125. The Reporter (Jeff German)

Support for swindled comes from Simply Safe.

For the longest time, I thought home security meant an alarm going off after someone broke in.

But if the alarm is already blaring, it's too late.

The damage is done.

That's a reactive approach, and it leaves you with that awful feeling of violation, even if the intruder runs away.

That's why I switched to Simply Safe.

They've completely changed the game with Active Guard outdoor protection.

designed to stop crime before it starts.

Their smart, AI-powered cameras don't just detect motion.

They can tell you when there's a person lurking on your property.

That instantly alerts SimplySafe's professional monitoring agents in real time.

And here's the game changer.

The agents can actually intervene while the intruder is still outside.

Talk to them through two-way audio, hit them with a loud siren and spotlight.

and call 911 if needed.

It's proactive security, and that's real security.

I trust SimplySafe because there are no long-term contracts, no hidden fees, and a 60-day money-back guarantee.

They've been named the best home security systems by U.S.

News and World Report for five years in a row, and I can see why.

Get 50% off your new SimplySafe system at simplysafe.com/slash swindled.

That's 50% off your new SimplySafe system by visiting simplysafe.com/slash swindled.

There's no safe like SimplySafe.

This episode of Swindled may contain graphic descriptions or audio recordings of disturbing events which may not be suitable for all audiences.

Listener discretion is advised.

Dad's still up the range.

The guy shows up in September, so he steps up and he wins the bet.

You know, so I called Dad and I says, well, Dad, you win the bet.

And he says, oh, damn.

But the truth of the matter is, he don't worry about anything of win or lose.

If he's broke, he goes to sleep just the same as if he's rich.

That's Ted Binion, Vegas Royalty.

His father, Biddy Binion, whom he's talking about in that clip, is often considered one of the founding fathers of Sin City.

Benny opened Binion's Horseshoe Casino on Fremont Street in 1951.

He's credited with the idea of offering free drinks and cheap food to gamblers.

Benny also created the World Series of Poker in 1970.

Ted and his brother took over the day-to-day operations of the horseshoe when their father was convicted of tax evasion and no longer allowed to hold a gaming license.

Their sisters, Becky and Brenda, later joined them in ownership, which led to a bitter struggle for control after Benny died in 1989.

Ted Binion, considered the most similar to their outlaw father, did not have much leverage.

His gaming license had also been suspended by the Nevada Gaming Control Board a few years earlier after a conviction for drug trafficking.

The following decade was paved with failed drug tests and new friends.

Ted Binion couldn't kick his heroin habit, so he was barred from his namesake casino on and off over the years.

Instead, Ted killed time at strip clubs and restaurants, palling around with known mobsters like Fat Herbie Blitzstein.

These ties to organized crime were frowned upon by the Gaming Commission, which led to Ted Binion's gaming license being permanently revoked in 1998.

He was forced to sell his stake in the family's casino and banned from ever stepping foot in it again.

Ted was lost without the horseshoe.

At 55 years old, the casino business was all he had ever known.

The bright side was that Ted now had more time to spend with the loves of his life.

Heroin, number one, obviously.

And two, Sandy Murphy, this attractive 26-year-old former topless dancer girlfriend, whom he moved into a 6,000-square-foot home a few years earlier.

He knocked on the door and I answered it.

He threw his arms around me and he said, I don't ever want to not know where you are again.

And proceeded to go into the house and load up my things in the car and move me in.

And that was that.

It was pretty exciting and

a little overwhelming, but we were in love.

Six months after Ted Binion lost his gaming license, on September 17th, 1998, Sandy Murphy found her lover dead on the living room floor.

My husband's not breathing.

I need someone to come out and hold it away.

I was not home,

The police arrived around 4 p.m.

to find Ted Binion face up on a sleeping bag in front of the television.

There was an empty bottle of Xanax next to him.

Toxicology tests revealed lethal levels of both heroin and Xanax in his stomach.

Investigators assumed it was an accidental overdose or suicide.

The Binion family wasn't buying it.

Ted was not suicidal.

His sister Becky said she had just talked to him.

He sounded fine.

He was making plans.

Ted's other friends agreed.

But of course, these things aren't always easily recognized.

But why was there heroin in his stomach?

Everyone knew Ted smoked heroin.

He didn't eat it.

If Ted overdosed purposely or accidentally, that's not how it would have happened.

This was just the beginning of a laundry list of suspicious circumstances.

For instance, the security cameras at Ted Binion's house stopped working two days before he died.

Pretty convenient.

Also, it was well known that Ted didn't trust banks and kept millions of dollars in cash and valuables at his residence, which immediately after his death turned up missing.

Sandy Murphy actually documented some of the unaccounted-for items in a video recording.

I want everything shown.

I don't want anything missing.

I don't trust anybody anymore.

I only could trust one person, my old man, and he's not around to protect me anymore.

Here's a picture of the keys there and the lock being opened and the money missing.

Well, there was $20,000 in the house, and it's not here now.

The most obvious sign of foul play, however, was stumbled upon accidentally.

In the pre-dawn hours of September 19, 1998, two days after Ted was found dead, Nye County sheriffs spotted three men with heavy machinery digging in an empty lot in Perrump, Nevada, about 60 miles west of Las Vegas.

The deputies approached the men and inquired about what they were doing.

One of the men said they were moving concrete off the property.

Keep in mind, it was four in the morning.

What's in the tractor trailer?

The cops asked.

Oh, that one?

Nothing, the man replied.

Does it open?

Actually, it doesn't.

Sorry.

It's broken.

Unsatisfied with the answers, Deputy Dean Pinnick climbed atop the trailer to peer at its contents.

And what did he see?

Quote, I saw a whole shitload of silver.

Okay, okay, I'm lying, the man admitted.

That man said his name was Rick Tabish.

He was a 33-year-old owner of a transportation company that helped helped build the 12-foot-deep vault that he and his friends were currently emptying.

Tabish said the vault belonged to Ted Binion, who had contracted him a few months earlier to relocate a hoard of silver from the casino after the license revocation.

During that process, Tabish said Binion made him promise that if something ever happened to him, he would dig up the treasure, all six tons of it, worth up to $14 million, and place it in a trust for Binion's daughter.

Ted Binion and Rick Tabish were the only two people with the combination.

Tabish told the deputies that he was just honoring the dead man's wishes.

In fact, Rick Tabish said he was on his way to the airport to fly home to his wife and young child in Montana when he received word that Ted Binion had passed.

Rick said he postponed his departure to carry out his promised duty.

Tabish actually showed up at Ted Binion's house the day he died, where the swarming media had questioned him.

What were your first thoughts?

What a tragedy.

I mean, I know that he was trying real hard to straighten himself out and

just get everybody off his back so that he could live his life.

I know he wanted to go, you know, start fishing, going up north fishing and spend more time at his ranch in Prump and advance his relationship with his girlfriend.

So it's a tragedy.

I don't know the specifics.

That's why I'm here, guys.

I just come over to talk to somebody and find out what happened to him.

I mean, that's my first thing.

So that's about all I have to say.

Rick Tabish was taken into custody by the Nye County Sheriffs until they could confirm his story.

However, a search of Tabish's briefcase added another twist.

