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

Lawmen got here to distant Loving County, Texas, on Friday to arrest the county judge, a former sheriff’s deputy and two ranch fingers on certainly one of Texas’ oldest crimes — cattle theft. 

Choose Skeet Jones, 71, the highest elected official since 2007 in the least populated county in the continental United States, is dealing with three felony counts of livestock theft and one count of engaging in felony exercise, accused of gathering up and selling stray cattle, authorities said. 

Jones, the scion of a strong ranching family that settled in Loving County within the Fifties, was booked into Winkler County Jail on Friday and released on $20,000 bond, data show. He did not return phone calls in search of remark. 

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

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

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

The idea that the judge — who's paid $133,294 annually — 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 said. “It’s a pain within the ass to spherical up cattle and take them to market. And then to threat actual hassle for it? It’s just asinine to me.”

Word of the arrests spread quicker than a prairie hearth with a tailwind by this West Texas county, population 57 as of the final U.S. Census Bureau estimate. Unfold over 671 sq. miles of mesquite-studded desert, Loving County has no college, no church, no grocery store and no bank. The few youngsters who dwell there board the bus in the one town, Mentone (population 22), and journey about 35 miles each morning and afternoon to attend school.

For many years, a handful of outstanding families in Loving County have feuded bitterly for management of the native government, with the Joneses finally largely popping out ahead. Skeet Jones has served as the decide for greater 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 lately elected county officers have been butting heads with the Joneses and their allies, making for colorful commissioner’s court docket conferences and a much-anticipated November election. 

And blood is not holding the Jones family together. 

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

When Skeet Jones was sworn in as choose in 2007, many of the caliche roads were rutted like washboards and residents nonetheless needed to line as much as get potable water distributed from a group 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 landscape is dotted with huge fuel plants, water vegetation and salt water disposal techniques. Lots of the surviving working ranches have “frac pads” for horizontally drilled wells that reduce through the caliche and bedrock to liberate the lifeblood for Loving County’s economic system: oil and gasoline. 

The tax base hovers round $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 top officials on the town — the choose, auditor, treasurer, clerk, justice of the peace, county legal professional, constable and sheriff — are $100,000 or higher. 

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

But she got here to love 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 discipline that feeds Mentone. 

Skeet Jones has gotten into bother before, however nothing like this. In 2016, the state Fee on Judicial Conduct determined Jones did not observe the regulation by charging steep fees — about $600 to $750 — for reducing tickets including rushing and marijuana possession all the way down to parking tickets.

The decide denied any involvement in negotiations over tickets and instructed the commission he just authorised the plea offers presented to him. He was issued a public warning and ordered to take 10 hours of additional training.

Medlin beforehand labored as a detective for the San Antonio Police Division, where data present he was issued indefinite suspensions — the department’s equal 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 within the again 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 “almost ran me over,” data show. However body and dash digicam footage contradicted Medlin’s account, according to inner affairs studies. He appealed again, telling supervisors he felt threatened, even if 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, information present. 

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

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

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

Jonathon Alvarado, 23, faces one depend of theft of livestock, which carries a sentence of up to 10 years in prison. He hung up on a reporter looking for remark.

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