Robert Telles testifies in murder trial | Courts

Several experienced attorneys said they had never seen a deposition like the one former Clark County Public Administrator Robert Telles gave Wednesday.

Telles took the witness stand at his murder trial and spoke to the jury in narrative form for about 90 minutes, uninterrupted by questions from his attorney Robert Draskovich.

Former Clark County District Attorney David Roger, general counsel for the Las Vegas Police Protective Association, was in a meeting Wednesday when he saw Telles speaking on a muted screen and received messages from friends about the unusual statement. He said he had only one thought about what might be going on.

“Our ethical rules say that a lawyer cannot call a witness to the stand if he knows the witness is going to lie,” Roger said.

One option for a lawyer in this situation is to “simply point out the ethical issue to the judge and then let the person go where they can tell their story without asking any questions,” he said.

The reason for this is that under the rules of the American Bar Association, a lawyer may not present evidence that he knows to be false.

“By asking questions, they are spreading false testimony,” Roger said.

Roger explained that such an approach is generally seen as a last resort after attempts have been made to persuade the client not to testify.

Roger, who has prosecuted numerous murder cases throughout his career, said he had heard about the tactic in many ethics courses but had never seen it in action.

Stewart Bell, a former district attorney and district judge of Clark County, said the decision to have Telles give a narrative statement may have been made due to time constraints.

“The defendant wants to tell his story,” Bell said, explaining that he could probably do so in a shorter amount of time if his attorney did not ask questions.

Although he said he had never seen a statement drafted this way in a case where the client was not representing himself, he was not necessarily surprised to see it done in the Telles case.

Telles, who previously worked as a probate attorney, had previously represented himself in the murder case. He is accused of fatally stabbing Las Vegas Review-Journal investigative reporter Jeff German, who had written stories about him, in September 2022.

During a legal dispute between authorities and the Review-Journal over the seizure of German's personal reporting devices, Roger was briefly considered as an option for an outside search team that would have searched the devices for investigators.

Like Roger, veteran defense attorney Christopher Oram said he had never seen the type of testimony Telles gave before, but added that it should not affect how Telles is cross-examined by the prosecution.

In cross-examination, Telles could be made to answer direct questions, Oram said. “He does not have the right to just give a narrative.”

The defendant's testimony is expected to continue on Thursday morning.

Contact Estelle Atkinson at [email protected]. Follow @estellelilym on X and @estelleatkinsonreports on Instagram.

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