48 Hours - Post Mortem | The Assassination of Jeff German

Episode Date: February 20, 2024

Correspondent Peter Van Sant and Producer Liza Finley discuss the suspicious evidence collected at the home of Robert Telles, a Clark County elected official with a history of domestic violence. In their interview with Robert, he claims he’s being framed for the murder of Journalist Jeff German, who built a career exposing government corruption and corporate crime.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

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Today, we're going to dig into the murder of Las Vegas Review-Journal reporter Jeff Gehrman. And joining me now to take us behind the scenes of 48 Hours is correspondent Peter Van Sant and producer Liza Finley. Hello, Anne-Marie. Hey, Anne-Marie. It's great to be back. So, of course, because I'm a journalist, one of the things that really drew me to this story is that it is the story of how vulnerable journalists can be, but how his fellow reporters rallied around, how they didn't just report on one of their own, but it was almost another investigation that they were conducting at the same time. Absolutely. With journalists, because we oftentimes deal with very difficult stories, emotional stories, stories in which a life has been lost, it is fraught at times with some danger because you have people who we may be pursuing who are suspected killers.

And as a result, there is a bond that is formed among journalists. And when one of us is lost in a situation like this, everyone rallies, everyone wants to come to the aid, and everyone wants to try to solve the crime. It also brings to mind that it could have been me. to solve the crime. It also brings to mind that it could have been me. And they were terrified that this was he was killed for a story that others had been working on. So they lived in fear, looking over their shoulders that they might be next. So let's kind of go through the case. How did it all unfold? Well, this goes back to September 2nd, 2022. Jeff Gehrman was attacked outside his home in Las Vegas. And of all places that one would think you might be attacked, that's kind of the last place, right? You feel safe when

you're at your home generally. And the tragedy in this too was that a neighbor didn't discover his body until about a day later. He'd been attacked on the side of his house and he had been stabbed seven times in the neck and torso, and nobody had heard any screaming or anything like that. Jeff's colleagues at the Las Vegas Review-Journal suspected a man named Robert Telles. He was the public administrator, which is an office that dealt with people who died when they would sort out their estates. Jeff had reported several articles claiming that Tellus had been demeaning toward his employees and was having an affair with a subordinate in

his office. Jeff Gehrman was an incredible investigative journalist, and he cut his teeth and made his name in Las Vegas, going after some of the most powerful mobsters. Liza, tell the story. He was even attacked by one in a bar. Right. He was at a bar, sort of a party, and this mafiosa-type guy comes up to him and Jeff said to him,

call your dogs off, you know. It's like, leave me alone. And then the guy punched Jeff in the face. But of course he loved that, right? Because now he had a war story. Yeah, he definitely did not back down. But I got to tell you, this is something that I've thought about a lot, actually, with 48 Hours, with the correspondents and the producers.

Because, you know, often when you're pursuing these stories, I wonder about how vulnerable you guys are. And do you ever sort of consider that? Have you found yourself in a situation where you were threatened or concerned? One time I was doing a story. I went up to where a suspect was hiding out and we got up to the front door and he had put a sign out there that said, in a matter of seconds, you'll be in extreme pain. And he had put an electrical plate on the ground and had batteries hooked up to it. We jumped off of that just in time. But yes, throughout my career, I have done stories in which I have been threatened. One, just a couple of years ago, we did a murder for hire investigation that took us all over the world. And my camera guy is attacked. And he was

bloodied by this attack by the suspect that we were pursuing at the time. I have done stories that were controversial in which one time somebody drove in the middle of the night, a giant diesel pickup truck in front of my house, turned on the lights on bright and floored it. And it was screaming, woke up all the neighbors and stuff, called the cops, but he took off really quickly. And I've also noticed a big change since we've both, we've been at this for a while, Peter and I, and there's an anti-media sentiment going around. And I was covering the Idaho student murders and I was in the parking lot and there it's an apolitical story, a murder story. And these guys were just like yelling and were so

hostile and driving in these big, huge trucks and revving it up. And I'm like, my goodness. It's like, it's scary. It is a little scary how hated journalists are these days. I mean, it's like it's scary it is a little scary how hated journalists are these days I mean it's killed the messenger time yeah I think that's a really really keen observation I think often when we talk about journalists being vulnerable journalists being killed we think about this happening overseas and not here and this story sort of serves as such a good reminder that we should sort of be aware of the risks that many people are taking in order to get the truth out. So you focus on two major investigations here conducted by concerned citizens. First, let's talk about the four women in Robert Tellis' office who gathered evidence against him and sent information to Jeff.

