Trial of ex-politician in killing of Vegas reporter opens with video of attacker 'lying in wait'

LAS VEGAS (AP) — A jury in a hushed courtroom saw security video of a person wearing bright orange clothing slip into the yard of a home where a veteran Las Vegas investigative journalist was ambushed and killed nearly two years ago as the trial of a former elected county official charged with the reporter's murder began Wednesday.

The video was from the home of Holly and Row Bailey, longtime neighbors and friends of Jeff German, a Las Vegas Review-Journal reporter. The Baileys each wept as they told the jury that they thought it was odd that German’s garage door remained open all day with his car inside, but they could not reach him by telephone or text message.

“That person stays, lying in wait, for Jeff German,” prosecutor Pamela Weckerly told jurors during opening statements in the high-profile trial. “Mr. German opens his garage, goes into that side yard, and he is attacked.”

German, who lived alone, was found the next day in the side yard, slashed and stabbed to death. It was Labor Day weekend 2022. He was 69.

The killing of German, who spent 44 years covering Las Vegas mobsters and public officials, and the arrest several days later of Robert Telles, formerly the elected Democratic administrator of a Clark County office of unclaimed estates, stunned Las Vegas and the world of journalism.

Prosecutors say articles that German wrote critical of Telles and a county office in turmoil, including allegations that Telles had an inappropriate relationship with a subordinate employee, provided Telles’ motive for the killing.

Telles, 47, has pleaded not guilty to murder with a deadly weapon of a person age 60 or older, and could face life in prison if he’s convicted. Prosecutors aren’t seeking the death penalty. Telles has said he didn’t kill German, was framed for the crime and police mishandled the investigation.

After German's first articles appeared in May 2022, Telles lost a party primary to keep his elected position. Weckerly told the jury that German was preparing another article about Telles when he died.

German was the only reporter killed in the U.S. among 69 news media workers slain worldwide that year, according to data by the Committee to Protect Journalists.

On the video, bushes rustle but a view into the side yard is blocked. The prosecutor let the scene play silently for the packed courtroom. A little more than two minutes elapse, then the orange figure emerges and begins walking down a sidewalk. German does not reappear.

Other neighborhood video shows the person in orange getting into a maroon SUV like one that a Review-Journal photographer found Telles washing outside his home several days later. A day after that, Telles was arrested by Las Vegas police. He has remained jailed ever since.

The first images of German that the jury saw on Wednesday were autopsy photos: His throat cut; light blue T-shirt bloodstained; arms with multiple slash marks; darkened material beneath his fingernails. Some of about 10 German family members in the courtroom dabbed tears. Telles squinted his eyes and watched a defense table video monitor.

Defense attorney Robert Draskovich has said Telles intends to testify in his defense. That could come next week.

“Is Mr. Telles in a position to say who killed Mr. German? No,” Draskovich told the jury during his opening statement Wednesday.

But he promised to present evidence that the case is tainted and not as strong as prosecutors have said — including DNA believed to be from Telles found beneath German’s fingernails.

“There will be a great deal of testimony concerning DNA," Draskovich said. “Inferences will be made, inferences will be drawn and inferences will be attacked.”

Draskovich said he intends to show that some police body-worn camera video of Telles' detention before his arrest was destroyed, and suggested that key items may have been planted by someone else at Telles' home, including a cut-up straw hat like one worn by the person wearing orange.

“No blood whatsoever” from German “was found on Mr. Telles,” Draskovich said.

Draskovich cast his client as a self-made family man who put himself through law school and a corruption-fighting elected public servant who met political and social pushback from an “old guard” real estate network that Draskovich alleged reaped benefits buying and selling properties of people whose estates Telles’ office administered.

Social media posts, emails, texts and public statements by Telles that complained about German's articles were “a reasonable response to criticism which came from the job,” the defense attorney said. “He was upsetting the apple cart.”

“I am about nothing but justice, fairness and just being a good person,” Telles is heard telling German in an audio interview aired with the May 2022 Review-Journal articles about the public administrator office. “It's unreal the length they going ... to try to ruin my personal life.”

Testimony from prosecution witnesses on Wednesday also included police crime scene technicians who collected evidence. Weckerly and fellow prosecutor Christopher Hamner are expected to continue presenting the state's case through Thursday and into Friday.

