Keeping the Story Going: Honoring Investigative Reporter Jeff German

At the Tuesday afternoon general session honoring investigative reporter Jeff German, Las Vegas Review-Journal editor Glenn Cook told 35th Annual ACFE Global Fraud Conference attendees about the time German found himself on the receiving end of a sucker punch from a Mafia associate. It was 1985 and German was working on a story about a court bailiff who was mixed up with a local loan shark. People unhappy with German’s reporting smashed his windows and slashed his car tires. But these acts of intimidation didn’t deter German; instead, he confronted the subject of his story one night at the old Sands Hotel on the Las Vegas Strip. 

“Jeff looks him right in the face and says, ‘Hey, when are you going to call off the dogs?’” Cook related to attendees. “And this guy throws his drink in Jeff's face, and then with the other hand, sucker punches him in the mouth. Jeff needed stitches.” 

The stitches didn’t end the story. German continued his reporting.   

“Once he got a word of a wrong or of someone who needed to be brought to justice, he never stopped writing about them. He never quit on a story.”  

On September 2, 2022, German was found stabbed to death outside his home in Las Vegas. He was 69. His alleged killer, a Clark County, Nevada, elected official named Robert Telles, was arrested just five days later. German had written a series of stories examining claims that Telles, head of the Office of Public Administration, was bullying his staff and having an inappropriate relationship with one of his employees. According to Telles’ arrest report, he was upset over the stories German had written about him.  

Just before he died, German had started pulling at the threads of a story about a Ponzi scheme that had targeted members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. He never got to finish that story, but another journalist, Washington Post reporter, Lizzie Johnson, offered to pick up where German left off. The ACFE honored both German and Johnson with the Guardian Award for their investigation of the scheme. The Guardian Award is presented annually to a journalist whose determination, perseverance and commitment to the truth has contributed significantly to the fight against fraud. 

Johnson told conference attendees just how meaningful it was to her to take up German’s mantle and finish his story. 

“This is a journalist who's had the kind of career that I hope to have some day, and you don’t want the story to die with him,” said Johnson. 

German’s death shook the journalism world. In the days and weeks following his death, reporters from across the U.S. stepped up to help German’s colleagues at the Las Vegas Review-Journal finish his stories. Johnson said it was an “immediate yes” for her to complete his investigation of the Ponzi scheme. 

The mastermind behind the scheme was a Las Vegas lawyer named Matt Beasley. He was up to his eyeballs in gambling debt and looking for relief. So, he pitched an idea to his friend Jeffrey Judd, a member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. The idea was that investors would loan money to slip-and-fall victims awaiting their settlement money. It was sold as a risk-free opportunity to earn annual returns of 50% on the settlement funds. Ultimately, more than 900 members of the church lost $500 million to the scheme. Beasley was indicted in 2023 on five counts of wire fraud and three counts of money laundering. His trial began in February 2024.  

In many respects, the work of journalists and fraud examiners share similar characteristics. Both professions are concerned with ethics and investigating wrongdoing. As Johnson told attendees, journalism is about shining a light into dark corners.   

In closing the session, Cook reminded attendees of German’s tenacity as a reporter and offered this piece of advice for attendees: “There are a lot of bad people out there, and the only way to stop them is to be courageous, to understand the righteousness of your work, to never doubt the importance of doing the right thing.”