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

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

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

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

Officials with the Texas and Southwestern Cattle Raisers Affiliation, the lead agency on the case, offered few specifics about the alleged crime. Commissioned via the Texas Division of Public Safety, the association has “special rangers” —  certified peace officers — who investigate livestock theft and other agriculture crimes. 

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

The concept the decide — who is paid $133,294 yearly — would get picked up for cattle rustling was simply too much for Susan Hays, a Texas election lawyer who’s wrangled with the Joneses in the past.

“You may’t make this shit up,” she said. “It’s a pain in the ass to round up cattle and take them to market. After which to danger real hassle for it? It’s simply asinine to me.”

Word of the arrests spread quicker 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. 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 kids who dwell there board the bus in the one town, Mentone (inhabitants 22), and journey about 35 miles every morning and afternoon to attend college.

For many years, a handful of outstanding households in Loving County have feuded bitterly for management of the native authorities, with the Joneses lastly largely coming out ahead. Skeet Jones has served as the choose for more than 15 years. His sister is the county clerk. His cousin’s husband is the county attorney. His nephew is the constable. 

However some just lately elected county officials have been butting heads with the Joneses and their allies, making for colourful 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 the 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 no matter he wants each time he desires.  Even the feeling of self-righteousness. That he can do no improper.” 

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

But he presided over a interval of unprecedented development, as fracking boomed in the Permian Basin, feeding cash into the county’s coffers. The parched panorama is dotted with huge fuel plants, water plants and salt water disposal programs. Many of the surviving working ranches have “frac pads” for horizontally drilled wells that lower via the caliche and bedrock to unencumber the lifeblood for Loving County’s economy: oil and gas. 

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

The salaries for most of the prime 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, started the P&M Jones Ranch in 1953, settling into a wood-frame house with no running water. “Once I first came to Mentone in 1953, it was quite a shock,” Mary Belle Jones informed the Texas Monthly in 1997. “I said to my husband, ‘Punk, how lengthy are we going to live on this godforsaken place?’” 

However she got here to like Loving County’s vast, 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 properly discipline that feeds Mentone. 

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

The decide denied any involvement in negotiations over tickets and advised the fee he simply permitted the plea deals introduced to him. He was issued a public warning and ordered to take 10 hours of extra schooling.

Medlin previously worked as a detective for the San Antonio Police Division, where information present he was issued indefinite suspensions — the department’s equal 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 again seat, data show. Medlin was reinstated after an appeal. 

Then in 2018, Medlin engaged in another high-speed pursuit after telling dispatchers the driver “almost ran me over,” data present. However physique and sprint digital camera footage contradicted Medlin’s account, according to inside affairs reviews. He appealed once more, telling supervisors he felt threatened, even if it wasn’t evident from the videos.

He was later issued another indefinite suspension after supervisors decided he issued tickets for violations he didn’t witness, records show. 

Medlin joined the Loving County Sheriff’s Workplace in January 2019 and “separated” from the company less than two years later, information 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 had been arrested on Friday. Cody Williams, 31, was charged with three counts of livestock theft and interesting in organized legal activity, records present. He didn't return a reporter’s cellphone call.

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

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