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 in all Texas’ oldest crimes — cattle theft. 

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

Jones, the scion of a strong ranching family that settled in Loving County within the 1950s, was booked into Winkler County Jail on Friday and released on $20,000 bond, information show. He didn't return phone calls searching for remark. 

Authorities also arrested former Loving County deputy Leroy Medlin Jr., 35, on one depend of participating in criminal activity — a second-degree felony that carries a maximum sentence of 20 years. Medlin did not return cellphone calls, however his spouse despatched an e-mail that questioned the motives behind the arrests. “We're being focused,” she wrote, “at full power.” 

Officials with the Texas and Southwestern Cattle Raisers Association, the lead company on the case, offered few specifics in regards to the alleged crime. Commissioned by the Texas Division of Public Safety, the affiliation has “particular rangers” —  certified peace officers — who examine livestock theft and other agriculture crimes. 

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

The idea that the decide — who's 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 up to now.

“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. And then to risk actual hassle for it? It’s just asinine to me.”

Word of the arrests spread faster than a prairie hearth with a tailwind through 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 bank. The few children who reside there board the bus in the only city, Mentone (inhabitants 22), and travel about 35 miles each morning and afternoon to attend faculty.

For many years, a handful of outstanding 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 decide for greater than 15 years. His sister is the county clerk. His cousin’s husband is the county attorney. His nephew is the constable. 

But some recently 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 not holding the Jones family collectively. 

“He’s had free reign for all the time since he’s been the choose,” stated 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 wants every time he needs.  Even the sensation of self-righteousness. That he can do no wrong.” 

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

However he presided over a period of unprecedented development, as fracking boomed within the Permian Basin, feeding money into the county’s coffers. The parched landscape is dotted with massive gasoline plants, water plants and salt water disposal systems. Many of the surviving working ranches have “frac pads” for horizontally drilled wells that lower by the caliche and bedrock to unencumber the lifeblood for Loving County’s economy: oil and gasoline. 

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

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

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

However she got here to love Loving County’s huge, 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 nicely field that feeds Mentone. 

Skeet Jones has gotten into bother earlier than, however nothing like this. In 2016, the state Fee on Judicial Conduct determined Jones did not follow the law by charging steep charges — about $600 to $750 — for lowering tickets together with speeding and marijuana possession all the way down to parking tickets.

The judge denied any involvement in negotiations over tickets and instructed the fee he simply authorized the plea offers offered to him. He was issued a public warning and ordered to take 10 hours of further training.

Medlin beforehand labored as a detective for the San Antonio Police Department, the place data present 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, data present. Medlin was reinstated after an appeal. 

Then in 2018, Medlin engaged in one other high-speed pursuit after telling dispatchers the driver “nearly ran me over,” data show. But physique and sprint digital camera footage contradicted Medlin’s account, in accordance with inside affairs reports. 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 determined he issued tickets for violations he didn’t witness, information present. 

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

Medlin also labored 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 engaging in organized criminal activity, records present. He did not return a reporter’s telephone call.

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

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