Democrats and Republicans will have several candidates to choose from in the primary election for Clark County public administrator— a down-ballot race for a small office that has generated controversy in recent years.
Early voting starts May 23, just over two weeks before the June 9 primary. The top vote-getter from each party will face off in the general election in November.
The public administrator oversees the office that takes possession of property from people who die without immediate family members to oversee the estate. The office was thrown into the headlines when a sitting public administrator, Robert Telles, murdered Las Vegas Review-Journal investigative reporter Jeff German in September 2022. Telles killed German over articles the journalist had written about Telles’ conduct while overseeing the office.
Rita Reid, who worked under Telles, beat him in the 2022 primary race three months before the killing. Reid is not seeking re-election. Six others are.
The Democratic candidates are Marlin “M.J.” Ivy, a former investigator in the public administrator’s office who has spent time in prison, real estate agent Edgar Velazquez and Deputy Attorney General Stephanie Itkin-Goodman. The Republican candidates are former Clark County Coroner Michael Murphy, real estate agent Donald Salazar and online reseller Mark Sprinkle.
Marlin “M.J.” Ivy
Ivy, 54, also has ties to Telles. He has publicly stated he was friends with Telles before German’s murder, and the two campaigned together in 2022 when Ivy ran unsuccessfully for the Nevada Board of Regents. Ivy has said he is no longer friends with Telles, who is in prison.
The Review-Journal has reported that Ivy has a criminal history and was recently accused of threatening a man during a phone call. Ivy has denied making that phone call, and Henderson police said they closed the case because the man who reported the call did not want to press charges.
Ivy was initially convicted in 2014 of felony battery with a deadly weapon in connection with an altercation with an employee at a pornographic video rental store. The case was overturned by the Nevada Court of Appeals in 2015. He also has served time in prison for two attempted robbery convictions, court records show.
Ivy briefly worked for the public administrator’s office for seven weeks in 2022, logging 76 hours of part-time work, a county spokesperson previously said. He has spent several years advertising himself as a pastor on social media while doing brief stints in local government positions.
On his campaign website, Ivy says his “leadership, education, experience, and love of people” make him the right choice for public administrator.
“I am aware of the issues surrounding the Public Administrator’s office and will address those issues head-on,” Ivy wrote on his website.
Edgar Velazquez
Velazquez’s real estate license indicates he works for Compass Realty & Management, a real estate firm with ties to many of the homes sold in probate court. The firm was also caught up in a feud with Telles that dated back to his time as public administrator.
A 2024 Review-Journal investigation reported on a cottage industry of private administrators, real estate agents, lawyers and house flippers that benefited from selling dead people’s homes, often with little profit for heirs. In 2025, lawmakers changed Nevada’s probate laws to limit who can obtain court authority to sell homes in probate cases without a judge’s approval.
Last year, probate commissioners suspended Velazquez as the personal representative in 38 probate court cases he was administering, according to court documents. Commissioners found that Velazquez made “unauthorized and undisclosed payments of sale proceeds” from probate cases to entities commissioners said he was associated with, including Compass Realty.
“The payments to LV Abatement Services, Estate Administration Services, and Compass realty were not arm’s length transactions, constitute self-dealing, and were in direct conflict with the interests of the heirs and beneficiaries of the estates to whom Mr. Velazquez owed a fiduciary duty,” commissioners wrote in court documents.
In court documents, Velazquez denied wrongdoing in the probate cases.
District Judge Gloria Sturman partially upheld a commissioner’s findings, revoked Velazquez as the administrator in one case and suspended him in the nearly two dozen cases before her, according to court records. Judges Jessica Peterson and Veronica Barisich reinstated Velazquez in cases before them.
Barisich found that there was insufficient evidence that Velazquez had a conflict of interest, and wrote in a court order that a commissioner did not give Velazquez a meaningful opportunity to be heard before issuing the suspensions, court records show.
Velazquez appealed Sturman’s decision to the Nevada Court of Appeals, which has not ruled on the case. In a writ petition, Velazquez wrote that his probate cases received more scrutiny after Telles claimed during his trial that Compass Realty framed him for murdering German because Telles said he was looking into independent administrators. Velazquez argued that probate cases he was involved with started to receive unequal treatment.
The petition states that Velazquez is not paid by LV Abatement Services or Estate Administration Services. Velazquez’s attorneys wrote that Compass Realty employs him as a property manager, and that the firm does not give him incentives or pay him administrative fees for probate cases.
Velazquez declined a phone interview for this article, but he emailed a statement to the Review-Journal.
In his statement, Velazquez said he is running to stop “insider networks that have flourished for years” and to investigate probate cases handled by Telles.
“In regard to my campaign, I am the only candidate with Private Administration experience which I did pro bono,” Velazquez wrote in the statement. “I am clearly the most qualified for the position.”