There was a love letter addressed to Rick from Ted Binion's girlfriend, Sandy Murphy.

In the days before his death, Ted had reportedly grown suspicious that Sandy was cheating on him.

He'd hired a private investigator to follow her, told his secretary to cut off her credit card, and the day before he died, instructed his lawyer, Jim Brown, to remove Sandy from his will.

He said, take Sandy out of the will if she doesn't kill me tonight.

If I'm dead, you'll know what happened.

I said, all

Both Rick Tabish and Sandy Murphy denied the affair, even after Sandy bailed Rick out of jail for $100,000.

And despite all the circumstantial evidence and the Binion family's urgings, the Las Vegas police refused to open a full-scale homicide investigation, so the Binion family hired a private investigator to conduct their own.

Before long, that private investigator had proof that Tabish and Murphy were living together and spending Ted's money.

Multiple witnesses also came forward, claiming they were made aware of the plan, including Tabish's childhood friend Kurt Gratzer, who had refused to participate.

Rick had me go over scenarios with him in which I would be shooting this man in the head with one of his handguns, one of his loaded handguns.

The amount of evidence was indisputable.

The Binion family's private investigator turned over his findings to the district attorney.

On May 5th, 1999, The Clark County Coroner's Office reclassified Ted's death as a homicide.

On June 24th, 1999, Rick Tabish and Sandy Murphy were charged with conspiracy, robbery, grand larceny, burglary, and murder.

Ladies and gentlemen, the evidence will prove beyond a reasonable doubt that Ted Binion was murdered.

Ladies and gentlemen, the killers are Richard Tabish and Sandra Murphy.

The resulting trial was a circus.

The entire process was broadcast on TV and dominated daytime ratings.

It unfolded like a soap opera, with both sides basing their cases on money.

The prosecution alleged there was a financial motive for killing Ted Binion, while the defense pointed to a conspiracy by the Binion family to frame an outsider, Sandy Murphy, and deprive her of profiting from the unfortunate tragedy.

This case is not about homicide.

This case is about heroin.

This case

is not murder.

This case is about money.

Both Sandy Murphy and Rick Tabish were ultimately convicted.

On appeal, however, the murder charges were overturned by the Nevada Supreme Court because of procedural errors.

The defendants were retried in 2004 and both were acquitted, though their convictions for stealing the buried fortune stuck.

Millions of Ted Binion's missing treasures were never recovered.

People have been arrested while digging for it on his former property as recently as 2019.

I spared you the details because the Ted Binion case has been covered pretty extensively by other podcasts, documentaries, and made-for-TV movies.

But the reason we are talking about it now is because of a book called Murder in Sin City.

Many consider that book to be the definitive coverage of the Binion case.

It was written by an investigative reporter named Jeff Gehriman, who appears as a talking head in many of those aforementioned productions, including Unsolved Mysteries.

Everybody I have spoken to has indicated Ted loved life and despite his problems, despite his heroin addiction,

and wanted to continue living and had all kinds of other goals that he wanted to pursue in life.

Jeff Guerman was the go-to expert on the case because he published over 350 articles for the Las Vegas Sun newspaper as it unfolded in real time.

Guhrman's reporting has even been credited and criticized for influencing the district attorney's decision to file the murder charges against Murphy and Tabish.

That said, the Binion case is just one highlight of Jeff Guhrman's impressive journalistic life and career.

A life and career that ended as shocking and tragic as the stories he covered.

An investigative reporter was found brutally murdered at his home on this episode of Swindled.

They bribed government officials to find accounting for violations of FASTA law and earlier than ethical pay to plagiarism

that were wasted.

Support for swindled comes from Simply Safe.

For the longest time, I thought home security meant an alarm going off after someone broke in.

But if the alarm is already blaring, it's too late.

The damage is done.

That's a reactive approach, and it leaves you with that awful feeling of violation, even if the intruder runs away.

That's why I switched to Simply Safe.

They've completely changed the game with Active Guard outdoor protection, designed to stop crime before it starts.

Their smart, AI-powered cameras don't just detect motion.

They can tell you when there's a person lurking on your property.

That instantly alerts SimplySafe's professional monitoring agents in real time.

And here's the game changer.

The agents can actually intervene while the intruder is still outside.

Talk to them through two-way audio, hit them with a loud siren and spotlight, and call 911 if needed.

It's proactive security, and that's real security.

I trust SimplySafe because there are no long-term contracts, no hidden fees, and a 60-day money-back guarantee.

They've been named best home security systems by U.S.

News and World Report for five years in a row, and I can see why.

Get 50% off your new SimplySafe system at simply safe.com slash swindled.

That's 50% off your new SimplySafe system by visiting simplysafe.com slash swindled.

There's no safe like simply safe.

Good evening.

I'm Captain Dory Corrant at the Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department.

I oversee our homicide sex crimes bureau and I'm here to brief you on a homicide that we responded to late this morning near the 7,200 block of Braun Circle in the northwest part of town.

At approximately 10.30 this morning we received a 911 call where a person had reported they found their neighbor deceased on the side of their house.

Our officers immediately responded and they confirmed that there was a male that was deceased in the side of his house.

They determined early on that there were potential stab wounds that may have caused the incident and at that point our homicide investigative team responded and immediately began their investigation.

They've been working it aggressively all day and will continue to do so.

Holly and Roe Bailey had lived across the street from Jeff for 26 years, and they couldn't recall another time where he had left his garage door open.

But they noticed he had done so on Friday, September 2nd, 2022.

Jeff's car was still parked inside, so Holly Bailey tried calling and texting their neighbor.

No response.

That evening, as the sun set, Roe Bailey walked across the street and closed the garage door for him.

The next morning, Jeff still had not responded.

The Baileys decided to knock on his door before calling for a wellness check.

Rowe walked around the west side of the house to the exterior gate from which Jeff usually enters and exits.

He made a horrifying discovery.

Jeff was lying face up on the ground, covered in blood, eyes open but unresponsive.

Holly heard her husband's shocked utterances and ran over to join him.

She saw their beloved neighbor with his right arm above his head and his left curled close to his blood-soaked body, and she started praying.

It was just very not natural, Holly later remembered.

It didn't look like a natural death.

I can tell you that right now.

911 emergency tribial 10965.

You need police fire medical.

I have a neighbor across the street from me and he's laying at the side, John.

I believe he's dead.

He's got blood over.

Las Vegas Metro Police arrived to find the body of a 69-year-old man who no doubt had been brutally murdered.

Jeff had four stab wounds to the neck, three stab wounds to the torso.

His throat had also been slashed, and he had additional cuts on his hands and arms from trying to protect himself.

The police noted that Jeff's body was stiff.

He had been dead for a while, but not too long, because his shirt was still soaking wet with blood, even as he lay partially exposed in the Vegas summer heat, where it was 100 degrees before noon.

There were no signs of robbery.

Jeff's phone, keys, and wallet remained on his person, and nothing seemed out of place inside the house.

Can you think of anyone who might want to hurt your neighbor?

The cops asked the Baileys.

Well, it's Jeff Guhrman, the Jeff Guhrman, Las Vegas' legendary investigative reporter.

Oh, geez, I'm trying to remember.

