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 arms on one in all Texas’ oldest crimes — cattle theft. 

Decide Skeet Jones, 71, the highest 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 count of partaking in felony exercise, accused of gathering up and selling stray cattle, authorities stated. 

Jones, the scion of a strong ranching household that settled in Loving County within the 1950s, was booked into Winkler County Jail on Friday and released on $20,000 bond, data present. He did not return telephone calls searching for comment. 

Authorities also arrested former Loving County deputy Leroy Medlin Jr., 35, on one depend of participating in felony activity — a second-degree felony that carries a maximum sentence of 20 years. Medlin did not return cellphone calls, but his wife sent an e mail that questioned the motives behind the arrests. “We're being focused,” she wrote, “at full pressure.” 

Officers with the Texas and Southwestern Cattle Raisers Association, the lead company on the case, provided few specifics about the alleged crime. Commissioned by means of the Texas Department of Public Security, the association has “special rangers” —  licensed peace officers — who examine livestock theft and different agriculture crimes. 

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

The concept the choose — 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 up to now.

“You possibly can’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 risk actual bother for it? It’s simply asinine to me.”

Word of the arrests spread quicker than a prairie fire with a tailwind by way of this West Texas county, inhabitants 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 financial institution. The few children who live there board the bus in the only town, Mentone (inhabitants 22), and journey 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 lastly largely popping out forward. Skeet Jones has served as the judge for more 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 recently elected county officials have been butting heads with the Joneses and their allies, making for colourful commissioner’s court conferences and a much-anticipated November election. 

And blood is not holding the Jones household together. 

“He’s had free reign for your entire time since he’s been the choose,” 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 no matter he needs at any time when he needs.  Even the feeling of self-righteousness. That he can do no fallacious.” 

When Skeet Jones was sworn in as decide in 2007, most of the caliche roads had been rutted like washboards and residents nonetheless needed to line as much as 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 huge gasoline plants, water plants and salt water disposal methods. Many of the surviving working ranches have “frac pads” for horizontally drilled wells that lower via the caliche and bedrock to unencumber the lifeblood for Loving County’s economic system: oil and gas. 

The tax base hovers around $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 lots of the high officers in town — the choose, auditor, treasurer, clerk, justice of the peace, county attorney, constable and sheriff — are $100,000 or increased. 

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

However she came to like 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 nicely subject that feeds Mentone. 

Skeet Jones has gotten into bother earlier than, but nothing like this. In 2016, the state Fee on Judicial Conduct determined Jones didn't follow the law by charging steep charges — about $600 to $750 — for decreasing tickets including speeding and marijuana possession right down to parking tickets.

The choose denied any involvement in negotiations over tickets and instructed the fee he just accepted the plea deals presented to him. He was issued a public warning and ordered to take 10 hours of additional schooling.

Medlin beforehand labored as a detective for the San Antonio Police Division, where records show he was issued indefinite suspensions — the department’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 in the back seat, information show. Medlin was reinstated after an attraction. 

Then in 2018, Medlin engaged in another high-speed pursuit after telling dispatchers the driving force “virtually ran me over,” data show. However physique and sprint digital camera footage contradicted Medlin’s account, in accordance with internal affairs reviews. He appealed again, telling supervisors he felt threatened, even when it wasn’t evident from the videos.

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

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

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

Two ranch hands also have been arrested on Friday. Cody Williams, 31, was charged with three counts of livestock theft and engaging in organized criminal activity, data present. He did not return a reporter’s cellphone call.

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

Along with the judge, Medlin, Williams and Alvarado posted bond and had been launched from jail.