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

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

Decide Skeet Jones, 71, the highest elected official since 2007 in the least populated county in the continental United States, is going through three felony counts of livestock theft and one count of participating in criminal exercise, accused of gathering up and selling stray cattle, authorities said. 

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

Authorities also arrested former Loving County deputy Leroy Medlin Jr., 35, on one count of partaking in felony exercise — a second-degree felony that carries a maximum sentence of 20 years. Medlin did not return phone calls, however his wife despatched an email that questioned the motives behind the arrests. “We are being focused,” she wrote, “at full drive.” 

Officers with the Texas and Southwestern Cattle Raisers Affiliation, the lead agency on the case, supplied few specifics in regards to the alleged crime. Commissioned through the Texas Division of Public Security, the association has “particular rangers” —  certified peace officers — who investigate livestock theft and different agriculture crimes. 

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

The concept the judge — who's paid $133,294 annually — would get picked up for cattle rustling was simply too much for Susan Hays, a Texas election lawyer who’s wrangled with the Joneses previously.

“You possibly can’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 actual bother for it? It’s simply asinine to me.”

Word of the arrests spread quicker than a prairie fire with a tailwind through this West Texas county, inhabitants 57 as of the last U.S. Census Bureau estimate. Spread over 671 sq. miles of mesquite-studded desert, Loving County has no college, no church, no grocery retailer and no bank. The few children who live there board the bus in the one town, Mentone (population 22), and journey about 35 miles every morning and afternoon to attend school.

For decades, a handful of distinguished families in Loving County have feuded bitterly for control of the local authorities, with the Joneses lastly largely popping out forward. 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 recently elected county officials have been butting heads with the Joneses and their allies, making for colorful commissioner’s courtroom meetings and a much-anticipated November election. 

And blood is not holding the Jones household collectively. 

“He’s had free reign for your complete time since he’s been the choose,” 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 at any time when he desires.  Even the feeling of self-righteousness. That he can do no mistaken.” 

When Skeet Jones was sworn in as choose in 2007, most of the caliche roads were rutted like washboards and residents nonetheless had to line up to get potable water dispensed from a neighborhood tank. 

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

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

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

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

However she got here to love 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 bother earlier than, however nothing like this. In 2016, the state Commission on Judicial Conduct decided Jones did not comply with the law by charging steep charges — about $600 to $750 — for lowering tickets together with rushing and marijuana possession right down to parking tickets.

The decide denied any involvement in negotiations over tickets and advised the fee he just accredited the plea offers offered to him. He was issued a public warning and ordered to take 10 hours of additional training.

Medlin beforehand labored as a detective for the San Antonio Police Division, where records present he was issued indefinite suspensions — the department’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 in the back seat, data show. Medlin was reinstated after an attraction. 

Then in 2018, Medlin engaged in another high-speed pursuit after telling dispatchers the driver “virtually ran me over,” data show. But physique and sprint 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 one other indefinite suspension after supervisors decided he issued tickets for violations he didn’t witness, records present. 

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

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

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