Now, in those days, I started out, I was on the federal court beat.

So there was a lot going on with the mob in federal court.

You had

Anthony Spilatro, who was, you know, the overseer for the Chicago mob out here in Las Vegas.

Jeff Gehrman moved from Milwaukee to Las Vegas in 1978 to start writing for the Las Vegas Sun newspaper.

It was his first real job in journalism, a job that he was perfectly suited for.

Jeff was obsessively organized and had a photographic memory.

He had an innate ability to gain the trust of everyone he met, which worked wonders for gathering and keeping sources.

Jeff quickly made a name for himself in the city that was overflowing with crime and corruption.

Local politicians, crooked cops, casino owners, lawyers, mafiosos, and rival publications all cursed the reporter's name, but usually with respect.

Once he believed a story needed to be told, he was unwavering and wanting to get that story published, Guerman's former editor at The Sun, Jeff Shoemaker, told the New York Times.

Jeff was assigned to cover the courts early in his career, and almost immediately he was handed a gift from the journalistic gods.

Judge Harry Claiborne, a U.S.

District Judge in Nevada and a close friend of Benny Binion, was accused of accepting bribes from a brothel owner to reverse a tax evasion conviction.

Judge Claiborne ultimately beat the bribery charge but was convicted on tax evasion counts of his own, which led to him being the first sitting judge to be impeached by U.S.

Congress in 1986.

Jeff Gehriman was there to report every angle.

Of course, it was a major story, and once we started to look into it, we found a lot of unusual things that were going on in this case, and it became even bigger in our eyes.

Geherman also reported on the MGM Grand Fire that killed 85 people in 1980, which remains the deadliest disaster in Nevada's history.

And of course, there was the Ted Binion case in the late 90s.

But Geherman's coverage of organized crime was the true showcase of his fearlessness.

Jeff lived to talk about his face-to-face encounter with Tony the Ant Spilatro, the cold-blooded enforcer for the Chicago Mafia who served as the basis for Joe Pesci's character in the Martin Scorsese film Casino.

Gehrman was also one of the first reporters to break the story of Fat Herbie Blitstein's murder in 1997.

These types of stories are exactly why Jeff moved to Las Vegas, but shining a light on the dark underworld sometimes carried consequences.

I do a piece on this, and within a couple weeks,

people start letting the air out of my tires,

my car.

My

back windshield gets smashed.

I get get threatening phone calls, you know, saying you better watch who you're writing about.

I mean, obviously, I had a lot of experiences over the years that were very,

how would I say it, learning experiences.

One of the stories Jeff liked to tell was when he got punched in the face.

A former professional boxer turned mob associate.

didn't appreciate one of the reporters' exposés.

And during a chance encounter, the man threw a drink in Jeff's face, followed by a left hook.

Garibin needed stitches in his lip, which he considered a badge of honor.

Pissing off the right people was better than any literary award he might receive.

Jeff Garriman loved his job and often proclaimed that he would never retire.

However, the Las Vegas Sun almost forced his hand in late 2009 when the newspaper announced sweeping layoffs.

Jeff had worked at the Sun for 30 plus years.

It was literally the only job he had ever had.

He had dedicated his life to it, and he didn't have much else.

Jeff Guerman was in his late 50s with no income, savings, or spouse to fall back on.

He probably could have found a gig at some newspaper somewhere, but he didn't want to leave Sin City.

His siblings had moved there to join him, and he remained close to them and his nieces and nephews.

Vegas was and would forever be Jeff Guerriman's home.

So, Jeff swallowed his pride and did something he swore he would never do.

He accepted a position at the Sun's conservative rival newspaper, the Las Vegas Review Journal.

Despite the ideological differences, Guerriman's reporting picked up right where he left off.

Other big story today involves the largest political corruption case in southern Nevada history.

One of the first major stories Jeff covered for the Review Journal was Operation Mastermind, a complex conspiracy to take over the management of Vegas area homeowner associations to funnel millions of dollars through fraudulent construction defect lawsuits.

It became one of the largest public corruption cases in southern Nevada, resulting in over 40 convictions, including lawyers, police officers, and even federal prosecutors.

Then, in 2015, Guhrman helped the RJ cover the Susan Winters case, which felt familiar.

A woman dies after ingesting a fatal dose of antifreezing oxycodone.

Suspicions abound.

Her manner of death was eventually changed from suicide to undetermined, and Susan's psychologist's husband, Brent Finnis, was convicted of manslaughter.

That story was followed by the worst mass shooting in modern American history.

In 2017, 64-year-old Steven Paddock opened fire from his 32nd floor suite in the Mandalay Bay Hotel on a crowd gathered for a music festival on the Vegas Strip, killing 60 and injuring almost 900.

It was Guerman who first reported that Paddock had targeted two nearby jet fuel tanks in a failed attempt to trigger an explosion before turning on the crowd.

In the wake of that tragedy, Jeff Guhrman and his Review Journal colleague Arthur Kane reported that Clark County Coroner John Fudenberg used public money to hire his girlfriend to provide yoga and meditation sessions to employees who were traumatized by responding to the mass shooting.

The RJ's investigation also revealed that Fudenberg's university degrees were obtained from a discredited Pakistani diploma mill.

It was also the Review Journal's investigative team, including Gehrman, that exposed failures in the city's fire inspections, which culminated in a deadly scene at the Alpine Motel Apartments in December 2019.

The exit door was reportedly bolted shut.

Six lives lost, 13 injured, dozens homeless.

It is being called the deadliest residential fire in the city of Las Vegas's history.

In more recent years, Jeff's reporting focused on topics such as the far-right extremist Boogaloo Boys and wasteful spending at the Las Vegas Convention and Visitors Authority.

Jeff's reporting on the latter led directly to an audit to the agency's finances, which led to resignations and criminal charges against its top executives.

Business as usual for Jeff Guerriman.

However, in 2021, Jeff was given an opportunity to step outside his comfort zone while at the same time revisiting some of his earliest stories.

In a partnership with the Mob Museum, the Review Journal produced a podcast called Mobbed Up.

Guherman was asked to host the second season, which revolves around the mafia-controlled Aladdin Hotel.

I'm Jeff Guhman, an investigative reporter with the Las Vegas Review Journal.

In partnership with the Mob Museum, I'm your guide for season two of Mobbed Up: The Fight for Las Las Vegas.

A true story about money.

Mobbed Up Season 2 and its host won a Nevada Press Association Award for Podcast of the Year.

Unfortunately, Jeff Gehrman would not be alive to accept it.

Clark County officials are now confirming investigative journalist Jeff Gehrman was killed in a stabbing yesterday morning.

Police say a neighbor found him with several stab wounds in the northwest part of the valley.

Officers believe he was involved in a fight just before it happened.

The news of Guerman's death elicited a reaction from a wide range of prominent Nevadans, fellow journalists, attorneys general, even past targets of his reporting.

Governor Steve Sisilak posted on Twitter, There's no doubt Jeff was a tough reporter, but he was always fair, and I will always have immense respect for him and his work.

In the Review Journal's article announcing the loss of one of their own, executive editor Glenn Cook called Jeff Guhman, quote, the gold standard of the news business, adding, it's hard to imagine what Las Vegas would be like today without his many years of shining a bright light on dark places.

