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

Choose Skeet Jones, 71, the highest 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 count of engaging in prison activity, accused of gathering up and selling stray cattle, authorities said. 

Jones, the scion of a powerful ranching household that settled in Loving County in the Nineteen Fifties, was booked into Winkler County Jail on Friday and launched on $20,000 bond, information show. He did not return telephone calls searching for comment. 

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

Officers with the Texas and Southwestern Cattle Raisers Association, the lead company on the case, supplied few specifics about the alleged crime. Commissioned by way of the Texas Division of Public Security, the affiliation has “special rangers” —  certified 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 expenses are doable.

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

“You can’t make this shit up,” she said. “It’s a pain within the ass to round up cattle and take them to market. And then to threat real trouble for it? It’s just asinine to me.”

Phrase of the arrests spread quicker 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 sq. miles of mesquite-studded desert, Loving County has no faculty, no church, no grocery retailer and no financial institution. The few children who dwell there board the bus in the only city, Mentone (inhabitants 22), and travel about 35 miles each morning and afternoon to attend school.

For decades, a handful of outstanding families in Loving County have feuded bitterly for control of the native government, with the Joneses finally largely coming out ahead. Skeet Jones has served as the judge 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 colorful commissioner’s courtroom conferences and a much-anticipated November election. 

And blood is now not holding the Jones household together. 

“He’s had free reign for the entire time since he’s been the judge,” 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 no matter he desires 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 had been rutted like washboards and residents nonetheless needed to line up to get potable water distributed from a community tank. 

However he presided over a interval of unprecedented growth, as fracking boomed within the Permian Basin, feeding money into the county’s coffers. The parched panorama is dotted with large fuel crops, water crops and salt water disposal techniques. Most of the surviving working ranches have “frac pads” for horizontally drilled wells that reduce by the caliche and bedrock to unencumber the lifeblood for Loving County’s economy: 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 more 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 higher. 

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

But she came to love Loving County’s vast, 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 well area that feeds Mentone. 

Skeet Jones has gotten into bother before, but nothing like this. In 2016, the state Fee on Judicial Conduct determined Jones failed to 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 choose denied any involvement in negotiations over tickets and instructed the fee he simply authorized the plea offers presented to him. He was issued a public warning and ordered to take 10 hours of extra education.

Medlin beforehand labored 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 appeal. 

Then in 2018, Medlin engaged in another high-speed pursuit after telling dispatchers the motive force “nearly ran me over,” information present. However physique and dash digicam footage contradicted Medlin’s account, according to inner affairs reports. He appealed once more, telling supervisors he felt threatened, even if it wasn’t evident from the videos.

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

Two ranch hands additionally were arrested on Friday. Cody Williams, 31, was charged with three counts of livestock theft and interesting in organized criminal activity, records present. He didn't return a reporter’s telephone name.

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 seeking remark.

In addition to the choose, Medlin, Williams and Alvarado posted bond and had been launched from jail.