And one woman in particular, Alicia Goodwin, she filed two official complaints with the county, but Alicia says nothing was done. Peter, your interview with them, it was heartbreaking. It was quite extraordinary. Harassment, emotional, and some of them felt physically threatened, can be so powerful when you are powerless and you have no place to turn. And then there's that striking moment during the interview when another woman, Jessica, who was an employee at the Clark County Public Administrator's Office, talks about taking her own life just to get someone to pay attention. Let's listen. Then I started thinking the best thing I could do would be to sacrifice myself for the girls. And I had actually picked out a place that I was going to hang myself in the

vault in view of the door because he would always come by and and make sure I was working and I thought this will be good if they have to find me this way then the county will have to do something the the job is just one portion of your life but somehow he was able to taint everything about her world right there? There was no joy. There was no point in going on. It was really something. Tell us had, according to the women, tell us had rules in the office. They were not allowed to speak to each other during work hours at all.

Not allowed to speak. Jessica was isolated in this one room and he came in and terrified her that she had reached a point where she was preparing to take her own life, and she thought this would be a way of drawing attention to this man and that she would save her colleagues. It was unbelievable to look at her face, the amount of extreme pain. It shocked all of us. We couldn't believe this story. Afterwards, we talked about this off and on for days.

It really laid bare the kind of atmosphere that was inside this office. Right, the distress that they were experiencing. I mean, they told story after story about having to sit in the car and cry before they walked into the office. And they were friends, you know, work friends, and they'd worked together for years. They weren't allowed to communicate. They had to sort of secretly meet in the parking lot to say hello to each other. It was like a psychological torture where they claimed that he slowly, slowly took away all their dignity, all their power in the office. But, you know, also, I think an important part of the story that really didn't make it into the hour

is the accountability of the county and that they did not respond to these women. And they had the two formal complaints, but there were many calls to the HR. The women in Tellus's office said there were many pleas for help, and they ignored it. He's an elected official. You can't do anything. At one point, they even suggested that he be the person who would be dealing with all the complaints over them.

And, you know, they were hopeless. Try to imagine that, right? So they turned to Jeff Gehrman, the investigative journalist, because one of the women's father was an investigator and said, hey, this guy, talk to him and see if he'd be interested. Okay, let's talk about why Jeff took on this story. You sort of touched on it a little bit because this is not his typical beat. They called them. They were desperate. And he promised to listen to them. He didn't promise to do a story. So he met them and he spent a lot of time listening to them and investigating on his own. But he really was a compassionate man and he was really out to protect the people who couldn't protect themselves.

And he was really out to protect the people who couldn't protect themselves. And he really felt for these women. He saw the excruciating pain they were in because of this. And this was an elected official, you know, who was being paid by taxpayers. And that was another big reason why he did it. This was Gehrman saying, we have to hold our elected officials to a higher standard. They can't get away with this. They work for us. And Jeff Gehrman also found out that these stringent rules that these women described as dictatorial, well, there was one woman in the office who these rules did not apply to, according to the women. And that was a woman named Roberta.

The other women talked about how Roberta would go into Tellus's office and they'd hear all this giggling going on in there. They met all the time. They would go out at times during lunch. He treated her with respect and favoritism. The women claimed that she'd become like a second boss. And then, Liza, what was short skirt day? Well, they began to suspect that Tellus and Roberta were having an affair.

Of course, he and Roberta denied any of this. So they started to notice every day that she wore a short skirt to work. They would disappear for hours at a time during the day. And so that's what they called it, short skirt day. Their antenna went up. Yeah, these women went above and beyond. Well, it is amazing. You see them and they're like, you know, they're chasing them, following them,

you know, surreptitiously videotaping them, trying to get the proof, because nobody would believe them. In 2014, Laura Heavlin was in her home in Tennessee when she received a call from California. Her daughter, Erin Corwin, was missing. The young wife of a Marine had moved to the California desert to a remote base near Joshua Tree National Park. They have to alert the military. And when they do, the NCIS gets involved. From CBS Studios and CBS News, this is 48 Hours NCIS.

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And listen to more Exhibit C true crime shows early and ad-free right now. Exhibit C, true crime shows early and ad-free right now. So the other big investigation this hour was the one that Jeff's colleagues at the Las Vegas Review-Journal conducted after his death. Now, in the beginning, all I had to go off of were two images from the surveillance video of the assailant. How did they begin to suspect Robert Tellis may have been responsible for Jeff's death? Well, the first thing they did was look at his recent stories in the past five months to see if they could ID anybody who felt threatened by his writing. His name immediately made that list because he had tweeted out some very sort of angry tweets about Jeff. And don't forget the women also alerted the police.