Many wondered if any of those dark places were somehow responsible for Guerriman's untimely demise.

The reporter had undoubtedly made his fair share of enemies, but Jeff's co-workers hadn't heard him talk about receiving any threats or expressing any concerns about his personal safety lately.

Regardless, the RJ staff planned to do some digging.

The Las Vegas Metro Police were initially convinced that Guerman's murder was an isolated incident connected to a recent string of robberies.

That lead was based on security footage obtained from Jeff's neighbors, which investigators used to retrace the slain journalist's steps.

Guerman had taken a few days off from work to extend his Labor Day weekend.

That Friday, September 2nd, 2022, Judging from his final text messages, Jeff was doing research for his fantasy football team, one of his favorite hobbies.

He left his house briefly to pick up tacos from Roberto's taco shop half a mile away, but planned to spend the rest of the day tinkering with his roster.

Shortly before 11 a.m., nearby security cameras capture a maroon GMC Yukon Denali pulling into the cul-de-sac.

A short, thin man exits the vehicle with a wide-brimmed straw hat concealing his face.

He was wearing a reflective orange, long-sleeved construction worker's shirt with blue jeans and Nike running shoes.

The man grabs a bluish-gray duffel bag from the truck and paces around the neighborhood for approximately 20 minutes.

At 11.18 a.m., the man approaches Jeff Garmin's house.

He walks around to the west side of the property, enters the unlocked gate, and waits.

Five minutes later, security footage shows Garmin walking out of his garage towards that gate and opening it.

The view is obscured in the footage, but an altercation took place.

Geherman approached the pedestrian gate and was immediately attacked, the police wrote.

Garmin fell to the ground and never got back up.

The assailant continued to stab the reporter as he lay on the ground behind a bush.

The footage then captures the suspect leaving the scene and walking quickly down the street back to the parked Yukon.

Moments later, that Yukon pulls up in front of Garmin's house and the suspect gets out to presumably make sure his victim was dead.

The man climbs back into his truck and flees the scene.

Almost 24 hours pass before Jeff's body is discovered by his neighbors.

Police released a photo of the suspect to the public on Monday, September 5th, but failed to generate any real leads.

The next day, they released a description of the vehicle, which had its license plate removed, as well as a video of the suspect walking down Guerriman Street.

I also think it's important to note that we have had a burglary series that we've been aggressively working

that involved an individual who was wearing construction attire as well, a reflective vest and a hat.

And we just want to kind of get ahead of it because we've gotten gotten a lot of questions about it.

At this time, we are evaluating every possible lead.

Meanwhile, staff at the Review Journal were evaluating their own leads.

Something about that recently released video stood out to them.

The suspect's walk, his gait, was pretty unique.

Someone in the office said it reminded them of Robert Tellus, the Clark County Public Administrator.

whom Jeff Guherman had recently interviewed in person.

The reporters compared it to B-roll footage of Tellus walking during that meeting.

The similarities were uncanny.

Nah, it couldn't be, could it?

Garmin's articles were critical of Tellus, but not to the point where he deserved to be murdered.

It seemed unlikely that a local politician would resort to such violence over an unflattering report.

Besides, like most petite men, Robert Tellus drove a BMW.

Hang on a second, someone called from the RJ newsroom.

Look at this.

On the screen was a photo, posted to Facebook, of Robert Tellus standing with his wife and children in front of a Maroon GMC Yukon Denali.

The reporters ran the plates.

It was registered to Mary Ann Ishmael, Tellus's wife.

Another reporter typed in Tellis' home address into Google Maps and clicked on street view.

Check this out.

The Maroon Yukon is sitting in his driveway.

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Las Las Vegas is special to me and my family.

I have met so many wonderful people here and made some great relationships.

My wife and I chose to raise our kids here in Las Vegas because of all the opportunities that it's given us.

My name is Rob Teus.

I'm a 15-year resident of Las Vegas and I'm the founding attorney of Accolade Law.

Robert Tellus, or Teus, he uses both pronunciations interchangeably, is an excellent example of perseverance.

A classic story of hard work paying off with the added bonus lesson of it never being too late to chase one's dreams.

Robert Tellis started working with computers after high school and started a career as a network technician until the dot-com bubble burst at the turn of the century.

Then he got into property management and became a leasing agent until he realized there was more money in performing maintenance at the properties.

Before long, Tellus specialized in HVAC systems and landed a job as an HVAC supervisor at the College of Southern Nevada in Las Vegas, where he had moved to in 2001 after stints in Denver and El Paso, where he had grown up.

Robert Tellus was completely self-taught.

He was proud of himself for that and impressed by his own brain.

He felt like he could do anything.

So Robert enrolled in night classes at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas' School of Law.

I drove a truck around town, repairing ACs and homes and in businesses.

Then I went to work for the College of Southern Nevada, supervising a team out there at their campuses.

And while I was doing that, I went and got my law degree.

I did that at night while I was working during the day.

By the time Tellus graduated in 2014, he was 35 years old, married, divorced, married again with two children and a third on the way.

Tell us passed the bar exam in 2015 and opened his own law firm later that year.

It was called Accolade Law.

He specialized in probate cases and family matters with a few minor criminal cases sprinkled in.

Whether you're having an estate plan drafted through us or you're seeking representation in a probate or guardianship, rest assured that we will work hard for you.

We want to make sure that you can tell your friends that you had the best possible experience at Accolaid Law.

Robert Telles made a decent living as a probate lawyer for a few years, but he had higher aspirations, political aspirations.

This came as no surprise.

Robert was born into what one could describe as a political dynasty.

In 1957, Robert's great uncle, Raymond L.

Telles, was elected mayor of El Paso to become the first Mexican-American mayor of a major U.S.

city.

Raymond Telles then became the first Hispanic person to serve a U.S.

ambassadorship when John F.

Kennedy appointed him to represent the country in Costa Rica.

Robert's grandfather, Richard Telles, served as city clerk, school board trustee, and then county commissioner in El Paso for nearly 20 years.

Robert's father, Raymond Rutherford Telles, also a lawyer, served two terms as a city councilor in El Paso.

His political career ended in disgrace, however, when he pleaded guilty to federal conspiracy charges for his role in a pay-to-play scheme.

I feel it's my duty to give back to Las Vegas because of everything that Las Vegas has done for me.

Although Robert Tellis had mighty ambitions like all the Mel Tellises before him, he planned to start small.

He set his sights on becoming the Clark County Public Administrator.

It's an obscure but elected position that can be found in some form in every municipality.

The public public administrator role is typically non-partisan and doesn't shape policy.

In Clark County specifically, the PA serves as the head of a safeguarding organization for when the next of kin can't immediately be located in the event of a death.

For example, let's say you live in Las Vegas and then you drop dead with no friends and family, which is a common occurrence in such a transient city.

The coroner will refer your case to the public administrator's office, which will secure your property and protect your assets until family is notified.

If your family is never found or is unwilling to handle your affairs, the public administrator will sell your assets, pay your debts, pay your taxes, and then close out your existence on Earth.

Clark County's longtime public administrator John Cahill had announced he would not seek re-election in 2018.

