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 hands on one in every of Texas’ oldest crimes — cattle theft. 

Choose Skeet Jones, 71, the highest elected official since 2007 within the least populated county within the continental United States, is facing three felony counts of livestock theft and one depend of partaking in criminal activity, accused of gathering up and promoting stray cattle, authorities mentioned. 

Jones, the scion of a strong ranching family 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 remark. 

Authorities additionally arrested former Loving County deputy Leroy Medlin Jr., 35, on one rely of participating in felony exercise — a second-degree felony that carries a maximum sentence of 20 years. Medlin didn't return cellphone calls, but his wife despatched an e mail that questioned the motives behind the arrests. “We're being focused,” she wrote, “at full drive.” 

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

Jeremy Fuchs, a spokesman for the affiliation, mentioned the yearlong investigation is ongoing and more charges are doable.

The concept the choose — 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 possibly can’t make this shit up,” she stated. “It’s a ache within the ass to round up cattle and take them to market. After which to danger real bother for it? It’s simply asinine to me.”

Word of the arrests unfold quicker than a prairie fire with a tailwind by means of 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 retailer and no bank. The few kids who stay there board the bus in the one city, Mentone (inhabitants 22), and travel about 35 miles every morning and afternoon to attend school.

For decades, a handful of distinguished households in Loving County have feuded bitterly for control of the native authorities, with the Joneses finally largely popping out ahead. Skeet Jones has served because the choose for more than 15 years. His sister is the county clerk. His cousin’s husband is the county attorney. His nephew is the constable. 

However some just lately elected county officers have been butting heads with the Joneses and their allies, making for colorful commissioner’s courtroom conferences and a much-anticipated November election. 

And blood is not holding the Jones household together. 

“He’s had free reign for the entire time since he’s been the decide,” stated Skeet Jones’ nephew, Constable Brandon Jones, who was elected in 2016. “That’s given him a way of energy and impunity that he can do no matter he desires every time he wants.  Even the feeling of self-righteousness. That he can do no fallacious.” 

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

But he presided over a interval of unprecedented growth, as fracking boomed in the Permian Basin, feeding cash into the county’s coffers. The parched landscape is dotted with large gasoline plants, water plants and salt water disposal techniques. Lots of the surviving working ranches have “frac pads” for horizontally drilled wells that minimize by way of the caliche and bedrock to release the lifeblood for Loving County’s economy: oil and fuel. 

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

The salaries for most of the prime officers in town — the decide, auditor, treasurer, clerk, justice of the peace, county lawyer, constable and sheriff — are $100,000 or greater. 

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

But she got here to love Loving County’s vast, 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 hassle before, but nothing like this. In 2016, the state Fee on Judicial Conduct decided Jones did not observe the law by charging steep fees — about $600 to $750 — for lowering tickets together with rushing and marijuana possession down to parking tickets.

The choose denied any involvement in negotiations over tickets and instructed the fee he simply authorised the plea offers presented 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, the place records show he was issued indefinite suspensions — the department’s equivalent 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 within the back seat, records show. Medlin was reinstated after an attraction. 

Then in 2018, Medlin engaged in another high-speed pursuit after telling dispatchers the driver “almost ran me over,” data show. However body and dash digital camera footage contradicted Medlin’s account, in accordance with internal affairs experiences. 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 Office in January 2019 and “separated” from the company less than two years later, data show. (Sheriff Chris Busse declined to say why.) 

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

Two ranch palms also had been arrested on Friday. Cody Williams, 31, was charged with three counts of livestock theft and interesting in organized legal exercise, data show. He did not return a reporter’s phone call.

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

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