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

Lawmen got here 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 facing three felony counts of livestock theft and one depend of partaking in legal exercise, accused of gathering up and promoting stray cattle, authorities stated. 

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 launched on $20,000 bond, records present. He did not return telephone calls in search of comment. 

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

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 Security, the association has “particular rangers” —  certified peace officers — who investigate livestock theft and other agriculture crimes. 

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

The concept that the choose — who is paid $133,294 yearly — would get picked up for cattle rustling was simply an excessive amount of for Susan Hays, a Texas election lawyer who’s wrangled with the Joneses previously.

“You'll be able to’t make this shit up,” she stated. “It’s a pain within the ass to round up cattle and take them to market. And then to threat actual bother for it? It’s just asinine to me.”

Word of the arrests spread faster than a prairie hearth with a tailwind by way of 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 faculty, no church, no grocery retailer and no bank. The few youngsters who stay there board the bus in the one town, Mentone (inhabitants 22), and travel about 35 miles each morning and afternoon to attend college.

For decades, a handful of prominent households in Loving County have feuded bitterly for control of the local authorities, with the Joneses lastly largely popping out ahead. 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 attorney. His nephew is the constable. 

But some recently elected county officials have been butting heads with the Joneses and their allies, making for colourful commissioner’s courtroom conferences and a much-anticipated November election. 

And blood is now not holding the Jones household together. 

“He’s had free reign for your entire 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 power and impunity that he can do whatever he needs every time he desires.  Even the feeling of self-righteousness. That he can do no mistaken.” 

When Skeet Jones was sworn in as judge in 2007, many of the caliche roads have been 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 in the Permian Basin, feeding money into the county’s coffers. The parched panorama is dotted with massive gas vegetation, water vegetation and salt water disposal methods. Most of the surviving working ranches have “frac pads” for horizontally drilled wells that reduce by the caliche and bedrock to liberate 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 funds has grown from about $2 million in 2008 to more than $28 million. 

The salaries for lots of the high officials in 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, started the P&M Jones Ranch in 1953, settling right into a wood-frame house with no operating water. “When I first came to Mentone in 1953, it was quite a shock,” Mary Belle Jones told the Texas Month-to-month in 1997. “I stated to my husband, ‘Punk, how long are we going to stay on this godforsaken place?’” 

But she got here 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 effectively field that feeds Mentone. 

Skeet Jones has gotten into hassle earlier than, but nothing like this. In 2016, the state Fee on Judicial Conduct decided Jones failed to comply with the regulation by charging steep charges — about $600 to $750 — for reducing tickets together with speeding and marijuana possession all the way down to parking tickets.

The judge denied any involvement in negotiations over tickets and instructed the commission he just approved the plea offers offered to him. He was issued a public warning and ordered to take 10 hours of extra education.

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

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

Then in 2018, Medlin engaged in another high-speed pursuit after telling dispatchers the motive force “virtually ran me over,” data show. However physique and dash digicam footage contradicted Medlin’s account, in response to inside affairs experiences. He appealed again, telling supervisors he felt threatened, even when it wasn’t evident from the movies.

He was later issued one other indefinite suspension after supervisors decided he issued tickets for violations he didn’t witness, data present. 

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

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

Two ranch hands additionally have been arrested on Friday. Cody Williams, 31, was charged with three counts of livestock theft and interesting in organized criminal exercise, information show. He didn't 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 jail. He hung up on a reporter looking for remark.

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