So Robert Tellis threw his hat into the ring.

As a probate lawyer, Tellus felt he was qualified for the position.

Plus, he spoke Spanish.

Tellis won the Democratic primary that year by default because he ran unopposed.

And I assure you that should you endorse me and vote for me and ask your friends to vote for me, that I won't let you down.

This won't be a stepping stone.

And I'll continue to serve the public the best way possible for years and years to come.

Thank you very much.

In late 2018, Robert Tellis beat out his Republican opponent and was elected to a four-year term as Clark County's public administrator.

He would oversee a staff of eight full-time employees, three part-timers, and 15 investigators who spent most of their days in the field.

Long-time employees at the PA's office were excited about their new boss because of his experience in family matters.

Quite frankly, the office needed some fresh ideas.

However, that excitement quickly faded when Robert Tellis started ruling with a tiny iron fist.

He immediately implemented strict new rules to, quote, improve efficiency.

Cell phone use was prohibited.

No more birthday decorations, no more eating lunch at the desks.

Staff were ordered not to even speak to one another, and any pushback would be met with outbursts of anger and extra assignments.

TELUS set unrealistic expectations and threatened emotions.

His staff characterized him as overly paranoid and often overreactive to benign situations.

But I saw the opportunity to really increase efficiency and transparency.

Immediately upon arriving, I saw numerous changes that I could make.

And so we've made those changes and I've seen a result.

Some longtime staffers retired in response.

Others, like Rita Reed, opted to stay, and the treatment only became more severe.

Rita was 61 years old.

She had been at the public administrator's office for 15 years, 12 of which she was second in command as the assistant PA, a supervisory role.

or part of the old guard, as Tellus referred to her.

Not anymore.

Reed told CBS that the new boss barged into her office, slammed his palms down on her desk, leaned forward, and said,

We're ripping off the bandage.

You no longer supervise anyone.

No one reports to you.

They all report to me.

You have no authority.

And then he walked out.

The first year he was in the office, he had

episodes of what I would call pure rage.

And it would be the smallest little thing that would set him off and it was totally unfounded and you know unprovoked.

The environment in the office was tense.

Telles insulted Rita's age.

He accused her of spying on him.

He yelled at her in front of the others.

Rita said the stress was so overwhelming that she couldn't sleep at night and she cried on her way to work and she wasn't the only one.

Robert Tellis tried to intimidate everyone he viewed as disloyal.

We know him to be someone who dwells on revenge.

We know him to be someone who will commit so seriously to his lies that we think sometimes he actually believes in himself.

That's Alicia Goodwin, an estate coordinator at the Clark County Public Administrator's office.

Alicia said she found herself on the receiving end of Robert Tellus's hostility after she rejected his sexual advances.

He took away her cubicle and made her work in the reception area.

He took away her key duties and buried her with extra work.

Tell us what exclude Alicia from essential emails and employee lunch parties and demean her Mormon faith.

It was the definition of workplace retaliation.

Jessica Coleman was another subordinate who suffered his wrath.

She worked in the vault at the PA's office where a deceased person's possessions were kept.

Tell us was especially cruel to her.

Tell us leaned within inches of her face and told her that she would die alone and no one would find her for a long time.

She says it got so bad that she contemplated suicide, even picking a location where she planned to hang herself.

The effects Robert Tellis' behavior had on the staff were dramatic.

People would physically shake when he opened the door or when they heard his lifted shoes stomping down the hallway.

Their physical and mental health suffered.

Many had to seek professional counseling to get through another day.

He became more emboldened in his behavior and treatment.

Employees such as Alicia Goodwin filed multiple complaints with the county's Human Resources Department and the Office of Diversity.

Tellus's harassment, bullying, intimidation, isolation, and retaliation were reported in detail.

Yet the complaints were continuously brushed aside.

Even after the employees reported that Tellus was having an affair with one of his favorite staff members, Roberta Lee Kinnett, The two would often eat lunch together.

Sometimes giggling could be heard from behind closed doors.

Rita Reed said she became suspicious when Tellus demanded that she start leaving the office at 5 p.m.

sharp every day while Roberta stayed behind.

Rita says the employees noticed a pattern.

When Roberta wore a short skirt, she and Tellus would exit through separate doors, but their cars would always travel in the same direction.

One day in February 2022, Rita found herself behind Roberta in her car, so she followed her.

And instead of heading in the direction towards her house, Roberta pulled into the garage at an outlet mall and parked in a vacant lot.

Tellus arrived soon after and joined Roberta in the back seat of her SUV.

After that, Rita Reed and Alicia Goodwin followed the suspected lovers on multiple occasions and often recorded their rendezvous.

You can't see exactly what is happening through the tinted windows, but you can see silhouettes of their heads coming together.

And in one video, you can see Roberta pull her skirt down when she exits the vehicle.

For the past two years, Mrs.

Lee Kinnett has used her relationship with Mr.

Tellus to assume power and privilege in the office, Goodwin wrote in her complaint.

They are both married with families.

This is unacceptable, disgusting behavior for a public servant.

Physical contact with a subordinate in a public place and letting that subordinate use the favoritism she is getting from these inappropriate meetings to secure power and privileges above others in the office is affecting most of the staff in an extremely negative manner.

The county has failed to protect employees from a mentally and emotionally abusive situation.

Couldn't somebody just let this person know this is not the proper behavior.

It's not professional.

It's not appropriate.

Clark County did nothing.

Management said the boss had the right to have favorites and that their hands were tied since Robert Tellis was an elected official.

His term was ending at the end of 2022, but Telles had already announced his plans to run for re-election with no other choice and knowing it would only cause more tension in the office.

Rita Reed decided to run against him.

So we were hearing that the only way to really change that environment, if we wanted to change it, was to then

run for office or have him removed from office and so that's one of the big

decisions making elements was yeah how do we make our office better and if running for office against him was one of the steps that had to be taken, then it had to be taken.

Unseating an incumbent in a race no one paid attention to was a tall order.

With no campaign funds or advertising budget, Rita and company decided to alert the media to publicize what was happening in the Clark County Public Administrator's office.

The first person they turned to was Las Vegas Review Journal investigative reporter Jeff Guhrman.

Guhrman agreed to meet with his new sources at a Starbucks in March 2022.

He listened to their predicament, but made no guarantees.

Guhrman told them he would do some digging on his end to verify their accounts and then give back to them.

Listened to our story and felt that it had merit, but he didn't promise any stories.

He was going to take

a look at everything and do his investigation.

What Mr.

Gearman found warranted a story.

On May 16th, 2022, the Review Journal published his first article about Robert Tellis titled, County Office in Turmoil with Secret Video and Claims of Bullying, Hostility.

Quote, a half dozen current and former employees interviewed by the Review Journal are alleging the hostile work environment was fueled by the elected administrator of the office, Robert Tellis, carrying on an inappropriate relationship with a staffer that has harmed the office's ability to deal with the public in overseeing the estates of those who have died.

The article included a blurry, long-distance video of one of Tellus and Roberta Lee Kennett's alleged adulterous meetings, both of whom were quoted in the article.

Tellis told Garriman that the abuse reports were untrue, quote, these allegations that I've chained people to the wall or something are bogus.

