Posted on 08/23/2024 7:27:45 PM PDT by Libloather
The whereabouts of a former Las Vegas Democratic politician around the time a veteran investigative journalist was brutally stabbed to death remains a key question in the ex-official’s murder trial – and a newly unearthed text message shrouds mystery to the defendants alibi as he continues to plead his innocence and contest DNA evidence linking him to the crime.
Robert Telles, 47, is on trial for killing journalist Jeff German, who had penned critical stories about the official, and the defendant faced tough questioning during cross-examination on Thursday where the prosecutor presented him with a surprise text message sent from his wife that had vanished from his phone.
Telles, a former Democratic Clark County administrator of estates, read out a text message from his wife, showing that she had wondered where he was around the time German was ambushed and killed outside his home nearly two years ago.
“It says, ‘Where are you?’” Telles said, in response to prosecutor Christopher Hamner.
Telles testified earlier that he had ignored several text, email and voice messages while he was at home, and gone for a walk and then to a gym the day German was killed.
Prosecutors have suggested that he had left the phone at home as he executed a meticulously planned fatal attack on the journalist.
Hamner zeroed in on cellphone records presented Wednesday by a defense witness that included no listing of the text from Telles’ wife.
The prosecutor said it was found on her Apple Watch device, and that the message had been deleted from Telles’ phone.
Telles said he had been in possession of the phone all day and that he had had the ability to save and delete messages.
(Excerpt) Read more at nypost.com ...
Here is all the info on cell tracking data retention https://www.forensicfocus.com/articles/cellular-provider-record-retention-periods/
1. He claims he was at home, and most likely left his phone at home while he went to commit the murder. The cell phone tower data will show where his phone was, but not necessarily where he was.
2. The significance of the wife’s deleted message is not clear to me. It implies he didn’t have his phone with him at the time she texted him. But he does say he wasn’t paying attention to his phone while he was at home with it in his possession. Perhaps the surprise of him not expecting to be asked about the deleted text did not provide him time to fabricate a more plausible explanation of why he deleted the text.
3. He apparently took the stand in his own defense, which gave the prosecution an opportunity to introduce this evidence by surprise as part of their cross examination. Example #6.02 x 10^23 why defense attorneys discourage their client from taking the witness stand. I assume the trial had not gone well for him, so they were trying a desperate Hail Mary play with him testifying in hopes they could introduce enough reasonable doubt into the jury’s deliberations.
1. He claims he was at home, and most likely left his phone at home while he went to commit the murder. The cell phone tower data will show where his phone was, but not necessarily where he was.
2. The significance of the wife’s deleted message is not clear to me. It implies he didn’t have his phone with him at the time she texted him. But he does say he wasn’t paying attention to his phone while he was at home with it in his possession. Perhaps the surprise of him not expecting to be asked about the deleted text did not provide him time to fabricate a more plausible explanation of why he deleted the text.
3. He apparently took the stand in his own defense, which gave the prosecution an opportunity to introduce this evidence by surprise as part of their cross examination. Example #6.02 x 10^23 why defense attorneys discourage their client from taking the witness stand. I assume the trial had not gone well for him, so they were trying a desperate Hail Mary play with him testifying in hopes they could introduce enough reasonable doubt into the jury’s deliberations.
Telles testified earlier that he had ignored several text, email and voice messages while he was at home, and gone for a walk and then to a gym the day German was killed.
Prosecutors have suggested that he had left the phone at home as he executed a meticulously planned fatal attack on the journalist.
I miss Avogadro’s Number.
If he claims he was at home, and the wife was at home, she wouldn’t have texted him, “Where are you?”. If indeed the wife was home, the text implies he wasn’t. As does the fact he deleted that text.
I love FR.
Your conclusion is SOLID LOGIC and exactly the same as mine.
Congratulations.. you're being PROMOTED to Detective FIRST CLASS!
Two trials that I watched closely on-line and in both instances there were witnesses that said they had videos of the instances and had shown them to friends or posted parts of them on-line.
And both of their phones were “damaged” and/or “accidentally locked” just prior to the police coming to take them as evidence.
The one gal said her toddler must have been playing with it and punched in more than 10 wrong code numbers and locked it. And then later that day the woman accidentally dropped it off her balcony to the concrete below. (She had a video of a police encounter. But the initial portion and the ending portions didn't get saved for some reason. Thankfully in that case the cops were found not guilty.
In the other case the woman had taken selfies of herself after being “beaten” by a man. Those selfies were deleted, and police and medics responding to the scene made no note of injuries to her.
Although she was one of the prime instigators of the attack and a witness and testified in court against him. The man, claiming self defense stabbed a few of the crowd of drunken teens attacking him - and killed one. He will spend the rest of his life in prison. (The Apple River Wisconsin Tubing trial).
I’m not at all concerned with this case, but
PLEASE, idjits, use a Faraday bag
The police state government HATES that !
Don’t use Apple. Use a phone where you can pull out the battery. Your phone will have a hard time broadcasting your location without an energy supply to power it.
Not a techie here but battery or not the police state can and will and does track any and ALL of US.
Faraday offers at least mini protection from Big Brother
sorry not able to spell techie,
regardless, this is why phones are not able to remove batteries.
The Police State Federal government controls ‘your’ cell phone.
how do you not know this ??
“He apparently took the stand in his own defense, which gave the prosecution an opportunity to introduce this evidence by surprise as part of their cross examination.”
I’m not sure what avocados have to do with this story, but what you’re saying above is that if he didn’t go on the stand, that certain evidence couldn’t be used without discovery first? I’m not a lawyer, but I haven’t heard that before...interesting.
He left his cell phone at home.
It’s in the article you didn’t read.
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