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

Lawmen got here to distant Loving County, Texas, on Friday to arrest the county decide, a former sheriff’s deputy and two ranch hands on one among Texas’ oldest crimes — cattle theft. 

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

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

Authorities also arrested former Loving County deputy Leroy Medlin Jr., 35, on one rely of participating in prison activity — a second-degree felony that carries a maximum sentence of 20 years. Medlin didn't return telephone calls, but his spouse despatched an e-mail 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, provided few specifics about the alleged crime. Commissioned by the Texas Division of Public Safety, the association has “special rangers” —  certified peace officers — who investigate livestock theft and different agriculture crimes. 

Jeremy Fuchs, a spokesman for the affiliation, said the yearlong investigation is ongoing and extra prices are possible.

The concept 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 previously.

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

Word of the arrests unfold quicker than a prairie fire with a tailwind by means of this West Texas county, population 57 as of the last U.S. Census Bureau estimate. Unfold over 671 square miles of mesquite-studded desert, Loving County has no faculty, no church, no grocery store and no financial institution. The few kids who dwell there board the bus in the one city, Mentone (inhabitants 22), and travel about 35 miles every morning and afternoon to attend school.

For decades, a handful of distinguished families in Loving County have feuded bitterly for management of the local government, with the Joneses finally largely coming out ahead. Skeet Jones has served because the choose for greater than 15 years. His sister is the county clerk. His cousin’s husband is the county legal professional. His nephew is the constable. 

But some not too long ago 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 household together. 

“He’s had free reign for all the time since he’s been the decide,” 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 no matter he desires each time he wants.  Even the sensation of self-righteousness. That he can do no fallacious.” 

When Skeet Jones was sworn in as choose in 2007, a lot of the caliche roads have been rutted like washboards and residents nonetheless had to line as much as 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 cash into the county’s coffers. The parched panorama is dotted with large gasoline crops, water vegetation and salt water disposal programs. Lots 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 economy: oil and fuel. 

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

The salaries for lots of the prime officers in town — the decide, 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, began the P&M Jones Ranch in 1953, settling into a wood-frame home with no working water. “After I first came to Mentone in 1953, it was fairly a shock,” Mary Belle Jones informed the Texas Month-to-month in 1997. “I said to my husband, ‘Punk, how lengthy are we going to dwell in this godforsaken place?’” 

However she came 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 nicely field that feeds Mentone. 

Skeet Jones has gotten into trouble before, but nothing like this. In 2016, the state Commission on Judicial Conduct decided Jones didn't observe the regulation by charging steep fees — about $600 to $750 — for decreasing tickets including rushing and marijuana possession all the way down to parking tickets.

The decide denied any involvement in negotiations over tickets and advised the commission he simply authorised the plea deals offered to him. He was issued a public warning and ordered to take 10 hours of further schooling.

Medlin beforehand labored as a detective for the San Antonio Police Department, the place data show he was issued indefinite suspensions — the division’s equal of being fired — thrice. 

In 2015, he was placed on indefinite suspension for a 100-plus mph pursuit of a driver who had a toddler in the again seat, data show. Medlin was reinstated after an appeal. 

Then in 2018, Medlin engaged in one other high-speed pursuit after telling dispatchers the motive force “nearly ran me over,” data show. But physique and dash digital camera footage contradicted Medlin’s account, in response to inner affairs stories. He appealed again, telling supervisors he felt threatened, even when 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, information 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 earlier than being hired by Loving County as a janitor and groundskeeper. 

Two ranch arms also had been arrested on Friday. Cody Williams, 31, was charged with three counts of livestock theft and fascinating in organized prison activity, records present. He did not 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 prison. He hung up on a reporter seeking comment.

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