They make it sound as though everybody is miserable in this office.

I've done my best to try to be as nice and friendly this whole time.

Tell us said the old guard was just upset because the office had been taken out of their control.

All my new employees are super happy and everyone's productive and doing well.

We've almost doubled the productivity in the office.

As for the affair, Tellus told German that there was no truth to that either.

When you hear people raising these allegations about you and Roberta and a

quote, you know, personal relationship that you have,

what do you say to people about that?

Honestly, it's not true.

I said,

all of my friends, all my family know how much I love my wife.

I am about nothing but justice, fairness, and just being a good person.

And it sickens me.

It destroys me that...

that somebody would even level accusations like that because it's

i don't know it's it's unreal it's unreal the lengths that they're going to they don't have any qualms trying to to ruin my personal life

to

to get to win this race

tellus said that he and roberta were merely confidants who often met in private to commiserate and discuss the workplace I think it's horrible that they recorded this and they're trying to destroy my life and my marriage when I'm actually infinitely in love with my wife, Tellus said.

I was just trying to get things off my chest with somebody who understands, and now it's being framed as though I'm cheating on my wife.

Roberta Lee Kennett also denied the affair to Geherman, quote, I have not had an inappropriate relationship with him.

I would not be friends with a man who thinks he's going to have an inappropriate relationship with me.

Jeff Gehrman's article was sensational by local politics standards, but Any hopes held by the women in the PA's office that Robert Tellis would suspend his campaign and resign in shame were shattered almost immediately.

Instead, Tellus went on the offensive.

He sent emails defending himself to the union's commissioners and leaders who had endorsed him.

Tellus also considered suing Gehrman and the Review Journal for libel, but was discouraged since he would have to prove actual malice.

Instead, Tellus posted a lengthy diatribe on his website in response to the original article and a second one that Gehrman wrote 10 days later about the county hiring a consultant to resolve the turmoil.

Telles's post was titled, Addressing the False Claims Against Me, quote, While many of you have contacted me with support, I know that some may believe the allegations made in the article by the local right-wing paper.

You may believe that I betrayed your trust.

You may believe that I am not the man that I have always portrayed myself to be.

Some of you may not know all the good work that I've done for Las Vegas.

I hope by the end of this page, you will see what I know to be true.

The article was false.

The article was intentionally gut-wrenching.

It was so ugly that you almost had to believe it was true.

I can understand why you might have with the writer's skill at pushing buttons.

Also, the timing of the article was very convenient for my opponent Rita Reed.

My hope now is to present the facts to you so that you may reconsider your opinion if you believe the article to be true.

In his list of reasons that Garriman's article was false, Tellus claimed that both Clark County and the Service Employees International Union would have acted if he were abusing his employees.

Tell us claimed that some staff members were upset because he'd cut their overtime, and Rita Reed was promising promotions to some of them if she won the upcoming election.

I am working hard to win re-election, Telles wrote, and I believe I will win.

Hello, I'm Rob Telles, and I'm your Clark County Public Administrator.

A few years ago, when I started my first term, I found a disturbing situation at the office.

But I'm very happy to say that we've turned that all around under my leadership.

My staff and I have increased our customer service levels.

We are now closing cases and we are also making sure that checks get in the hands of families even faster.

And we do it for you.

I'd like to ask you for your help now.

I'd like to ask you to please be sure to vote for me in this year's election.

Please be sure to tell your friends and family about it.

This is an important race.

And I need your help.

I'm Rob Tullis, and I'm running for Clark County Public Administrator.

Thank Thank you.

Robert Tellis' campaigning proved ineffective.

He placed third out of three Democratic candidates in the primary held on June 14, 2022.

Rita Reed was the winner.

Four days later, Guerman publishes a third article about Tellus.

Embattled county official losing re-election bid.

Posts angry letter.

Robert Tellis responded immediately on Twitter.

Wife hears rustling in the trash.

Her.

Honey, is there a wild animal in the trash?

Me.

No, dear, looks like it's Jeff Guherman going through our trash for his fourth story on me.

Oh, Jeff.

Tell us also posted another update on his website the following day.

Quote, At this point, I do believe I will lose this race, and I am looking forward to going back to the practice of probate law, where I can continue to help families.

Continued public office, but it's clearly not in the cards for me.

Three days later, on June 22nd, 2022, the Review Journal publishes Jeff Guhrman's fourth article on the subject.

Embattled County Official Concedes Race, Remains Combative.

That article contained a quote from Rita Reed, who was worried about the remainder of Tellus's term.

It's still uncomfortable because he's going to be in the office for another six months, Reed said.

Instead of trying to heal the office, he's still pulling us apart.

Robert Tellus continued to lash out.

He sent Rita a text accusing her of ruining his life's path and damaging the office of the public administrator.

He also continued continued to tweet at Jeff.

Typical bully, Tellus wrote.

Can't take a pound of criticism after slinging 100 pounds of BS.

Up to article number four now, you'd think you'd have better things to do.

Jeff Garriman was unbothered.

He brushed it off and said, I've had much worse than that, Ronda Prast, an assistant managing editor at the Review Journal, told the New York Times.

He wasn't nervous about it.

He wasn't concerned.

Neither was I.

In fact, Guerman was still digging.

He filed an open records request of Tellus's office to obtain text and Microsoft team messages between Tellus and Roberta Lee Kinnett.

Tellus had already conceded the race, but Guerriman had a hunch that he had been lied to about the affair, and those communications would prove it.

Robert Tellis and Roberta Lee Kennett received an email on September 1st, 2022, from the county, notifying them that Guerman's request had been approved and that the records would be released to him on September 6th, the Tuesday after Labor Day.

Privately, Tallis was worried.

He was worried that Gehrman was going to write another article.

He was worried that his future employment opportunities would be jeopardized.

Then, suddenly, all his problems were solved.

15 hours after the record's request was approved, Jeff Gehrman was dead.

Roberta Lee Kinnett read the news the following day.

I wake up, I look at local news every morning while I'm getting ready.

I saw on Twitter or X, whatever,

an article about Gehrman being murdered.

Okay, so that freaked me out.

Roberta texted Robert.

Oh my goodness, Jeff Gehrman died?

Holy shit, Tellus replied.

When the police released the photo of the suspect's vehicle a few days later, Roberta reached out to him again.

Rob, please tell me your Yukon is not that color.

Tellus told her it was similar, if not the same.

Does it have the racks on it?

Roberta asked.

I'm freaking out.

Yeah, I think so.

It's fine, Tellus assured her.

I didn't do it.

Roberta took a minute before responding.

Fuck, your car is identical.

Robert Tellis' car was identical.

The review journal had sent a photographer to his house three days after Jeff's body was found to secretly confirm it.

When the photographer arrived, Tellis was actually in his driveway washing the maroon vehicle.

The photographer snapped a few shots but kept his distance because Las Vegas Metro Police were also staking out the scene and had eyes on their suspect.

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We have more on the breaking news.

Metro has confirmed to us that they are serving a search warrant right now in the death of local journalist Jeff Guhrman.

We can now confirm it's the home of Rob Tellis.

Nutelles is the Clark County Public Administrator.

Guhrman had written a series of reports about Telles in his re-election bid, reports that did not put him in a favorable light.