Stephanie Itkin-Goodman
Itkin-Goodman, 32, is an attorney who has lived in Nevada for about five years. She has worked for a private law firm handling personal injury cases, and has worked at the attorney general’s office for the past year. She represents various licensing boards through the attorney general’s office, including the Real Estate Commission, the Private Investigators Licensing Board, the Funeral and Cemetery Services Board, and the Nevada State Environmental Commission.
Although she does not have direct experience handling probate cases, Itkin-Goodman said she stands out as a candidate because she is the only lawyer in the race. She said that in her past roles, she has managed hundreds of cases at a time and overseen a team of legal assistants.
“Clark County deserves someone with the legal training, judgment, independence and integrity to protect the state, heirs, creditors and the public trust, which is exactly what I offer,” Itkin-Goodman said.
Itkin-Goodman, who is not related to former Mayors Oscar and Carolyn Goodman, said she would support changing the role of public administrator to be an appointed position instead of an elected role, similar to how rural Nevada counties have established the office.
She also expressed concerns about the other Democrats in the race, in light of Ivy’s criminal history and the allegations against Velazquez detailed in court documents.
“I’m not interested in personal attacks, but I do believe candidates for this office should be held to the highest standard at a time when this office is still rebuilding public confidence,” she said.
Michael Murphy
Murphy, 72, one of the three Republican candidates, has helped run various local government offices for most of the past three decades. His involvement with the public administrator’s office began in May 2022, when the county hired him as a consultant to oversee the office following German’s articles about Telles’ mismanagement. He continued to run the office with Reid after Telles’ arrest, and through the first few months of her elected term in 2023.
“Quite simply, I’m the only candidate that’s running that’s actually managed and run the office, and knows the office,” Murphy said.
Reid has said she is endorsing Murphy in this election.
Murphy was the Mesquite police chief from 1990 to 1999 and was then the deputy chief for the City of Las Vegas Detention and Enforcement for nearly three years. From 2002 to 2015 he served as the Clark County coroner. He worked with the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children for several years before he began working as a consultant. Before overseeing the public administrator’s office, Clark County hired him to run the coroner’s office temporarily.
Murphy is one of multiple former government employees who have been paid for consulting work for local governments, while simultaneously receiving pension payments from the Public Employees Retirement System, the Review-Journal reported last year. Murphy said most of his consulting work is for training and teaching services in other states and jurisdictions, and that he does not plan to take on any new consulting contracts if he were to be elected public administrator.
“I believe that what I’ve done has always been within the system and it’s been appropriate,” Murphy said. “… If I elect to continue to work, I believe I should be compensated.”
If elected public administrator, Murphy said he would want to focus on streamlining the office’s evidence collection procedures, including utilizing body cameras for investigators who take control of dead people’s property, while making the process more transparent. He also questioned the need for the office to be a partisan position, although he said the Legislature would have to change how it operates.
“I think that’s an issue that’s going to have to be addressed,” he said.
Donald Salazar
Salazar, 77, is a real estate agent who has lived in Nevada for nearly four decades. He’s worked as a mortgage broker and received his real estate license nine years ago.
His license is also associated with Compass Realty, although Salazar said the property sales he is involved with rarely deal with probate court.
Salazar said he does not work closely with Velazquez and was unaware of the litigation involving him. If elected, he said he would no longer be active in real estate sales and would stop working for Compass Realty.
He said he was not aware of the public administrator’s office until the articles about Telles’ behavior and his subsequent arrest for murder. If elected, Salazar said he would like to address the turmoil and backlog of cases that still affect the office.
Salazar said he would like to focus on outreach within the community, so that more people formalize plans for their property before they die. Then the office’s services would be needed less often, he said.
He also would like to address the turmoil and backlog of cases that still affect the office, Salazar said. He plans to review the office’s training procedures and staffing levels to see if anything needs to be changed.
“I think we need to take a businessman approach and go into the department, analyze it, and then see if there’s sufficient staffing, see if we need to write any policies and procedures,” he said. “And then get the word out to the community that these services are available to them.”
Mark Sprinkle
Sprinkle, 48, is a former political campaign worker who now operates a small business reselling items online. He is also a veteran of the Army and the Army National Guard, and has previously worked for then-U.S. Sen. John Ensign and the Nevada Legislative Counsel Bureau, Sprinkle said.
He does not have first-hand experience selling homes in probate court, Sprinkle said. He first heard about the public administrator’s office through resale auctions he participated in as part of his online business.
Sprinkle said he’s been asked if his business represents a conflict of interest with the public administrator’s office, because he sometimes buys items from an auction house contracted with the office. Sprinkle said those auctions are open to the public, and if he were to be elected public administrator, he would reduce his business.
“I would have to take it way down, because it’s a full-time job to do that,” he said.
If elected, Sprinkle said he would focus on finding the next of kin in more cases to avoid “unnecessary probate” procedures. He also supports acquiring body cameras for investigators, in order to document the process of going through dead people’s property.
“I want to bring more accountability and transparency to an office that’s had so many issues in the past,” Sprinkle said.
Contact Katelyn Newberg at knewberg@reviewjournal.com or 702-383-0240.
