The top 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 fingers on one of Texas’ oldest crimes — cattle theft. 

Decide Skeet Jones, 71, the top elected official since 2007 in the least populated county in the continental United States, is going through three felony counts of livestock theft and one depend of partaking in criminal activity, accused of gathering up and promoting stray cattle, authorities said. 

Jones, the scion of a powerful ranching household that settled in Loving County within the 1950s, was booked into Winkler County Jail on Friday and launched on $20,000 bond, information present. He did not return cellphone calls searching for remark. 

Authorities additionally arrested former Loving County deputy Leroy Medlin Jr., 35, on one rely of engaging in criminal exercise — a second-degree felony that carries a maximum sentence of 20 years. Medlin didn't return telephone calls, however his spouse despatched an e-mail that questioned the motives behind the arrests. “We are being focused,” she wrote, “at full force.” 

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

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

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

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

Word of the arrests unfold sooner than a prairie fireplace with a tailwind via 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 college, no church, no grocery retailer and no financial institution. The few youngsters who stay there board the bus in the one town, Mentone (population 22), and travel about 35 miles each morning and afternoon to attend faculty.

For decades, a handful of distinguished families in Loving County have feuded bitterly for management of the local government, with the Joneses finally largely coming out ahead. Skeet Jones has served because the decide for greater than 15 years. His sister is the county clerk. His cousin’s husband is the county lawyer. His nephew is the constable. 

But some not too long ago elected county officers have been butting heads with the Joneses and their allies, making for colorful commissioner’s courtroom conferences and a much-anticipated November election. 

And blood is no longer holding the Jones family together. 

“He’s had free reign for all the 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 whatever he desires at any time when he needs.  Even the feeling of self-righteousness. That he can do no incorrect.” 

When Skeet Jones was sworn in as decide in 2007, many of the caliche roads had been rutted like washboards and residents still had to line as much as get potable water distributed from a community tank. 

However he presided over a interval of unprecedented growth, as fracking boomed in the Permian Basin, feeding cash into the county’s coffers. The parched landscape is dotted with large gas crops, water plants and salt water disposal methods. Many of the surviving working ranches have “frac pads” for horizontally drilled wells that minimize via the caliche and bedrock to liberate the lifeblood for Loving County’s economy: oil and fuel. 

The tax base hovers round $7 billion to $9 billion. And the county’s price range has grown from about $2 million in 2008 to greater than $28 million. 

The salaries for most of the prime officials in town — the judge, auditor, treasurer, clerk, justice of the peace, county legal professional, constable and sheriff — are $100,000 or larger. 

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 working water. “When I first got here to Mentone in 1953, it was quite a shock,” Mary Belle Jones advised the Texas Month-to-month in 1997. “I mentioned to my husband, ‘Punk, how lengthy are we going to reside in this godforsaken place?’” 

However 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 well discipline that feeds Mentone. 

Skeet Jones has gotten into hassle earlier than, but nothing like this. In 2016, the state Commission on Judicial Conduct decided Jones failed to comply with the regulation by charging steep fees — about $600 to $750 — for lowering tickets including rushing and marijuana possession right down to parking tickets.

The judge denied any involvement in negotiations over tickets and advised the fee he simply accredited the plea offers presented to him. He was issued a public warning and ordered to take 10 hours of extra training.

Medlin beforehand worked as a detective for the San Antonio Police Division, where data show 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 in the back seat, information present. Medlin was reinstated after an attraction. 

Then in 2018, Medlin engaged in another high-speed pursuit after telling dispatchers the motive force “nearly ran me over,” records show. But body and sprint digicam footage contradicted Medlin’s account, in accordance with internal affairs reports. He appealed again, telling supervisors he felt threatened, even if it wasn’t evident from the videos.

He was later issued one other indefinite suspension after supervisors decided 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, records present. (Sheriff Chris Busse declined to say why.) 

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

Two ranch hands additionally had been arrested on Friday. Cody Williams, 31, was charged with three counts of livestock theft and engaging in organized prison activity, information present. He didn't return a reporter’s phone name.

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 searching for comment.

In addition to the judge, Medlin, Williams and Alvarado posted bond and have been released from jail.