Telles lost that re-election.

At 6.30 in the morning on Wednesday, September 7th, 2022, Las Vegas police pulled over Robert Telles during a traffic stop and took him into custody while a search warrant was executed on his home and vehicle in connection with the homicide investigation.

Surveillance data obtained from the day of the murder showed Tellus leaving his house in the Yukon around 9.12 a.m.

and returning at 11.51 a.m.

Telles lived approximately 15 minutes from Jeff Guerman.

That window gave Tellis plenty of opportunity to commit the crime.

Now, police just had to prove it.

Fortunately, he made it rather easy for them.

Inside Robert Tellis' home, underneath the reclining couch, detectives found a plastic bag containing cut-up chunks of a Nike tennis shoe, similar to the one the suspect was wearing in the security footage.

Inside his garage, in a toolbox, were chunks of a wide-brimmed straw hat.

In a box, a bluish-gray duffel bag.

Telles' personal and work devices were seized and searched, and it was determined that his cell phone was at his house when the murder took place.

Although detectives later discovered a deleted text message that Tellus's wife had sent sent him during that murder window, it read simply, where are you?

Even more incriminating were the images and search history found on the phone.

Tellis had saved screenshots of social media posts about Guerriman's articles, and he had taken photographs of his work monitor, displaying a county database's registration details of the reporter's car.

It also appeared that Tellus had conducted surveillance of Jeff's neighborhood.

There were 100-plus photos of various houses and intersections.

There were searches for Guerman's house on Google Maps.

Tell had saved the personal information of Jeff's relatives.

He had searched Jeff Guerriman's name at least 25 times leading up to his murder.

There was also a Google search for how to bury a news story.

The motive was emerging, but what detectives never found was a murder weapon.

However, there was a smoking gun.

Robert Tellis' body was searched with his other property.

In addition to having multiple cuts on his fingers and a bruise on his right shoulder, the police collected his DNA and compared it to biological matter found under Jeff Guerriman's fingernails.

It was a match.

Robert Tellis had been released until the forensic analysis was complete.

Police returned to his house that evening around 6 p.m.

to formally arrest him.

However, Tellus refused to surrender.

Instead, he locked himself in a bathroom, crawled into the bathtub, ingested a handful of pills, and slid his wrists.

However, he has me a couple of four or five

comments.

Fortunately, paramedics arrived in time to prevent Robert Tellus from escaping accountability.

He was given two doses of Narcan, strapped to a gurney, loaded into an ambulance, and charged with open murder with potential sentencing enhancements for the use of a deadly weapon and Garriman's age.

All right, good morning, everyone.

I'm obviously Sheriff Joseph Lombardo.

I'm here to announce the arrest of 45-year-old Robert Tellis.

He was booked in the Clark County Detention Center last night on the charge of open murder.

This is a terrible and jarring homicide,

one that has deeply impacted Las Vegas.

Every murder is tragic, but the killing of a journalist is particularly troublesome.

Even more troublesome is that the murder of Jeff Guerriman probably could have been prevented.

All the warning signs were there.

After Robert Telles' arrest, people from his past came forward with concerning stories of their own.

stories that could have and should have prevented Telles from ever becoming an elected official.

Stories that might have, had they emerged sooner, saved Jeff Garriman's life.

Tellus's vengeful nature was first recognized after he was elected president of the student bar at his law school in 2012.

In addition to making drastic changes that rubbed everyone the wrong way, Tellus was accused of getting blacked out drunk and groping a woman at a frat party, which he claimed he didn't remember but also denied.

That incident led to a vote of no confidence in his removal as president.

Afterward, Tellus reportedly spent months trying to find out the identity of his accuser while ostracizing and bullying the other students who accused him of misconduct.

He threatened to sue the entire board for defaming his character.

The things that many of you heard were absolutely false and were fabricated in an effort to play some political game, Tellus wrote in one of his earliest angry letters.

Robert Tellus further honed his controlling, intimidating, and creepy tactics when he opened his own law practice.

A former paralegal told the Review Journal that he was constantly hugging, kissing, and grabbing her to the point where she slapped him in the face.

Tellus responded by docking her pay.

Clients of Accolade Law had similar complaints.

Brandi Hall told the RJ that in 2017 she was going through a divorce and that Tellus, whom she had met in a professional capacity, offered to represent her for free.

That legal representation apparently included expensive gift baskets and unsolicited dick pics.

Hall says she remembers laughing at the photos because she could see the reflection of his children's toothbrushes in the dirty bathroom mirror.

Arguably, the most substantial red flag occurred after Robert Tillis was elected as Clark County Public Administrator.

Telles and his wife, Mary Ann, or May, got into an argument on the drive home from the Bellagio Casino on February 29th, 2020.

When they arrived, May locked herself and the children in a bedroom away from her belligerent husband.

She called 911.

Do you need police, fire, or medical?

Yes, hi.

Can you please send somebody here?

My husband is going crazy.

He just won't leave us alone.

He had too much to drink tonight, and it's just worse.

Me and my kids are scared.

When the police arrived, Robert Tellus refused to cooperate.

He flexed his arms across his body and deadweighted into a chair like a bad-tempered child.

The whole incident was captured in body cam footage, in which Tellus repeatedly accuses the officers of engaging in a conspiracy to take down a public official.

Don't do anything more stupid than you've already done, please.

Oh my God.

why the hell am I...

Our cameras are on.

Cameras.

Can anybody tell me who I hit?

Who the hell did I hit?

Hold on.

Why don't we?

Who did I hit?

Because I didn't hit anybody.

Who did I hit?

This is like totally like...

You guys just want to take me down because I'm a public official.

No, we don't.

You don't hit.

I didn't hit anybody.

I didn't touch anybody.

You guys just want to take me down because I am a public official

you don't you just want to take me down because i'm a public official

but you guys want to take me down because i'm a public official that's it i'm a public official

your supervisors will love to see this bloody cammage when they're a public official

robert telles was charged with domestic violence and resisting arrest However, the domestic violence charge was dropped as part of a plea agreement that resulted in a 90-day suspended sentence and a fine of $418.

At the time, nobody at Clark County or the public administrator's office was informed of his arrest.

All of this information became public knowledge after Jeff Guhrman's murder, and there would be so much more information revealed at the trial.

However, Robert Tellis' trial was delayed for over a year thanks to his repeated attempts to have the judge dismissed from the case.

and also because of a precedent setting legal battle over Jeff Guerran's devices.

The police wanted to search the reporters' devices, but the newspaper demanded that existing state and federal laws protecting journalists should be abided by.

This is Glenn Cook at the Review Journal.

We can't allow them to learn the identities of important confidential sources inside those agencies.

It's this point about making sure that his murder does not do anything to compromise our ability to tell important stories.

We are in uncharted territory on multiple fronts here.

More than 40 news organizations, including the Washington Post, the Los Angeles Times, and the Associated Press, joined the fight.

Ultimately, the Nevada Supreme Court ruled that a newspaper's privilege to protect confidential information should survive a journalist's death.

And with that, the path was paved for the TELUS trial to start in August, 2024.

And I would submit to you, the state would submit to you, that Mr.