German’s relatives have not spoken publicly about the killing and declined as a group in court Wednesday to comment.

Weckerly, in her opening statement, indicated the prosecution would be prepared for Telles’ lines of defense.

“In the end, this case is not about politics,” she told the jury. “It’s not about an alleged inappropriate relationship. It's not about who's a good boss or who's a good supervisor or favoritism at work. It's just about murder."

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This story has been updated to correct prosecutor's quote in third paragraph to ‘lying in wait,’ not ‘laying in wait.’

Robert Telles, left, listens in court with his attorneys Robert Draskovich, right, and Michael Horvath, prior to jury selection on the second day of his murder trial at the Regional Justice Center in Las Vegas Tuesday, Aug. 13, 2024. Telles, a former Clark County public administrator, is charged in the murder of Las Vegas Review-Journal investigative journalist Jeff German. (K.M. Cannon/Las Vegas Review-Journal via AP, Pool)

Robert Telles, center, listens in court with his attorneys Robert Draskovich, right, and Michael Horvath, prior to jury selection on the second day of his murder trial at the Regional Justice Center in Las Vegas Tuesday, Aug. 13, 2024. Telles, a former Clark County public administrator, is charged in the murder of Las Vegas Review-Journal investigative journalist Jeff German. (K.M. Cannon/Las Vegas Review-Journal via AP, Pool)

Defense attorney Robert Draskovich, right, adjusts the collar of his client Robert Telles prior to jury selection on the second day of Telles' murder trial at the Regional Justice Center in Las Vegas Tuesday, Aug. 13, 2024. Telles, a former Clark County public administrator, is charged in the murder of Las Vegas Review-Journal investigative journalist Jeff German. (K.M. Cannon/Las Vegas Review-Journal via AP, Pool)

Robert Telles arrives in court prior to jury selection on the second day of his murder trial at the Regional Justice Center in Las Vegas Tuesday, Aug. 13, 2024. Telles, a former Clark County public administrator, is charged in the murder of Las Vegas Review-Journal investigative journalist Jeff German. (K.M. Cannon/Las Vegas Review-Journal via AP, Pool)

FILE - Outgoing Clark County Public Administrator Robert Telles washes his car outside his home, Sept. 6, 2022, in Las Vegas. (Benjamin Hager/Las Vegas Review-Journal via AP, File)

Robert Draskovich, right, and Michael Horvath, left, attorneys for Robert Telles, talk to Chief Deputy District Attorney Christopher Hamner prior to jury selection on the second day of Telles' murder trial at the Regional Justice Center in Las Vegas Tuesday, Aug. 13, 2024. Telles, a former Clark County public administrator, is charged in the murder of Las Vegas Review-Journal investigative journalist Jeff German. (K.M. Cannon/Las Vegas Review-Journal via AP, Pool)

FILE - Clark County Public Administrator Robert Telles, right, talks to Las Vegas Review-Journal reporter Jeff German in his Las Vegas office, on May 11, 2022. (K.M. Cannon/Las Vegas Review-Journal via AP, File)

District Judge Michelle Leavitt talks to attorneys during jury selection in the murder trial of Robert Telles at the Regional Justice Center in Las Vegas, Monday, Aug. 12, 2024. Telles, a former Clark County public administrator, is accused of killing Las Vegas Review-Journal investigative journalist Jeff German. (K.M. Cannon/Las Vegas Review-Journal via AP, Pool)

Robert Telles arrives in court on the first day of jury selection for his murder trial at the Regional Justice Center in Las Vegas, Monday, Aug. 12, 2024. Telles, a former Clark County public administrator, is accused of killing Las Vegas Review-Journal investigative journalist Jeff German. (K.M. Cannon/Las Vegas Review-Journal via AP, Pool)

Robert Telles, left, talks with his attorneys Robert Draskovich, right, and Michael Horvath, in court prior to jury selection on the second day of his murder trial at the Regional Justice Center in Las Vegas Tuesday, Aug. 13, 2024. Telles, a former Clark County public administrator, is charged in the murder of Las Vegas Review-Journal investigative journalist Jeff German. (K.M. Cannon/Las Vegas Review-Journal via AP, Pool)

NEW YORK (AP) — Disgraced ex-movie mogul Harvey Weinstein faces mounting legal and health troubles some seven years after scores of women came forward with allegations of sexual misconduct against him, helping launch the global #MeToo movement.

