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

Lawmen got here to distant 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. 

Judge Skeet Jones, 71, the highest elected official since 2007 in the least populated county within the continental United States, is dealing with three felony counts of livestock theft and one rely of engaging in prison activity, accused of gathering up and selling stray cattle, authorities said. 

Jones, the scion of a strong ranching household that settled in Loving County within the Fifties, was booked into Winkler County Jail on Friday and released on $20,000 bond, records show. He didn't return phone calls in search of remark. 

Authorities also arrested former Loving County deputy Leroy Medlin Jr., 35, on one count of participating in criminal activity — a second-degree felony that carries a maximum 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're being focused,” she wrote, “at full power.” 

Officials with the Texas and Southwestern Cattle Raisers Association, the lead agency on the case, offered few specifics about the alleged crime. Commissioned through the Texas Department of Public Security, the affiliation has “particular rangers” —  licensed peace officers — who investigate livestock theft and other agriculture crimes. 

Jeremy Fuchs, a spokesman for the association, mentioned the yearlong investigation is ongoing and more charges are doable.

The concept that the judge — 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 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 trouble for it? It’s simply asinine to me.”

Word of the arrests spread quicker than a prairie fireplace with a tailwind by way of this West Texas county, population 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 youngsters who stay there board the bus in the one city, Mentone (inhabitants 22), and travel about 35 miles each morning and afternoon to attend school.

For many years, a handful of distinguished households in Loving County have feuded bitterly for control of the local authorities, with the Joneses lastly largely popping 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. 

But some just lately elected county officers have been butting heads with the Joneses and their allies, making for colourful commissioner’s court meetings and a much-anticipated November election. 

And blood is now not holding the Jones family collectively. 

“He’s had free reign for the whole time since he’s been the judge,” mentioned 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 no matter he desires each time he desires.  Even the sensation of self-righteousness. That he can do no unsuitable.” 

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

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

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

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

Jones’ father, Elgin “Punk” Jones, and mom, 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 Monthly in 1997. “I stated to my husband, ‘Punk, how lengthy are we going to reside 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 well discipline that feeds Mentone. 

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

The decide denied any involvement in negotiations over tickets and informed the fee he simply approved the plea deals offered to him. He was issued a public warning and ordered to take 10 hours of further training.

Medlin previously worked as a detective for the San Antonio Police Division, where records 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 within the back seat, records show. Medlin was reinstated after an attraction. 

Then in 2018, Medlin engaged in another high-speed pursuit after telling dispatchers the driving force “almost ran me over,” information present. But body and sprint camera footage contradicted Medlin’s account, in response to inside affairs studies. He appealed again, telling supervisors he felt threatened, even when 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, data show. 

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

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

Two ranch palms additionally had been arrested on Friday. Cody Williams, 31, was charged with three counts of livestock theft and interesting in organized prison exercise, data show. He didn't return a reporter’s phone call.

Jonathon Alvarado, 23, faces one count of theft of livestock, which carries a sentence of up to 10 years in prison. He hung up on a reporter looking for comment.

Along with the decide, Medlin, Williams and Alvarado posted bond and were launched from jail.