Tellus had had enough of being exposed, written about, publicized, embarrassed, and he wasn't going to have it done again.

Because at this point, the state would submit, Gehriman had taken everything from him.

Everything.

Everything that he worked for.

He worked his way up through law school.

He had got himself elected, and this guy took it all from him.

And so he wanted to take something from Jeff.

And that was his life.

The prosecution, led by Chief Deputy District Attorneys Pam Weckerly and Chris Hamner, portrayed Robert Tellis as a vengeful and corrupt politician and presented overwhelming evidence and 28 witnesses to prove it.

The motive was obvious, they told the jury.

Telles felt that the series of stories Jeff Gehrman wrote about him ruined his political career and likely his marriage.

Murder was Robert Tellis' answer to make it stop.

Robert Draskovich for the defense painted his client as a self-made family man, an honest public official who was trying to expose corruption within the public administrator's office and experienced pushback from the old guard employees and real estate network who profited from the status quo.

Jeff Guerman, on the other hand, was a man with enemies.

He made a lot of people, far more able people, far more violent people, upset with him, Draskovich noted, before playing angry voicemails that were recovered from the reporter's phone.

The most important part of the trial, and the part that the jury has claimed strongly influenced their decision, was when Robert Tellis decided to take the stand in his his own defense.

And instead of the question and answer style testimony that is typical in such proceedings, Tellis decided to deliver his remarks in an uninterrupted narrative that dragged on for hours.

First of all, and excuse me, I'm just a little nervous.

This is

a day I've been waiting for for nearly two years.

You know, this thing's been kind of a nightmare, frankly.

Again, I want to thank you for being here.

And right now, I want to say unequivocally, I'm innocent.

I didn't kill Mr.

German.

What happened to Jeff Guhrman, Tellis claimed, was part of a complex conspiracy perpetrated by a corrupt local real estate company to frame him.

Tell us that he had contacted the police six months before the murder with information that Compass Realty and Management were illegally taking over dead people's estates, flipping the properties, and making millions.

Somebody framed me for this, and I believe that it's Compass Realty, and I believe it's for the work that I've done against them.

It was true that Robert Tellis contacted the police about Compass Realty in April 2022, but the investigation turned up nothing.

In fact, the investigation switched its focus to Robert Tellis, who tried to convince a different real estate agent to get in on the action and give him a cut.

That real estate agent, Kimberly McMahon, went to the FBI.

Again, not enough evidence was found to proceed with the criminal case.

But, according to Robert Tellis, Compass Realty found out about the public administrator's efforts to expose their corruption and decided to kill Jeff Gehrman to, quote, undercut his credibility and make the investigation go away.

Killing him, Tellus said, referring to himself, would only accelerate things.

Killing Gehrman and framing Tellus for it, however, would quote, make it look like I'm the one who has no credibility, so everything goes by the wayside.

And everyone was in on it, apparently.

The police, the DNA analysts, the district attorney, a professional hitman, probably others.

So it's all just one big conspiracy, correct?

No, sir.

I didn't say that they were all involved.

I just said I can't rule out who and who is not involved.

But at the end of the day,

you're just the victim in this whole thing.

Is that correct?

Yes.

Thank you.

No further question.

There was no evidence to support those claims.

Tell us did have an alibi, though, and an answer for every piece of evidence that signaled his guilt.

The morning Gehrman was murdered, Tellus said he took a walk before going to Planet Fitness.

Those cuts on his hand?

The result of a kitchen accident that happened while he was making lunch for his daughter.

And the suicide attempt when the cops arrived to take him into custody wasn't related to guilt.

He just wanted to spare his family the torture of a trial while letting them cash in on the life insurance.

Okay, what about all the digital evidence found on your devices?

Hacked.

What about all the physical evidence found at your house?

Planted.

What about the DNA under Mr.

Guerman's fingernails?

Also planted, Tellus alleged.

All part of the conspiracy.

I did not cut up a shoe and hide it under my couch.

I did not cut up a hat and put it in an open door of my toolbox.

I did not kill Mr.

Guerman, so I did not take a bag with my children's basketball and football out of the bin.

and

use it during the commission of a murder.

I've never

beat anybody up.

I've never killed anybody.

Plus, Tellis claimed, those shoes were Nike's, and he doesn't wear name-brand shoes.

Why not?

Because his shoes are custom-made to allow room for his lifts.

It's a vanity thing, Tellus admitted on the stand.

Robert Tellis also admitted that he was indeed having an affair with Roberta Lee Kennett, and he admitted that he probably would have won re-election in the primary race had it not been for Jeff Garriman's damaging articles.

The prosecution rested its case.

The jury deliberated for a dozen hours over three days before returning with a verdict on August 28th, 2024.

Guilty of first-degree murder.

We, the jury, in the above entitled case, find the defendant Robert Tellis as follows.

Murder with use of a deadly weapon, victim 60 years of age or older, guilty of first-degree murder with use of a deadly weapon.

At his sentencing, Robert Tellis listened as Jeff Guerriman's siblings delivered emotional victim impact statements about the immense toll losing him had taken on their family and what life was like without their oldest brother, their leader.

Telles made a statement of his own in which he expressed condolences to the family, but did not take accountability or express remorse.

And I understand the

desire to seek justice and have somebody accountable for this, but I did not kill Mr.

Guernick.

And unfortunately, the people who should be held responsible, who should be brought to justice, the chances of it happening now, right this mayor, are slim tonight.

Robert Tellis received the maximum sentence of 28 years to life in prison.

His first parole hearing is scheduled for 2050.

Telles will be 73 years old.

Everyone from the review journal staff to the public administrator employees felt a tremendous mix of emotions knowing Robert Tellis was finally behind bars for good.

There was relief, exhaustion, gratitude, even guilt, especially in the cases of the public administrator employees who brought the story to Jeff Guerman.

He would still be alive if they hadn't roped him into this mess.

But those who knew Jeff know that he wouldn't want them to shoulder the blame.

He was just doing the same thing he'd done for the previous 40 years, his job.

Today, Guerman's desk at the Review Journal remains unoccupied.

It's both a stark reminder of the occupational hazards of being an investigative journalist, but also an invitation to take his place for me, for you, and anyone else inspired to continue the pursuit of truth.

Swindled is written, researched, produced, and hosted by me, the concerned citizen, with original music by Trevor Howard, aka the former, aka the horseshoe.

For more information about swindled, you can visit swindledpodcast.com and follow us on Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, and TikTok at SwindledPodcast, where you can send us a postcard at P.O.

Box2045, Austin, Texas, 78768.

But please, no packages.

We do not trust you.

Swindled is a completely independent production, which means no network, no investors, no bosses, no shadowy moneymen.

no shoelifts.

And we plan to keep it that way, but we need your support.

Become a valued listener on Patreon, Apple Podcasts, or Spotify at valuedlistener.com.

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That's it.

Thanks for listening.

Hello, my name is Chloe from Belgium.

Hello.

My name is Levi from Georgia.

Hello.

This is Kriegels from Dallas, Texas.

And I'm a concerned citizen in a baller U.S.

I believe that the simulation is breaking down.

Let's all enjoy the ride.

Thanks.

Thanks to Simply Safe for sponsoring the show.

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