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 decide, a former sheriff’s deputy and two ranch palms on one in all Texas’ oldest crimes — cattle theft. 

Judge Skeet Jones, 71, the top elected official since 2007 within the least populated county in the continental United States, is facing three felony counts of livestock theft and one depend of partaking 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 Fifties, was booked into Winkler County Jail on Friday and released on $20,000 bond, records show. He didn't return cellphone calls in search of remark. 

Authorities additionally arrested former Loving County deputy Leroy Medlin Jr., 35, on one depend of engaging in legal exercise — a second-degree felony that carries a maximum sentence of 20 years. Medlin did not return telephone calls, but his wife despatched an email that questioned the motives behind the arrests. “We are being targeted,” she wrote, “at full force.” 

Officers with the Texas and Southwestern Cattle Raisers Association, the lead agency on the case, offered few specifics concerning the alleged crime. Commissioned by the Texas Division of Public Security, the association has “special rangers” —  certified peace officers — who examine livestock theft and other agriculture crimes. 

Jeremy Fuchs, a spokesman for the association, stated the yearlong investigation is ongoing and extra fees are doable.

The idea that the decide — who's 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 previously.

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

Word of the arrests spread sooner than a prairie hearth with a tailwind by way of this West Texas county, population 57 as of the last U.S. Census Bureau estimate. Unfold over 671 square miles of mesquite-studded desert, Loving County has no school, no church, no grocery retailer and no financial institution. The few kids who dwell there board the bus in the one town, Mentone (inhabitants 22), and travel about 35 miles each morning and afternoon to attend faculty.

For decades, a handful of outstanding households in Loving County have feuded bitterly for management of the native government, with the Joneses finally largely popping out ahead. Skeet Jones has served because the judge for more 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 colorful commissioner’s courtroom meetings and a much-anticipated November election. 

And blood is now not holding the Jones household collectively. 

“He’s had free reign for your entire time since he’s been the judge,” mentioned Skeet Jones’ nephew, Constable Brandon Jones, who was elected in 2016. “That’s given him a sense of energy and impunity that he can do no matter he needs every time he wants.  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 were rutted like washboards and residents nonetheless needed to line as much as get potable water dispensed from a group tank. 

However he presided over a interval of unprecedented development, as fracking boomed in the Permian Basin, feeding money into the county’s coffers. The parched landscape is dotted with large gasoline crops, water plants and salt water disposal methods. Most of the surviving working ranches have “frac pads” for horizontally drilled wells that lower by way of the caliche and bedrock to release 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 finances has grown from about $2 million in 2008 to more than $28 million. 

The salaries for many of the high officers in town — the choose, 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 into a wood-frame home with no running water. “When I first got here to Mentone in 1953, it was fairly a shock,” Mary Belle Jones informed the Texas Monthly in 1997. “I said to my husband, ‘Punk, how long are we going to stay in this godforsaken place?’” 

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

Skeet Jones has gotten into hassle earlier than, but nothing like this. In 2016, the state Fee on Judicial Conduct determined Jones did not observe the law by charging steep charges — about $600 to $750 — for lowering tickets including dashing and marijuana possession right down to parking tickets.

The judge denied any involvement in negotiations over tickets and told the fee he simply approved the plea offers offered to him. He was issued a public warning and ordered to take 10 hours of further schooling.

Medlin beforehand worked as a detective for the San Antonio Police Department, the place 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, information show. Medlin was reinstated after an appeal. 

Then in 2018, Medlin engaged in one other high-speed pursuit after telling dispatchers the driver “almost ran me over,” records present. However physique and sprint digital camera footage contradicted Medlin’s account, according to inner affairs stories. 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, records present. 

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

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

Two ranch palms additionally were arrested on Friday. Cody Williams, 31, was charged with three counts of livestock theft and interesting in organized criminal activity, data present. 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 prison. He hung up on a reporter searching for comment.

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