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

Lawmen came to remote Loving County, Texas, on Friday to arrest the county choose, a former sheriff’s deputy and two ranch hands on one in all Texas’ oldest crimes — cattle theft. 

Decide Skeet Jones, 71, the top elected official since 2007 within the least populated county in the continental United States, is going through three felony counts of livestock theft and one rely of participating in legal exercise, accused of gathering up and selling stray cattle, authorities said. 

Jones, the scion of a strong ranching family that settled in Loving County in the Fifties, was booked into Winkler County Jail on Friday and released on $20,000 bond, information present. He didn't return telephone calls seeking comment. 

Authorities additionally arrested former Loving County deputy Leroy Medlin Jr., 35, on one count of engaging in prison activity — a second-degree felony that carries a most sentence of 20 years. Medlin didn't return cellphone calls, but his spouse sent an electronic mail that questioned the motives behind the arrests. “We are being focused,” she wrote, “at full pressure.” 

Officials with the Texas and Southwestern Cattle Raisers Association, the lead company on the case, provided few specifics about the alleged crime. Commissioned by way of the Texas Division of Public Safety, the association has “particular rangers” —  certified peace officers — who examine livestock theft and other agriculture crimes. 

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

The idea that the decide — 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 up to now.

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

Word of the arrests spread sooner than a prairie fire with a tailwind by way of this West Texas county, inhabitants 57 as of the last U.S. Census Bureau estimate. Spread 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 stay there board the bus in the one town, Mentone (inhabitants 22), and travel about 35 miles every morning and afternoon to attend school.

For decades, a handful of prominent households in Loving County have feuded bitterly for control of the native government, with the Joneses finally largely coming 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 lawyer. His nephew is the constable. 

However some lately elected county officers 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 family collectively. 

“He’s had free reign for your complete time since he’s been the decide,” 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 no matter he desires whenever he wants.  Even the feeling of self-righteousness. That he can do no flawed.” 

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 progress, as fracking boomed within the Permian Basin, feeding cash into the county’s coffers. The parched landscape is dotted with massive fuel crops, water vegetation and salt water disposal programs. Many of the surviving working ranches have “frac pads” for horizontally drilled wells that lower by the caliche and bedrock to liberate the lifeblood for Loving County’s economy: 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 most of the prime officers in town — the judge, auditor, treasurer, clerk, justice of the peace, county attorney, constable and sheriff — are $100,000 or larger. 

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

But she came to love Loving County’s huge, 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 discipline that feeds Mentone. 

Skeet Jones has gotten into bother before, however nothing like this. In 2016, the state Commission on Judicial Conduct decided Jones didn't follow the law by charging steep charges — about $600 to $750 — for reducing tickets together with rushing and marijuana possession right down to parking tickets.

The choose denied any involvement in negotiations over tickets and told the commission he just authorized the plea deals introduced to him. He was issued a public warning and ordered to take 10 hours of further schooling.

Medlin previously worked as a detective for the San Antonio Police Department, where information present he was issued indefinite suspensions — the division’s equivalent of being fired — three times. 

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, data show. Medlin was reinstated after an appeal. 

Then in 2018, Medlin engaged in another high-speed pursuit after telling dispatchers the driving force “nearly ran me over,” records show. However physique and sprint camera footage contradicted Medlin’s account, in line with internal affairs experiences. He appealed once more, telling supervisors he felt threatened, even when it wasn’t evident from the movies.

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 agency lower than two years later, records 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 palms also have been arrested on Friday. Cody Williams, 31, was charged with three counts of livestock theft and engaging in organized criminal exercise, data show. He did not return a reporter’s cellphone name.

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

In addition to the decide, Medlin, Williams and Alvarado posted bond and were released from jail.