And so almost everybody involved thought about potentially Robert Tellis could be a suspect. And keep in mind, once the police got involved, they checked all the security cameras of the houses around there. It's interesting that the surveillance footage, the suspect outside the house was wearing this seemingly bizarre outfit, a big straw sun hat and an orange reflective shirt. And to us in the East Coast, just weird. But out there, apparently, the construction workers and the people who work on the grounds and things,

they wear that kind of thing because the sun is the hat. That makes sense. I thought it was a woman at first, I guess because of the hat, but that makes sense. Right. And then this part really was so fascinating to me. When a Review Journal photographer, Kevin Cannon, sees the surveillance video of the suspect

walking in Jeff's neighborhood. He immediately notices the unusual gait, the way he walks. I didn't think it was tremendously unusual, but I guess because I was focusing in on it, I thought, oh yeah, I guess there is a little something there. He went digging into his files. He finds video that he had taken of Robert Tellis on the day that Jeff went to the offices to interview him. The staff at the Review Journal then compare Kevin's video next to the video of the suspect. Just another example of incredible detective work that these journalists are doing to help bring justice for their friend. Yeah, when I looked at that video, I always looked at the suspects, you know, from the shoulders up. I was trying to figure out what's under that hat, right?

What does this person look like? But these journalists noticed the gate. And you're right, it's ever so slight, but they noticed it and they zoomed in on this. Then there was more that these guys are digging into because they noticed there was a maroon SUV that was caught on the neighbor's surveillance camera. Tell that story, Liza. Once the attack occurs, Jeff is killed. The attacker comes back, drives a maroon Yukon Denali car back and parks it right in front of Jeff's house and goes in there. And apparently the journalists think to make sure that he was dead. So this detective journalist gets on Google Earth and puts in Tellus's address, and there they see what's in his driveway,

but that Yukon Maroon Denali. And it was like, bingo. What a moment that was for that team of reporters. This created this link, and it's an amazing bit of investigative work that Jeff Gehrman would have been very, very proud of. Yeah, I think it's so interesting how creative you become when you're not in law enforcement, right? You don't have the kind of access that law enforcement has. And so you have to figure out other ways to get to the bottom of a story. Did they share any of this information that they

uncovered with the police? They did share some of it. Yes, they did. And so did the women. When the police released that picture of the Denali, the women recognized it as well. They called the police. So there's cross-communication and independent investigating, which is what makes it so interesting. And nobody wanted to step—well, put it this way. The journalists did not want to step on the official investigation. They did not want to get in the way of it. One of the things that the editor said when they noticed undercover cops at Tellus' house when they were there, they backed away because they didn't want to get in the way of an investigation. So just five days after Jeff's murder, Tellus is brought in for questioning.

As police search his home, they search his cars. Can you tell us anything that police may have learned about Tellus while he was in custody? Well, what's interesting is not so much what they heard, but it's what they saw. And according to police, they noticed that Tellus had a bandage over his finger and they noticed several additional small abrasions on each hand. By this time, they knew of this surveillance video, there was a struggle that occurred. So they also noticed that the bandage over the tip of Tellus's left ring finger was removed and they saw a sharp force injury that had been super glued. According to police, Tellus had super glued it to close it, you know, to keep it from bleeding. And that's an odd thing as well. I mean, is it because it was particularly deep

and maybe he didn't want to have to go see, go to the hospital to get it stitched up? Well, this is all speculation, but it would keep it from bleeding, and yeah, then he wouldn't have to have it stitched. You know, as somebody in my long life, I've had an incision that has been glued like that. It can be quite remarkable how it works.

But this was crude and it was super glue. It wasn't medical. So let's remind everyone of some of the evidence that police found in Tellis' house, right? They find gym shoes. They find a duffel bag. It's really similar to what you can see in the surveillance video. They find a distinctive straw hat, but it's all cut up into little pieces and then later of course the dna under jeff's fingernails but i mean what's what's interesting about that attack you

remember he's covered head to toe with all this sort of garments and uh and jeff at the time i mean how he ended up getting some dna under his fingernails is really, I mean, it's kind of heroic. And the people like his editor and his colleagues, they said that was no accident. This guy knew what he was doing. He was going to get that DNA. He was going to make sure that person was convicted. And think of it, this is just a matter of seconds, convicted. And think of it, this is just a matter of seconds, seven stab wounds, right? He knows his life is soon to be over. And in that, those few seconds, he reaches out to scratch his attacker. It's pretty damning evidence. But I want to play a short clip of Tellus's explanation, because Peter, you speak to him and you say that to him.

