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

Lawmen came to distant Loving County, Texas, on Friday to arrest the county choose, 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 in the least populated county within the continental United States, is going through three felony counts of livestock theft and one depend of partaking in prison exercise, accused of gathering up and selling stray cattle, authorities said. 

Jones, the scion of a powerful ranching family that settled in Loving County in the Nineteen Fifties, was booked into Winkler County Jail on Friday and launched on $20,000 bond, data show. He didn't return cellphone calls looking for comment. 

Authorities additionally arrested former Loving County deputy Leroy Medlin Jr., 35, on one depend of participating in criminal exercise — a second-degree felony that carries a most sentence of 20 years. Medlin did not return telephone calls, but his spouse sent an electronic mail that questioned the motives behind the arrests. “We are 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 about the alleged crime. Commissioned by way of the Texas Department of Public Security, the affiliation has “special rangers” —  licensed peace officers — who examine livestock theft and different agriculture crimes. 

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

The idea that the decide — who's paid $133,294 annually — 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 up 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 danger real bother for it? It’s simply asinine to me.”

Phrase of the arrests spread quicker than a prairie fire with a tailwind by way of this West Texas county, population 57 as of the last U.S. Census Bureau estimate. Unfold over 671 square miles of mesquite-studded desert, Loving County has no school, no church, no grocery retailer and no financial institution. The few youngsters who dwell there board the bus in the one city, Mentone (population 22), and journey about 35 miles every morning and afternoon to attend college.

For decades, a handful of distinguished families in Loving County have feuded bitterly for control of the native authorities, with the Joneses lastly largely coming out ahead. Skeet Jones has served because the choose for greater than 15 years. His sister is the county clerk. His cousin’s husband is the county attorney. 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 meetings and a much-anticipated November election. 

And blood is no longer holding the Jones household together. 

“He’s had free reign for your entire time since he’s been the decide,” mentioned 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 whatever he needs whenever he desires.  Even the feeling of self-righteousness. That he can do no fallacious.” 

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

However he presided over a period of unprecedented growth, as fracking boomed in the Permian Basin, feeding money into the county’s coffers. The parched panorama is dotted with large fuel crops, water vegetation and salt water disposal techniques. Most of the surviving working ranches have “frac pads” for horizontally drilled wells that cut by way of the caliche and bedrock to liberate the lifeblood for Loving County’s economic system: oil and gas. 

The tax base hovers around $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 high officers in town — the decide, auditor, treasurer, clerk, justice of the peace, county lawyer, constable and sheriff — are $100,000 or greater. 

Jones’ father, Elgin “Punk” Jones, and mom, Mary Belle Jones, began the P&M Jones Ranch in 1953, settling right into a wood-frame house with no working water. “After I first got here to Mentone in 1953, it was fairly a shock,” Mary Belle Jones instructed the Texas Monthly in 1997. “I stated to my husband, ‘Punk, how lengthy are we going to reside on this godforsaken place?’” 

However she got here to like 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 nicely field that feeds Mentone. 

Skeet Jones has gotten into hassle earlier than, but nothing like this. In 2016, the state Commission on Judicial Conduct determined Jones didn't follow the law by charging steep fees — about $600 to $750 — for reducing tickets together with speeding and marijuana possession down to parking tickets.

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

Medlin previously labored as a detective for the San Antonio Police Division, the place records show he was issued indefinite suspensions — the department’s equal of being fired — 3 times. 

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, information show. Medlin was reinstated after an appeal. 

Then in 2018, Medlin engaged in another high-speed pursuit after telling dispatchers the motive force “nearly ran me over,” records present. But body and dash camera footage contradicted Medlin’s account, according to inside affairs studies. 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, information show. 

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

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

Two ranch hands additionally have been arrested on Friday. Cody Williams, 31, was charged with three counts of livestock theft and interesting in organized prison exercise, information present. He did not return a reporter’s cellphone call.

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 seeking comment.

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