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

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

Choose Skeet Jones, 71, the top 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 participating in legal 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 1950s, was booked into Winkler County Jail on Friday and launched on $20,000 bond, records show. He didn't return phone calls looking for comment. 

Authorities also arrested former Loving County deputy Leroy Medlin Jr., 35, on one count of participating in criminal exercise — a second-degree felony that carries a maximum sentence of 20 years. Medlin didn't return phone calls, but his spouse despatched an e mail that questioned the motives behind the arrests. “We're being targeted,” she wrote, “at full power.” 

Officers 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 Department of Public Safety, the affiliation has “particular 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 expenses are possible.

The idea 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 in the past.

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

Phrase of the arrests unfold faster than a prairie fireplace with a tailwind by this West Texas county, inhabitants 57 as of the final U.S. Census Bureau estimate. Spread over 671 square miles of mesquite-studded desert, Loving County has no faculty, no church, no grocery retailer and no financial institution. The few children who live there board the bus in the one city, Mentone (inhabitants 22), and travel about 35 miles each morning and afternoon to attend college.

For many years, a handful of outstanding households in Loving County have feuded bitterly for management of the local government, with the Joneses lastly largely popping out forward. Skeet Jones has served as the choose 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 just lately elected county officials have been butting heads with the Joneses and their allies, making for colourful commissioner’s court docket conferences and a much-anticipated November election. 

And blood is not holding the Jones household collectively. 

“He’s had free reign for the 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 way of energy and impunity that he can do whatever he wants whenever he wants.  Even the feeling of self-righteousness. That he can do no unsuitable.” 

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

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

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

The salaries for lots of the top officers in town — the decide, auditor, treasurer, clerk, justice of the peace, county lawyer, constable and sheriff — are $100,000 or larger. 

Jones’ father, Elgin “Punk” Jones, and mother, Mary Belle Jones, started the P&M Jones Ranch in 1953, settling into a wood-frame home with no running water. “After I first got here to Mentone in 1953, it was fairly a shock,” Mary Belle Jones advised the Texas Month-to-month in 1997. “I said to my husband, ‘Punk, how long are we going to dwell on this godforsaken place?’” 

But she came 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 effectively field that feeds Mentone. 

Skeet Jones has gotten into hassle before, however nothing like this. In 2016, the state Fee on Judicial Conduct decided Jones did not observe the law by charging steep fees — about $600 to $750 — for reducing tickets together with rushing and marijuana possession right down to parking tickets.

The judge denied any involvement in negotiations over tickets and informed the commission he just authorized the plea offers presented to him. He was issued a public warning and ordered to take 10 hours of further schooling.

Medlin previously labored as a detective for the San Antonio Police Division, where records present he was issued indefinite suspensions — the division’s equivalent of being fired — three 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, records present. Medlin was reinstated after an attraction. 

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

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

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

Medlin additionally worked on Jones’ ranch before being employed by Loving County as a janitor and groundskeeper. 

Two ranch fingers also have been arrested on Friday. Cody Williams, 31, was charged with three counts of livestock theft and interesting in organized criminal exercise, records show. 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 in search of comment.

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