A former Nevada politician has been sentenced to life in prison after being found guilty on Wednesday of the September 2022 murder of journalist Jeff German.

As the jury foreman read the guilty verdict, former Clark County District Attorney Robert Telles looked down and shook his head.

Telles was sentenced to life imprisonment, with the possibility of parole after a minimum of 20 years in prison.

At a press conference after the verdict was announced, Clark County District Attorney Steven Wolfson thanked the jury for their work on the case.

“Today’s ruling should send a clear message, and that message is that attempts to silence the media or to silence or intimidate journalists will not be tolerated,” Wolfson said.

Prosecutors said former Clark County Public Defender Robert Telles, 47, stabbed the Las Vegas Review-Journal reporter to death after German exposed corruption in his office, destroying both his political career and his marriage. German’s account detailed an allegedly hostile work environment in Telles’ office — including bullying, retaliation and an “inappropriate relationship” between Telles and a staffer — all of which Telles denied.

Telles was arrested days after German was found dead outside his Las Vegas home. Police said DNA evidence found in Telles’ home tied him to the crime scene, and a straw hat and sneakers — which the suspect was seen wearing in surveillance footage — were found in pieces in his home. His DNA was also found on German’s hands and fingernails, police said.

He had denied being guilty of murder.

In her opening statement, Deputy District Attorney Pamela Weckerly discussed the timeline of the murder and how Telles came to be identified as a suspect.

“At the end of the day, this case is not about politics,” Weckerly said. “It’s not about alleged inappropriate relationships. It’s not about who’s a good boss or who’s a good supervisor or favoritism in the workplace — it’s just about murder.”

Telles himself testified at his trial on August 21, and “unequivocally” maintained his innocence. He continued to maintain that he had been “framed” by a real estate agency in a vast conspiracy, which he said he was investigating for alleged bribery.

“Someone set me up for this, and I believe it was Compass Realty, and I believe it was for the work that I did against them,” Telles told the court.

In a statement to the Las Vegas Review-Journal in January, Compass Realty owner Takumba Britt denied Telles’ conspiracy theories, calling him a “desperate man charged with the violent murder of a beloved local journalist” who “would do and say anything to avoid answering to these charges.”

Wolfson also responded to Telles’ conspiracy theories after the jury announced its verdict.

“There was no conspiracy,” Wolfson said. “The only conspiracy was between him and his evil mind.”

When police took Telles into custody, he had what they called non-life-threatening, self-inflicted stab wounds. His attorney, Robert Draskovich, said the suicide attempt was not out of guilt, but because Telles’ “life was falling apart.”

Draskovich echoed Telles’ claims of a conspiracy against him, saying in his opening statement that the “old guard” in the public administrator’s office was angry about Telles’ efforts to root out internal corruption. He also claimed that, because of German’s track record of investigating corrupt figures, there were other people who might want him dead.

“There were others who had much more reason to make it look like (Telles) was the killer, and to commit this murder because Jeff German was a good reporter — he would eventually get to the truth,” Draskovich said.

Before the verdict on Wednesday, German’s three siblings gave a speech in court, telling what their eldest brother meant to them.

“Jeff was our leader, he was the older brother that we all could lean on,” said his brother Jay German.

The siblings remembered him as a “wonderful” uncle, a “fearless” journalist and a lover of football and sitcoms.

His sister, Jill Zwerg, who said German was “like a second father,” remembers him buying a whole round of champagne for the bar when she told me she was engaged.

“He is missed so much every day,” Zwerg said through tears.

Telles’ wife and ex-wife also spoke and tearfully asked the jury not to sentence him to life in prison without the possibility of parole.

“I would love to give my children the opportunity to have their father back at some point,” said his wife, Mary Ann Ismael.

Telles cried as his mother, Rosalinda Anaya, testified.

“I accept the sentence, but if you — please — give my son the chance of parole,” Anaya said. “His family is still very young and I would like him to come back to them someday.”

Before sending the jury home to deliberate on a sentence, Draskovich urged the jury not to impose a life sentence.

“Give him the chance — give his children the chance — to have their father back decades from now,” Draskovich said.

But prosecutors argued that a life sentence — with or without parole — was necessary in such a case. Clark County Deputy District Attorney Chris Hamner said Telles “decided to be judge, jury and literally executioner” of German “because he just didn’t like what was being written about him.”

“If you think about the situation he was in, the world wouldn’t end. He just lost an election,” Hamner said. “The way Robert Telles handled this was devastating, and it was his choice and his choice alone.”

According to the Committee to Protect Journalists, German was the only journalist murdered in the United States in 2022. At least 67 journalists were murdered worldwide that year.

Las Vegas Sheriff Joseph Lombardo previously described the case against Telles as “unusual” and said “the murder of a journalist is particularly disturbing.”

“It’s tricky because he’s a journalist. And we expect journalism to be open and transparent and the watchdog of the government,” Lombardo said. “And when people take it upon themselves to cause harm that’s related to that profession, I think it’s really important that we keep all eyes on it and handle it the right way, as we did in this case.”

In a statement released by the newspaper, Glenn Cook, editor in chief of the Las Vegas Review-Journal, praised the ruling “as a sign of justice” for German, but also for “murdered journalists around the world.”

“Jeff was murdered because he did the kind of work he was proud of: His reporting held an elected official accountable for bad behavior and gave voters the power to elect someone else to the job,” Cook wrote. “Robert Telles could have joined the long line of publicly shamed Nevada politicians who have moved on with their lives, out of the spotlight or back in. Instead, he carried out a premeditated revenge killing with terrifying brutality.”

“Let us also remember that this community has lost much more than a trusted journalist,” Cook added. “Jeff was a good man who left behind a family who loved him and friends who cherished him. His murder remains a disgrace. He will be missed.”