1953–2022
Las Vegas Review-Journal | Las Vegas, Nevada | September 2, 2022 | Age 69
His four-decade career exposing Las Vegas’s underworld of mobsters and corruption made him a local legend, but it was a story about a minor public official that cost him his life—a stark reminder that danger can come from the most unexpected places.
The Journalist
Jeffrey Michael German was born in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, in 1953 to parents Max and June German. A Wisconsin native through and through, he graduated with an advanced degree from Marquette University and interned at the Milwaukee Journal before heading west to Las Vegas in the late 1970s. The move from Midwest heartland to desert gambling mecca would define his career.
The Work
German joined the Las Vegas Sun in 1978 and spent more than two decades there as a columnist and investigative reporter. During a time when Las Vegas seemed glamorous on the surface—the neon lights, the showgirls, the high rollers—he focused on the darker realities lurking beneath: organized crime, political corruption, and violence.
In the 1980s, when the mob still had a firm grip on Las Vegas, German built his reputation by covering organized crime. He wrote extensively about Anthony “The Ant” Spilotro, the ruthless enforcer for the Chicago Outfit who later inspired Joe Pesci’s character in Martin Scorsese’s film “Casino.” Spilotro controlled street-level rackets—loan sharking, bookmaking, burglary rings—while the Chicago bosses skimmed millions from casino counting rooms. German documented Spilotro’s network, naming associates and tracing money through front businesses.
German often used Spilotro’s street name in his articles—”The Ant”—a choice that infuriated the mobster. Spilotro was known for his hair-trigger temper and brutal methods. Colleagues recalled times when German would see Spilotro around town and receive menacing stares, or when Spilotro would confront him directly, his anger barely contained. German never backed down. He kept reporting.
He cultivated sources on both sides of the law—FBI agents, local cops, casino security, even low-level mob associates who knew they could trust him with confidential information. His decades-long knowledge of the city, from the streets to casino boardrooms, made him an authority on Las Vegas’s criminal underworld. When Spilotro and his brother were found beaten to death and buried in an Indiana cornfield in 1986, German’s reporting helped explain how the Chicago Outfit had turned on their own enforcer.
But German’s reporting went beyond colorful mobsters. German dominated coverage of the 1998 death of Ted Binion, a disgraced casino boss with mob ties, and its resulting murder trials. German wrote a book on the case, Murder in Sin City. Much like his colleague Ned Day, another Milwaukee transplant who reported on the mob’s decline in Southern Nevada, German documented the broader corruption that organized crime enabled. His work helped expose bribes taken by Clark County commissioners, an FBI investigation later known as Operation G-Sting. The investigation revealed commissioners accepting cash, trips, and other perks in exchange for favorable votes on zoning and development deals. German’s reporting traced the money and connected the dots between developers, consultants, and public officials.
After being laid off from the Sun, German joined the Las Vegas Review-Journal in 2010. He continued the work he’d done for three decades—exposing corruption, documenting organized crime’s lingering influence, holding public officials accountable. German covered every turn of Operation GrandMaster, the largest, longest public corruption prosecution ever brought in Nevada. The decade-long case, which involved millions of dollars worth of fraudulent construction defect claims brought by corrupt homeowner association boards, was so complex that most local media gave up trying to compete with German. He reported and hosted season 2 of the podcast “Mobbed Up: The Fight for Las Vegas,” an eight-part narrative chronicling the FBI’s battle to dismantle mob control over Las Vegas casinos in the 1980s. The podcast drew on his extensive knowledge and decades of sources, offering listeners an insider’s view of how federal agents finally broke the mob’s grip on the city.
The Final Story
In his final months, German wrote a series of articles investigating Robert Telles, the Clark County Public Administrator—a lesser-known elected official who ran a small government office that handled wills and estates. German’s reporting found that Telles fostered a toxic work environment by pitting staff against each other and had an inappropriate relationship with a subordinate.
When Telles took to Twitter to lash out at German, the seasoned journalist remained unfazed. Glenn Cook, his editor at the Review-Journal, recalled how German had once been punched by a mobster. “Jeff spent over 40 years covering the worst of the worst of Las Vegas. This was a guy who ran down mobsters, wise guys, and killers.”
While many of his editors knew he had made enemies in the criminal world, they were shocked that it was a public official who ultimately killed him. Cook noted that the list of people who wanted German dead “runs from here to Los Angeles,” after decades of reporting on the shady characters involved in a range of crimes. Yet it was Telles—a minor bureaucrat managing estates—who ended up posing the greatest threat.
On the morning of September 3, 2022, a neighbor found German stabbed to death outside his Las Vegas home. He had been stabbed seven times. On September 7, police arrested Telles after DNA matching him was found at the crime scene, under German’s fingernails, suggesting German had fought back against his attacker.
German’s family released a statement: “Jeff was a loving and loyal brother, uncle and friend who devoted his life to his work exposing wrongdoing in Las Vegas and beyond. We’re shocked, saddened and angry about his death. Jeff was committed to seeking justice for others and would appreciate the hard work by local police and journalists in pursuing his killer.”
The Legacy
Investigative Reporters and Editors, in collaboration with the Review-Journal, established the Jeff German Fund for Investigative Journalism “to help continue the kind of game-changing investigations German devoted his life to producing.”
German was posthumously awarded the Don Bolles Medal in 2023, joining a select group of journalists recognized for their extraordinary courage in standing up against intimidation.
IRE Executive Director Diana Fuentes said: “Jeff’s senseless death evoked a strong resolve from journalists across the country that we will not be intimidated. This fund will help journalists follow in Jeff’s footsteps, holding those in elected office accountable to the people they serve.”
For four decades, German uncovered the stories that powerful people wanted buried. He survived covering mobsters, corrupt politicians, and violent criminals. The tragic irony of his death—killed by a minor public administrator, who was not otherwise accused of a crime, rather than by the organized crime figures he’d spent a career exposing—underscored an uncomfortable truth: in the end, the most dangerous threat came from the least expected place.
German never married, lived alone, and at 69, had never discussed retirement with his editor. His Twitter page said simply: “I love digging up stories.”
Content included in this publication was generously provided by Freedom Forum which hosted the Journalists Memorial for 18 years to commemorate journalists who died reporting the news.
Freedom Forum is a partner with the Fallen Journalists Memorial Foundation.