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

Choose Skeet Jones, 71, the top elected official since 2007 within 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 activity, accused of gathering up and promoting stray cattle, authorities mentioned. 

Jones, the scion of a robust ranching household that settled in Loving County within the 1950s, was booked into Winkler County Jail on Friday and released on $20,000 bond, records show. He didn't return phone calls looking for comment. 

Authorities additionally arrested former Loving County deputy Leroy Medlin Jr., 35, on one rely of participating in felony activity — a second-degree felony that carries a most sentence of 20 years. Medlin didn't return phone calls, however his spouse sent an e-mail that questioned the motives behind the arrests. “We're being targeted,” she wrote, “at full pressure.” 

Officials with the Texas and Southwestern Cattle Raisers Affiliation, the lead agency on the case, offered few specifics concerning the alleged crime. Commissioned by way of the Texas Division of Public Safety, the affiliation has “special rangers” —  licensed peace officers — who investigate livestock theft and different agriculture crimes. 

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

The concept the judge — 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 up to now.

“You possibly can’t make this shit up,” she said. “It’s a ache in the ass to spherical up cattle and take them to market. After which to risk real bother for it? It’s just asinine to me.”

Word of the arrests unfold sooner than a prairie fire with a tailwind through this West Texas county, inhabitants 57 as of the last U.S. Census Bureau estimate. Unfold over 671 square miles of mesquite-studded desert, Loving County has no faculty, no church, no grocery retailer and no financial institution. The few youngsters who stay 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 outstanding families in Loving County have feuded bitterly for control of the local authorities, with the Joneses lastly largely coming out ahead. Skeet Jones has served as the decide for more than 15 years. His sister is the county clerk. His cousin’s husband is the county lawyer. His nephew is the constable. 

However some not too long ago elected county officials 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 now 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 power and impunity that he can do no matter he desires at any time when he needs.  Even the feeling of self-righteousness. That he can do no flawed.” 

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

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

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 many of the high officials 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 home with no working water. “After I first came to Mentone in 1953, it was quite a shock,” Mary Belle Jones instructed the Texas Monthly in 1997. “I stated to my husband, ‘Punk, how lengthy are we going to dwell in this godforsaken place?’” 

However she got here 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 properly field that feeds Mentone. 

Skeet Jones has gotten into bother earlier than, but nothing like this. In 2016, the state Commission on Judicial Conduct decided Jones did not observe the legislation by charging steep charges — about $600 to $750 — for lowering tickets together with rushing and marijuana possession right down to parking tickets.

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

Medlin previously labored as a detective for the San Antonio Police Division, the place records present he was issued indefinite suspensions — the division’s equal 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 in the back seat, information show. Medlin was reinstated after an attraction. 

Then in 2018, Medlin engaged in one other high-speed pursuit after telling dispatchers the driver “nearly ran me over,” records present. However physique and dash camera footage contradicted Medlin’s account, based on inner affairs reviews. 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, records present. 

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 earlier than being hired by Loving County as a janitor and groundskeeper. 

Two ranch fingers additionally were arrested on Friday. Cody Williams, 31, was charged with three counts of livestock theft and engaging in organized criminal activity, data present. He didn't return a reporter’s cellphone call.

Jonathon Alvarado, 23, faces one count of theft of livestock, which carries a sentence of up to 10 years in jail. He hung up on a reporter seeking remark.

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