You say, this is pretty damning. How do you explain this? Let's play some of that sound. I say that that evidence, or so-called evidence, was planted along with the other items that were allegedly found in my home as well. And we will go ahead and prove that at trial. How could someone who is trying to frame you plant your DNA under his fingernails? How would that have happened? First, they would have gotten your DNA. And then when would they have planted it under his fingernails? It seems

far-fetched. You know, crazy things have happened. And I'll tell you that I didn't kill Mr. German. So this is the moment in the hour where I'm leaning in and then I, oh my gosh, he actually spoke. You had me like kind of jumping out of my chair. The man who comes in, he's not very tall. He's slight. He is a handsome guy. He speaks confidently. And keep in mind, folks, he has not been convicted of anything yet, and he claims he has an explanation for everything. Robert Telles pleaded not guilty, and at the time we talked with him, he was representing himself. He was his own attorney.

He's a lawyer. He went to law school a little later in life, in his late 30s. I mean, he's accomplished. He was a real rising star in the Democratic Party. The party had high hopes for him one day becoming, you know, mayor, governor. I mean, he was he he was ambitious man. When he walked in, there had been some sort of a miscommunication and he wasn't expecting me. He was expecting one of my colleagues, a woman to be talking to him. And for some reason, and I know it was communicated to him, he didn't think there'd be a TV camera there. And he goes, I didn't know we're doing this. I would have shaved.

He became very much the politician was about to be on television. So I know you asked him a ton of questions. You told us his response to the allegations from the women that he worked with, that none of that happened. All lies. All lies. He got into some trouble before, though, right? There was like a domestic battery situation. Yes. Actually, when he held the job of public administrator, he was arrested. His wife had called 911 and accused him of choking her. And he was arrested and he was inebriated. He told us and anybody else who wanted to listen that he had a big drinking problem and that he's now recovering, but that he didn't know what he was doing that night.

Did that go anywhere? The domestic battery was ultimately dismissed, but he received a suspended 90-day sentence on the resisting charge, resisting arrest charge. And he was ordered to attend a corrective thinking class. And that's, I guess, also when he says he stopped drinking. class. And that's, I guess, also when he says he stopped drinking. And you mentioned that he basically had an answer for everything or a response, I should say, maybe for every question. I ended up zeroing in even more on the fingernails during the course of that interview, where I just basically said, come on, man, this is overwhelming evidence against you.

And he just kept saying the same thing. I look forward to my time in court. There is an answer to everything. I can explain everything. And he does say that he was framed. So we have to wait for trial and see what story he has to tell. It's a fascinating but also a tragic case. You know, here you have a journalist just doing his job, shining a light on abuse of power, and he pays for it with his life. But you end the hour with an uplifting note. The Review-Journal fought in court to protect Jeff's sources

and files from the police, and the Nevada Supreme Court ruled fought in court to protect Jeff's sources and files from the police. And the Nevada Supreme Court ruled that law enforcement is prohibited from searching and seizing a reporter's devices after their death. Very interesting. What was the reaction from Jeff's colleagues? It was jubilation. Proud. They were very proud.

The sources were everything to Jeff. He was trusted. People knew they could trust him. He had resources in police, in the prosecution, you know, in government. And if these names ever got out, it could be potentially very harmful to the sources. So these journalists fought really hard to protect what Jeff would have protected and spent his life protecting. some cases intended consequences, is that they don't just get evidence on that particular case, but by George, they find out who is the number one source inside the police department. Let's say, you know, Jeff has done lots of stories involving local police, county police. They can find out who those sources are. They could silence that. They could discipline or fire people. And so this is crucially important to be able to protect sources. And that was a major victory for the Review Journal, for that newspaper.

And ultimately, it is a story about the importance of journalism and people who take it seriously and can change the world by speaking truth. Jeff Gehrman had the courage to challenge people in power and to bring justice for our greater communities. And he's gone. That voice is gone. And this case, by the way, is not over. Tellus is heading to court. And won't that be a fascinating time?

Because in my opinion, since he says he was framed, he's going to have to take the stand and tell that story, because how else can those details be revealed if not from Tellus himself? Right. And I know 48 Hours will be on it. Thank you, Peter and Liza, another great hour, and thank you so much for joining us for Postmortem. Thanks, Anne-Marie. It's always a pleasure.

So join us next Tuesday for another Postmortem and watch 48 Hours. Of course, it's Saturdays, 10, 9 Central on CBS and streaming on Paramount+. And if you are liking the show, please rate and review 48 Hours on Apple Podcasts and follow 48 Hours wherever you get your podcasts. You can also listen ad-free on the Amazon Music & Wondery app or with a 48 Hours Plus subscription on Apple Podcasts. you get your podcasts. You can also listen ad-free on the Amazon Music and Wondery app or with a 48 hours plus subscription on Apple Podcasts. If you like this podcast, you can listen ad-free right now by joining Wondery Plus in the Wondery

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