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

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

Judge Skeet Jones, 71, the top elected official since 2007 in the least populated county within the continental United States, is going through three felony counts of livestock theft and one depend of engaging in legal activity, 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 launched on $20,000 bond, records show. He did not return cellphone calls looking for comment. 

Authorities also arrested former Loving County deputy Leroy Medlin Jr., 35, on one count of partaking in criminal activity — a second-degree felony that carries a maximum sentence of 20 years. Medlin did not return phone calls, but his wife sent an e mail that questioned the motives behind the arrests. “We are being targeted,” she wrote, “at full power.” 

Officers with the Texas and Southwestern Cattle Raisers Association, the lead agency on the case, offered few specifics in regards to the alleged crime. Commissioned by the Texas Department of Public Security, the affiliation has “special rangers” —  certified peace officers — who investigate livestock theft and different agriculture crimes. 

Jeremy Fuchs, a spokesman for the affiliation, said the yearlong investigation is ongoing and more fees are possible.

The concept that the judge — who's paid $133,294 yearly — would get picked up for cattle rustling was simply too much for Susan Hays, a Texas election lawyer who’s wrangled with the Joneses prior to now.

“You may’t make this shit up,” she said. “It’s a ache within the ass to round up cattle and take them to market. After which to threat real trouble for it? It’s simply asinine to me.”

Phrase of the arrests spread quicker than a prairie hearth with a tailwind via this West Texas county, inhabitants 57 as of the final U.S. Census Bureau estimate. Spread over 671 square miles of mesquite-studded desert, Loving County has no college, no church, no grocery retailer and no financial institution. The few youngsters who live there board the bus in the only town, Mentone (inhabitants 22), and journey about 35 miles every morning and afternoon to attend college.

For many years, a handful of distinguished households in Loving County have feuded bitterly for management of the local authorities, with the Joneses finally largely coming out ahead. Skeet Jones has served as the judge 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 recently elected county officers have been butting heads with the Joneses and their allies, making for colourful commissioner’s court docket 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 choose,” said Skeet Jones’ nephew, Constable Brandon Jones, who was elected in 2016. “That’s given him a sense 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 unsuitable.” 

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

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

The tax base hovers round $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 high officers on the town — the judge, auditor, treasurer, clerk, justice of the peace, county lawyer, constable and sheriff — are $100,000 or increased. 

Jones’ father, Elgin “Punk” Jones, and mother, Mary Belle Jones, began the P&M Jones Ranch in 1953, settling right into a wood-frame house with no operating water. “Once I first got here to Mentone in 1953, it was quite a shock,” Mary Belle Jones advised the Texas Monthly in 1997. “I said to my husband, ‘Punk, how long are we going to live in this godforsaken place?’” 

But she came to like 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 field that feeds Mentone. 

Skeet Jones has gotten into hassle earlier than, however nothing like this. In 2016, the state Fee on Judicial Conduct determined Jones failed to follow the regulation by charging steep fees — about $600 to $750 — for decreasing tickets together with dashing and marijuana possession down to parking tickets.

The judge denied any involvement in negotiations over tickets and instructed the fee he simply authorized the plea deals introduced 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 records present he was issued indefinite suspensions — the division’s equivalent of being fired — 3 times. 

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, data present. Medlin was reinstated after an enchantment. 

Then in 2018, Medlin engaged in another high-speed pursuit after telling dispatchers the driving force “virtually ran me over,” data present. But body and sprint camera footage contradicted Medlin’s account, in line with inner affairs stories. 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, information show. 

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

Medlin additionally worked on Jones’ ranch before being employed by Loving County as a janitor and groundskeeper. 

Two ranch arms also had been arrested on Friday. Cody Williams, 31, was charged with three counts of livestock theft and interesting in organized prison activity, information present. He did not return a reporter’s phone call.

Jonathon Alvarado, 23, faces one depend of theft of livestock, which carries a sentence of as much as 10 years in prison. He hung up on a reporter searching for remark.

Along with the decide, Medlin, Williams and Alvarado posted bond and were released from jail.