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

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

Decide 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 engaging in felony exercise, accused of gathering up and selling stray cattle, authorities stated. 

Jones, the scion of a robust ranching household that settled in Loving County within the Nineteen Fifties, was booked into Winkler County Jail on Friday and released on $20,000 bond, data show. He did not return phone calls in search of comment. 

Authorities additionally arrested former Loving County deputy Leroy Medlin Jr., 35, on one depend of partaking in prison activity — a second-degree felony that carries a maximum sentence of 20 years. Medlin didn't return phone calls, however his spouse sent an email that questioned the motives behind the arrests. “We're being focused,” she wrote, “at full drive.” 

Officers with the Texas and Southwestern Cattle Raisers Affiliation, the lead company on the case, provided few specifics in regards to the alleged crime. Commissioned via the Texas Division of Public Safety, the affiliation has “particular rangers” —  certified peace officers — who examine livestock theft and other agriculture crimes. 

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

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

“You may’t make this shit up,” she stated. “It’s a ache in the ass to round up cattle and take them to market. And then to threat actual trouble for it? It’s just asinine to me.”

Word of the arrests unfold quicker than a prairie fireplace with a tailwind through this West Texas county, population 57 as of the final U.S. Census Bureau estimate. Unfold over 671 square miles of mesquite-studded desert, Loving County has no faculty, no church, no grocery store and no bank. The few kids who live there board the bus in the one town, Mentone (inhabitants 22), and travel about 35 miles each morning and afternoon to attend college.

For many years, a handful of outstanding families in Loving County have feuded bitterly for control of the local authorities, with the Joneses finally largely coming out forward. Skeet Jones has served as the choose for greater than 15 years. His sister is the county clerk. His cousin’s husband is the county legal professional. His nephew is the constable. 

However some not too long ago elected county officials have been butting heads with the Joneses and their allies, making for colorful commissioner’s courtroom meetings and a much-anticipated November election. 

And blood is no longer holding the Jones family collectively. 

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

When Skeet Jones was sworn in as judge in 2007, a lot of the caliche roads were rutted like washboards and residents nonetheless needed to line as much as get potable water disbursed from a neighborhood tank. 

However he presided over a interval of unprecedented progress, as fracking boomed within the Permian Basin, feeding money into the county’s coffers. The parched panorama is dotted with massive gas crops, water plants and salt water disposal techniques. Most of the surviving working ranches have “frac pads” for horizontally drilled wells that lower by way of the caliche and bedrock to free up the lifeblood for Loving County’s economic system: oil and gasoline. 

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

The salaries for most of the prime officials in town — the choose, auditor, treasurer, clerk, justice of the peace, county legal professional, constable and sheriff — are $100,000 or higher. 

Jones’ father, Elgin “Punk” Jones, and mother, Mary Belle Jones, started the P&M Jones Ranch in 1953, settling into a wood-frame house with no running water. “When I first came to Mentone in 1953, it was quite a shock,” Mary Belle Jones instructed the Texas Monthly in 1997. “I stated to my husband, ‘Punk, how long are we going to reside in this godforsaken place?’” 

However she came to love Loving County’s huge, open skyline. She served because the county’s chief appraiser for years. Punk Jones, the sheriff for 28 years, is credited with discovering the freshwater effectively subject that feeds Mentone. 

Skeet Jones has gotten into bother earlier than, but nothing like this. In 2016, the state Commission on Judicial Conduct determined Jones didn't comply with the law by charging steep fees — about $600 to $750 — for lowering tickets including speeding and marijuana possession all the way down to parking tickets.

The choose denied any involvement in negotiations over tickets and instructed the commission he simply approved the plea offers presented to him. He was issued a public warning and ordered to take 10 hours of additional training.

Medlin previously worked as a detective for the San Antonio Police Department, where information present he was issued indefinite suspensions — the division’s equivalent of being fired — thrice. 

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

Then in 2018, Medlin engaged in another high-speed pursuit after telling dispatchers the driver “virtually ran me over,” data show. But physique and sprint camera footage contradicted Medlin’s account, according to internal affairs reviews. He appealed once more, telling supervisors he felt threatened, even if it wasn’t evident from the movies.

He was later issued one other 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, data present. (Sheriff Chris Busse declined to say why.) 

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

Two ranch hands also were arrested on Friday. Cody Williams, 31, was charged with three counts of livestock theft and fascinating in organized prison activity, information present. He didn't return a reporter’s phone name.

Jonathon Alvarado, 23, faces one depend of theft of livestock, which carries a sentence of up to 10 years in jail. He hung up on a reporter looking for remark.

In addition to the judge, Medlin, Williams and Alvarado posted bond and have been launched from jail.