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

Judge Skeet Jones, 71, the top elected official since 2007 within the least populated county within the continental United States, is facing three felony counts of livestock theft and one count of engaging in felony exercise, accused of gathering up and selling stray cattle, authorities said. 

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

Authorities also arrested former Loving County deputy Leroy Medlin Jr., 35, on one count of engaging in legal exercise — a second-degree felony that carries a most sentence of 20 years. Medlin did not return cellphone calls, but his wife despatched an e mail that questioned the motives behind the arrests. “We're being focused,” she wrote, “at full drive.” 

Officers with the Texas and Southwestern Cattle Raisers Association, the lead agency on the case, offered few specifics concerning the alleged crime. Commissioned by means of the Texas Division of Public Security, the association has “special rangers” —  certified peace officers — who investigate livestock theft and other agriculture crimes. 

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

The concept the choose — who is paid $133,294 annually — would get picked up for cattle rustling was just too much for Susan Hays, a Texas election lawyer who’s wrangled with the Joneses prior to now.

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

Word of the arrests unfold quicker than a prairie hearth with a tailwind via 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 school, no church, no grocery store and no financial institution. The few kids who live 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 prominent households in Loving County have feuded bitterly for management of the native government, with the Joneses finally largely popping out forward. 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 lawyer. His nephew is the constable. 

However some recently elected county officers have been butting heads with the Joneses and their allies, making for colorful commissioner’s court docket meetings and a much-anticipated November election. 

And blood is no longer holding the Jones household together. 

“He’s had free reign for your entire time since he’s been the judge,” said Skeet Jones’ nephew, Constable Brandon Jones, who was elected in 2016. “That’s given him a way of power and impunity that he can do whatever he needs each time he wants.  Even the feeling of self-righteousness. That he can do no fallacious.” 

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

However he presided over a period of unprecedented progress, as fracking boomed in the Permian Basin, feeding money into the county’s coffers. The parched landscape is dotted with large gasoline crops, water crops and salt water disposal techniques. Lots of the surviving working ranches have “frac pads” for horizontally drilled wells that lower by means of the caliche and bedrock to free up the lifeblood for Loving County’s economic system: oil and fuel. 

The tax base hovers around $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 most of the top officers in town — the decide, auditor, treasurer, clerk, justice of the peace, county lawyer, 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 right into a wood-frame house with no operating water. “When I first got here to Mentone in 1953, it was quite a shock,” Mary Belle Jones instructed the Texas Monthly in 1997. “I said to my husband, ‘Punk, how long are we going to reside in this godforsaken place?’” 

But she came to like Loving County’s huge, 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 area that feeds Mentone. 

Skeet Jones has gotten into hassle earlier than, however nothing like this. In 2016, the state Fee on Judicial Conduct determined Jones didn't comply with the law by charging steep fees — about $600 to $750 — for reducing tickets together with dashing and marijuana possession all the way down to parking tickets.

The decide denied any involvement in negotiations over tickets and instructed the commission he just accepted the plea offers presented to him. He was issued a public warning and ordered to take 10 hours of further education.

Medlin beforehand labored as a detective for the San Antonio Police Division, where information present he was issued indefinite suspensions — the department’s equal 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 again seat, information show. Medlin was reinstated after an appeal. 

Then in 2018, Medlin engaged in another high-speed pursuit after telling dispatchers the driver “nearly ran me over,” information show. But body and sprint digital camera footage contradicted Medlin’s account, based on inside affairs reports. He appealed once more, telling supervisors he felt threatened, even if it wasn’t evident from the movies.

He was later issued one other indefinite suspension after supervisors decided he issued tickets for violations he didn’t witness, data show. 

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

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

Two ranch palms additionally were arrested on Friday. Cody Williams, 31, was charged with three counts of livestock theft and fascinating in organized prison exercise, records present. He didn't 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 in search of remark.

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