‘I don’t want to fight anymore’ says employee who sued over handling of Telles complaints

The county employee who first filed complaints against then-Clark County Public Administrator Robert Telles said she is relieved that part of a related lawsuit is ending in a settlement.

“I don’t want to fight anymore,” Aleisha Goodwin told the Las Vegas Review-Journal on Tuesday. “I want to do my job and go on with life, and I don’t want to continue to have to try to defend myself for sticking up for ourselves.”

Goodwin is one of four women who sued Clark County in federal court over officials’ response to complaints filed against Telles, who was the subject of several articles about tensions in the office authored by Review-Journal investigative reporter Jeff German. Telles fatally stabbed German in September 2022 and was found guilty of murder nearly two years later.

County commissioners voted Tuesday to approve a $375,000 settlement for three of the women who filed the federal lawsuit. Goodwin will receive $240,000 from the settlement, Jessica Coleman will receive $90,000, and current Public Administrator Rita Reid will receive $45,000.

The fourth plaintiff, Noraine Pagdanganan, agreed to an offer of judgment for $10,000 from Clark County in May.

Commissioners approved the settlement for the other three women without discussion during a public meeting.

The women alleged that Telles created a hostile, discriminatory work environment and that he retaliated against several women who did not reciprocate his sexual advances.

They alleged that the county took no action in response to complaints filed about Telles’ behavior and “utterly failed to protect” the employees.

The plaintiffs also sued Telles but dropped the claims against him last year. Attorney Taylor Jorgensen has said her clients wanted to focus on the county’s response to their complaints.

Goodwin filed an initial complaint about Telles in August 2020. She said Telles gave her unreasonable work requests and made disparaging comments about her in front of other employees.

In the lawsuit, Goodwin alleged that Telles had touched her inappropriately and began treating her hostilely when he learned she was a member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

Goodwin said county officials questioned her after she submitted the complaint but did little else to investigate Telles, who was an elected official and could not be fired. Nearly two years after her first complaint, Goodwin said, she approached German to see if he was interested in reporting on the situation.

“If they would have taken it more seriously and put some kind of action into place where we felt protected or were protected … there wouldn’t have been a reason to go to Jeff,” Goodwin said. “We went to Jeff because we felt like the county didn’t believe us with the complaints.”

The Review-Journal previously reported that county officials failed to search Telles’ work emails and messages following the complaints about his behavior. Those messages showed evidence of an affair Telles carried out with an employee, which was referenced in the complaints filed against him.

Goodwin said she and the other women thought the only way to stop Telles’ behavior was to prevent him from winning re-election.

Shortly after German’s initial article, Clark County brought in former county Coroner Michael Murphy to act as a consultant and ease the turmoil in the office. Pagdanganan and Coleman then submitted their own complaints in June 2022, and Telles lost a primary race to Reid that same month, ending his re-election bid.

Telles killed German three months later outside the reporter’s Las Vegas home.

Goodwin said that while she is happy the lawsuit with the county is being resolved, she still has to deal with litigation from Telles. He has filed a countersuit against the four women in federal court, alleging that the original lawsuit contained false allegations and was slanderous.

Years after she first filed a complaint against Telles, Goodwin said it still feels like he’s harassing her. Telles, who is acting as his own attorney, can request Goodwin’s personal information and question her in depositions as part of the discovery process, she said.

“I’m looking forward to when the countersuit is going to be behind us, and then we can breathe and heal,” she said.