The highest elected official in Loving County, Texas, charged with cattle theft 

Lawmen got here to remote Loving County, Texas, on Friday to arrest the county choose, a former sheriff’s deputy and two ranch palms on considered one of Texas’ oldest crimes — cattle theft. 

Choose Skeet Jones, 71, the highest elected official since 2007 within the least populated county in the continental United States, is going through three felony counts of livestock theft and one count of partaking in prison exercise, accused of gathering up and promoting stray cattle, authorities stated. 

Jones, the scion of a powerful ranching household that settled in Loving County in the 1950s, was booked into Winkler County Jail on Friday and launched on $20,000 bond, information show. He did not return cellphone calls looking for comment. 

Authorities additionally arrested former Loving County deputy Leroy Medlin Jr., 35, on one count of partaking in prison exercise — a second-degree felony that carries a maximum sentence of 20 years. Medlin did not return cellphone calls, but his spouse despatched an e mail that questioned the motives behind the arrests. “We're being targeted,” she wrote, “at full pressure.” 

Officials with the Texas and Southwestern Cattle Raisers Association, the lead company on the case, supplied few specifics about the alleged crime. Commissioned by the Texas Department of Public Safety, the association has “particular rangers” —  licensed peace officers — who investigate livestock theft and different agriculture crimes. 

Jeremy Fuchs, a spokesman for the association, stated the yearlong investigation is ongoing and extra expenses are possible.

The concept that the decide — who is paid $133,294 yearly — would get picked up for cattle rustling was just too much for Susan Hays, a Texas election lawyer who’s wrangled with the Joneses in the past.

“You can’t make this shit up,” she mentioned. “It’s a ache within the ass to spherical up cattle and take them to market. And then to risk actual bother for it? It’s simply asinine to me.”

Word of the arrests unfold sooner than a prairie fireplace with a tailwind by this West Texas county, population 57 as of the final U.S. Census Bureau estimate. Spread over 671 sq. miles of mesquite-studded desert, Loving County has no college, no church, no grocery store and no financial institution. The few youngsters who stay there board the bus in the one city, Mentone (population 22), and journey about 35 miles each morning and afternoon to attend school.

For many years, a handful of prominent families in Loving County have feuded bitterly for control of the native government, with the Joneses lastly largely popping out ahead. Skeet Jones has served as the decide for greater than 15 years. His sister is the county clerk. His cousin’s husband is the county attorney. His nephew is the constable. 

However some lately elected county officials have been butting heads with the Joneses and their allies, making for colorful commissioner’s court docket meetings and a much-anticipated November election. 

And blood is now not holding the Jones household collectively. 

“He’s had free reign for the complete time since he’s been the judge,” said Skeet Jones’ nephew, Constable Brandon Jones, who was elected in 2016. “That’s given him a sense of energy and impunity that he can do whatever he wants at any time when he needs.  Even the sensation of self-righteousness. That he can do no fallacious.” 

When Skeet Jones was sworn in as choose in 2007, most of the caliche roads have been rutted like washboards and residents still had to line up to get potable water disbursed from a community tank. 

But he presided over a period of unprecedented development, as fracking boomed within the Permian Basin, feeding money into the county’s coffers. The parched landscape is dotted with large gasoline crops, water vegetation and salt water disposal programs. Most of the surviving working ranches have “frac pads” for horizontally drilled wells that lower by the caliche and bedrock to release the lifeblood for Loving County’s financial system: oil and gasoline. 

The tax base hovers round $7 billion to $9 billion. And the county’s funds has grown from about $2 million in 2008 to greater than $28 million. 

The salaries for many of the high officers in town — the judge, auditor, treasurer, clerk, justice of the peace, county attorney, constable and sheriff — are $100,000 or larger. 

Jones’ father, Elgin “Punk” Jones, and mother, Mary Belle Jones, started the P&M Jones Ranch in 1953, settling right into a wood-frame home with no working water. “When I first got here to Mentone in 1953, it was fairly a shock,” Mary Belle Jones advised the Texas Month-to-month in 1997. “I mentioned to my husband, ‘Punk, how long are we going to reside on this godforsaken place?’” 

But she got here to love Loving County’s huge, open skyline. She served as the county’s chief appraiser for years. Punk Jones, the sheriff for 28 years, is credited with discovering the freshwater properly discipline that feeds Mentone. 

Skeet Jones has gotten into hassle earlier than, but nothing like this. In 2016, the state Commission on Judicial Conduct decided Jones failed to follow the legislation by charging steep fees — about $600 to $750 — for lowering tickets together with rushing and marijuana possession all the way down to parking tickets.

The choose denied any involvement in negotiations over tickets and told the commission he just accepted the plea deals introduced to him. He was issued a public warning and ordered to take 10 hours of further education.

Medlin previously labored as a detective for the San Antonio Police Division, where records show he was issued indefinite suspensions — the department’s equal of being fired — three times. 

In 2015, he was placed on indefinite suspension for a 100-plus mph pursuit of a driver who had a toddler in the back seat, records present. Medlin was reinstated after an attraction. 

Then in 2018, Medlin engaged in one other high-speed pursuit after telling dispatchers the driver “almost ran me over,” data present. However body and sprint digicam footage contradicted Medlin’s account, in line with inside affairs experiences. He appealed again, telling supervisors he felt threatened, even if it wasn’t evident from the movies.

He was later issued another indefinite suspension after supervisors determined he issued tickets for violations he didn’t witness, data show. 

Medlin joined the Loving County Sheriff’s Workplace in January 2019 and “separated” from the agency less than two years later, records show. (Sheriff Chris Busse declined to say why.) 

Medlin also worked on Jones’ ranch earlier than being hired by Loving County as a janitor and groundskeeper. 

Two ranch fingers also had been arrested on Friday. Cody Williams, 31, was charged with three counts of livestock theft and engaging in organized felony activity, information show. He didn't return a reporter’s cellphone call.

Jonathon Alvarado, 23, faces one rely of theft of livestock, which carries a sentence of as much as 10 years in jail. He hung up on a reporter seeking remark.

In addition to the judge, Medlin, Williams and Alvarado posted bond and were released from jail.