Ray William Johnson: True Story Podcast - The Killer Politician - The Robert Telles story

Episode Date: April 14, 2025

The Robert Telles story involves a shocking case of the unaliving of a journalist. Telles, a Clark County Public Administrator in Las Vegas, was arrested in September 2022 for the death of Jeff German, a veteran investigative reporter for the Las Vegas Review-Journal. German had written a series of articles exposing misconduct and a toxic workplace environment in Telles’s office, which likely contributed to Telles losing re-election.

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Now his name is Telles. And Telles is around 45 years old, living in Nevada. And one day, in 2018, Tellis gets elected to be public administrator representing Las Vegas. And this is huge for him. And the first thing he does is he comes into that office and he starts making some changes. And he hires a bunch of new staff. And he starts treating some of the holdover staff from the previous administration.

administration, like trash. Like he starts having beef with a bunch of them. Like he's always picking on these employees. Like he'll give them duties that just aren't supposed to be their responsibility. And when they question their new role, he'll go off on them. He also lays down a bunch of crazy new rules like no one in the office is allowed to use their cell phone. He even makes rules about office workers socializing with one another in the office. Like they're not allowed to socialize. And this, of course, pisses these employees. off and they start to hate Tellez and I guess he can't fire them because they work for the county and not him personally so they all have to work together in this toxic environment and eventually

these employees say fuck all this and they decide to take him down and at one point they finally get an opportunity when they notice that Tellez isn't playing by all the rules himself In fact, he's getting pretty close with one particular member of the staff. This woman, her name's Roberta. And Tellez and Roberta, you know, they're always hanging out at work, they have a lot of closed door meetings together, they're having lunch together, going on long walks together, and pretty quickly Tellis moves to the cubicle next to hers. And so the staff sees all this and they're like, okay, it seems like he's smashing with this employee,

which an elected government official in this position is not supposed to do. And on top of that, Tellez is married, which cheating on your wife isn't illegal, but it is a bad look for a public official. And this, of course, pisses the staff off even more, and some of them start filing formal complaints. But most of this seems like office politics, so the city says there's not much they can do.

So then what do these employees do? They decide to get proof that this inappropriate relationship is actually taking place. And they start playing detective. And one day, one of them waits for Tellez and Roberta to leave together on their break. And this employee follows them because they want to catch them on camera, fooling around or smashing or whatever it is they do when they meet up in secret. And so this employee follows them day after day after day. And after about two months of following them around,

They actually get this footage in a parking garage. And there they are in the car together, in the back seat, doing something. And here you can see Tellez getting out. And here you can see Roberta getting out and straightening out her dress a little. And so now these employees have what they need. Evidence of an inappropriate relationship between a government official and his staffer. Then one of the employees decides to give this footage of Tellez and Roberta to this. guy, German. And German is 69 years old and he's an investigative journalist and he's been the best

investigative journalist in Vegas for decades. Like he used to investigate and report on the mob and shit like that. Like this dude is old school. And so he takes interest in all this drama and he investigates and he interviews a bunch of current and former employees and of course these office ladies are giving him all the dirt. And in 2022, boom. German publishes an article about Teles in the Las Vegas Review Journal. Plus, he releases the video of him and Roberta in the back seat of that car to the public. And of course, people see the article and they're like, what the fuck the hell kind of shenanigans are going on at the public administrator's office. And of course, all of this makes Telles look really bad. Not to mention, I'm sure his wife isn't too happy about this

alleged affair either. And so this pisses Tellis off. And he is not going to let this slide. Now, Does Tellis go and murder all these women for doing this? Well, we'll get to that. But first, Tellis has to respond, and he puts out several statements saying that he's not actually a bad boss and that there's nothing going on between him and Roberta. She's just a co-worker, and they meet in the parking garage sometimes in the back seat to discuss work things in private. And also that he really loves his wife and he would never cheat on her. Sure, buddy. Now, as bad as that is, German isn't done.

He keeps investigating and he keeps interviewing people and getting dirt on Tellis, and he publishes three more articles about him, and all of them make him look terrible. Not only that, it's an election year, and Telles is up for re-election. I'm Rob Tellis, and I'm your Clark County Public Administrator. But, unfortunately for him, all of this bad press is just killing his campaign. In fact, one of his subordinates, like one of the staff who has hated him this whole time, is so pissed off at him for being such a terrible boss, she decides to run against him in the primary election,

and she ends up winning. So now, Teles' political career is basically over. And when his tenure ends, he's going to be unemployed. And so the workers in the office turned against him, the press all turned against him, and German is about to publish his fifth article. about him. So it seems like there's just not much Tellus can do to fix any of this. Until.

Now at this point, Tellis could maybe do some soul searching, maybe even self-reflect on his own behavior and try and figure out what he did wrong to upset all of these people. But that's not what he does. Instead, he decides to blame everyone but him for his downfall. Specifically, he focuses on one person. German, and he comes up with a plan to get revenge and make sure German can never write about him again. First, he puts on a disguise, a bright orange shirt and hat to hide his face. I guess he's trying to look like a city worker. Then he grabs a knife, and then he drives over to where German lives, he parks, and he approaches his house.

And a neighbor's security camera actually picked him up and you can see him walking by here. Then Tellis enters the property through the side gate, and he hides behind the gate in the bushes, and he waits. Five minutes later, German exits his house through the garage door, and he walks over to the side of the place where Tellis is hiding. And suddenly, Boom, Teletelps out of the bushes, and he's got that knife, and bam, he stabs German again and again and again until he's unalived. 24 hours later, one of German's neighbors finds his body and he calls police. But here's the thing about Germott. He's an investigative journalist, so all his friends and work colleagues are also investigative journalists, and they aren't going to let this murder slide.

And so some of them start putting together a list of some of the people who might want German unaligned. Old mob bosses, crooked casino owners, people like that. And they decide pretty quickly that the person with the big, motive is probably the local politician German keeps writing about. Tell us. And of course, they're right, because police have been investigating this, and they found the vehicle spotted at the scene of the crime is Tellis' wife's vehicle. Also, DNA found underneath Tellis' fingernails is Garmin's DNA.

I mean, they find all kinds of stuff. And so, bam, police arrest Tellis. Here's his mugshot. A grand jury has indicted former Clark County Public Administrative. County Public Administrator Robert Tellis for murder. And he goes to trial and he's found guilty and he gets sentenced to 28 years in prison. Wow.