented some decades later on this incident by saying that burning down people’s barns isn’t wrong because it’s illegal; it’s illegal because it’s wrong, and misunderstanding which way that causation arrow points leads to some truly horrifying governmental abuses.
No, you are missing the point. The point here is a lunatic commenter’s claim that if this alleged murderer were a Republican he would have been removed from office, or his pay stopped. And to support that outright f*cking lie, which he knows to be a lie, he cites a news report about veterans who have been indicted for alleged crimes, and whose VA benefits have been suspended because that is what the law requires.
And that news report, despite citing the law that says so, then tells an absolute f*cking lie, that the law says “upon conviction”, when anyone can look it up and see that it explicitly requires benefits to be suspended on indictment.
Then they compound the lie by citing some VA web site which is not the relevant law as cited in the news article, and pretending that the suspension somehow “violates” that web site. Of course the statement on the web site is not relevant and is not the basis on which the benefits have been suspended. And they all know this, or if they don’t they’re being very negligent, because the news article they are all working off gives the reference.
And that is the entire point. Telling lies because it makes you feel like a victim and that feels good. Just like people who make up these fantasies that Moslems are treated better than Christians in this country, and given free passes from the laws that are applied to Christians. None of them can come up with any examples of this, so they just point to something happening to a Christian and say “You know if that were a Moslem the law wouldn’t be enforced”. Or they point to something good happening to a Moslem and say “You know that a Christian would never get that”. In both cases that is a deliberate knowing lie. Not only do we not know it, we all know the exact opposite. Wanting it to be true is not the same as knowing it to be true.
Look at that mug shot. Second meanest face I’ve ever seen. Add gray hair with a touch of Joker and you would have Joe Biden—walk slumped over and mumlbe and he could pass for president of the U.S.
Naah. He just looks constipated.
No shit!
Well—mumble, but there’s no edit function so I’ll have to go with mumlbe, which is okay because that’s how Biden would pronounce it anyway.
No. You’re fine. You used the Romance language spelling, and it is pronounced, “moom-BLEH”.
I think that’s my native tongue.
Eh, put him jail and Democrats will let him out again anyway
He is in jail. And nobody is letting him out.
Must be a poor criminal not on any Democrats good side
Or, does it make massive campaign contributions.
“Telles could also resign.”
Bwa ha ha ha ha ha ha!
Love your dry wit, Mary!
He’s got Obama’s hateful face, and Gretchin Whitmer’s forehead.
What could go wrong?
“This is America. Everyone is innocent until proven guilty. No one should lose their job or salary until proven guilty in a court of law, even if the evidence is strong against the defendant.This is America. Everyone is innocent until proven guilty. No one should lose their job or salary until proven guilty in a court of law, even if the evidence is strong against the defendant.”
And unicorns do exist!
Any private company in the history of our nation would have canned his ass immediately. While we may have the presumption of innocence within a courtroom that presumption has never extended beyond the courtroom.
We all know O.J. did it, but he was found not guilty. How many acting jobs did he get after being charged? I am pretty sure that number is zero. Presumption of innocence is a legal nicety that has little to no bearing on one’s public life.
In an at-will employment state, sure, an employer would have fired him, and it wouldn’t matter whether it was fair or not. But in a state where you can’t just be fired on a whim the employer would have to prove good cause, by whatever standard the state imposes, and couldn’t just say “He was arrested so I don’t want him working for me”.
And here we are not talking about private employment at all, and not even about government employment, but about an elected official. The government is required by law to employ and pay him, and it can’t get out of that obligation simply because of an allegation that as a matter of law is currently presumed not to be true.
Except I am not really talking about any of that. I was replying to the fantasy that innocent until proven guilty means anything in one’s public life. And to extend that sentiment beyond what amounts to a legal impediment to dismissing Telles is a bit absurd.