On Thursday, he was indicted on additional sex crimes charges in New York ahead of a retrial this fall. The grand jury decision remains sealed until he is formally arraigned in court.

Weinstein has maintained that any sexual activity was consensual.

Meanwhile, the 72-year-old remains hospitalized following emergency heart surgery — just the latest in an assortment of medical ailments that have cropped up while in custody.

Here’s a recap of where things stand:

In April, New York's highest court overturned Weinstein’s 2020 conviction on rape and sexual assault charges, ruling that the trial judge had unfairly allowed testimony against him based on allegations from other women that were not part of the case.

A new trial was ordered and the tentative start date is Nov. 12.

One of the two accusers in that case has said she is prepared to testify against Weinstein again, but it remains to be seen if the other accuser will also take the stand once more.

Weinstein had been sentenced to 23 years in prison for that conviction.

Earlier this month, prosecutors disclosed that a Manhattan grand jury had reviewed evidence of up to three additional allegations against Weinstein.

They include alleged sexual assaults at the Tribeca Grand Hotel, now known as the Roxy Hotel, and in a Lower Manhattan residential building between late 2005 and mid-2006, and an alleged sexual assault at a Tribeca hotel in May 2016.

It is unclear when Weinstein will be formally charged on those allegations, given his current health condition. The next court hearing ahead of the retrial is slated for Sept. 18.

It is also unclear how the additional allegations will factor in the retrial. Prosecutors want to include the new charges in the retrial, but Weinstein’s lawyers oppose that, saying it should be a separate case.

In 2022, Weinstein was found guilty of rape, forced oral copulation and another sexual misconduct count after a one-month trial in Los Angeles. He was sentenced to 16 years in prison.

During the trial, a woman testified that Weinstein appeared uninvited at her hotel room during the LA Italia Film Festival in 2013 and that Weinstein became sexually aggressive after she let him in.

Weinstein’s lawyers appealed the conviction in June, arguing the trial judge wrongly excluded evidence that the Italian model and actor had a sexual relationship with the film festival director at the time of the alleged attack.

Britain’s Crown Prosecution Service announced Sept. 5 that it had decided to drop two charges of indecent assault against Weinstein because there was “no longer a realistic prospect of conviction.’’

In 2022, the agency authorized London’s Metropolitan Police Service to file the charges against Weinstein over an alleged incident that occurred in London in 1996. The victim was in her 50s at the time of the announcement.

Weinstein also faces several lawsuits brought by women accusing him of sexual misconduct.

Among the latest is one from actor Julia Ormond, who starred opposite Brad Pitt in “Legends of the Fall” and Harrison Ford in “Sabrina.” She filed the lawsuit last year in New York accusing Weinstein of sexually assaulting her in 1995 and then hindering her career.

The majority of lawsuits against Weinstein were brought to a close through a 2021 settlement as part of the bankruptcy of his former film company, The Weinstein Co. The agreement included a victims’ fund of about $17 million for some 40 women who sued him.

Weinstein’s lawyers have regularly raised concerns about his worsening health since being taken into custody following his 2020 conviction.

During his appearances in Manhattan court, he’s regularly transported in a wheelchair and his lawyers say he suffers from macular degeneration and diabetes that’s worsened due to the poor jailhouse diet.

Weinstein’s pericardiocentesis surgery last week was to drain fluid around his heart. His lawyers say his medical regimen causes him to retain water and that he must be constantly monitored to ensure the fluid buildup isn’t deadly.

A judge has granted his request to remain at Manhattan’s Bellevue Hospital indefinitely instead of being transferred back to the infirmary ward at the city’s notorious Rikers Island jail complex.

Follow Philip Marcelo at twitter.com/philmarcelo.

A look at Harvey Weinstein’s health and legal woes as he faces more criminal charges

A look at Harvey Weinstein’s health and legal woes as he faces more criminal charges

FILE — Harvey Weinstein appears for a pretrial hearing in Manhattan criminal court, July 19, 2024, in New York. (Adam Gray/Pool Photo via AP, File)