Lawmen got here to distant Loving County, Texas, on Friday to arrest the county choose, a former sheriff’s deputy and two ranch palms on one in all Texas’ oldest crimes — cattle theft.
Judge Skeet Jones, 71, the top elected official since 2007 in the least populated county in the continental United States, is dealing with three felony counts of livestock theft and one depend of participating in prison exercise, accused of gathering up and promoting stray cattle, authorities stated.
Jones, the scion of a strong ranching household that settled in Loving County in the Fifties, was booked into Winkler County Jail on Friday and launched on $20,000 bond, information present. He didn’t return telephone calls searching for remark.
Authorities additionally arrested former Loving County deputy Leroy Medlin Jr., 35, on one depend of participating in prison exercise — a second-degree felony that carries a most sentence of 20 years. Medlin didn’t return telephone calls, however his spouse despatched an e mail that questioned the motives behind the arrests. “We are being targeted,” she wrote, “at full force.”
Officials with the Texas and Southwestern Cattle Raisers Association, the lead company on the case, supplied few specifics in regards to the alleged crime. Commissioned via the Texas Department of Public Safety, the affiliation has “special rangers” — licensed peace officers — who examine livestock theft and different agriculture crimes.
Jeremy Fuchs, a spokesman for the affiliation, stated the yearlong investigation is ongoing and extra prices are potential.
The concept that the choose — who’s paid $133,294 yearly — would get picked up for cattle rustling was simply an excessive amount of for Susan Hays, a Texas election lawyer who’s wrangled with the Joneses in the previous.
“You can’t make this shit up,” she stated. “It’s a pain in the ass to round up cattle and take them to market. And then to risk real trouble for it? It’s just asinine to me.”
Word of the arrests unfold sooner than a prairie fireplace with a tailwind via this West Texas county, inhabitants 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 kids who reside there board the bus in the one city, Mentone (inhabitants 22), and journey about 35 miles every morning and afternoon to attend faculty.
For a long time, a handful of outstanding households in Loving County have feuded bitterly for management of the native authorities, with the Joneses lastly largely popping out forward. 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 just lately elected county officers have been butting heads with the Joneses and their allies, making for colourful commissioner’s courtroom conferences and a much-anticipated November election.
And blood is not holding the Jones household collectively.
“He’s had free reign for the entire time since he’s been the judge,” stated 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 wants whenever he wants. Even the feeling of self-righteousness. That he can do no wrong.”
When Skeet Jones was sworn in as choose in 2007, many of the caliche roads had been rutted like washboards and residents nonetheless needed to line as much as get potable water distributed from a group tank.
But he presided over a interval of unprecedented progress, as fracking boomed in the Permian Basin, feeding cash into the county’s coffers. The parched panorama is dotted with large fuel crops, water crops and salt water disposal programs. Many of the surviving working ranches have “frac pads” for horizontally drilled wells that lower via the caliche and bedrock to release 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 most of the top officers in city — 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, began the P&M Jones Ranch in 1953, settling right into a wood-frame home with no working water. “When I first came to Mentone in 1953, it was quite a shock,” Mary Belle Jones advised the Texas Monthly in 1997. “I said to my husband, ‘Punk, how long are we going to live in this godforsaken place?’”
But she got here 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 effectively area that feeds Mentone.
Skeet Jones has gotten into hassle earlier than, however nothing like this. In 2016, the state Commission on Judicial Conduct decided Jones did not observe the legislation by charging steep charges — about $600 to $750 — for lowering tickets together with dashing and marijuana possession right down to parking tickets.
The choose denied any involvement in negotiations over tickets and advised 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 information present he was issued indefinite suspensions — the division’s equal of being fired — 3 times.
In 2015, he was positioned on indefinite suspension for a 100-plus mph pursuit of a driver who had a toddler in the again seat, information present. Medlin was reinstated after an attraction.
Then in 2018, Medlin engaged in one other high-speed pursuit after telling dispatchers the driving force “almost ran me over,” information present. But physique and sprint digicam footage contradicted Medlin’s account, in response to inner affairs studies. He appealed once more, telling supervisors he felt threatened, even when 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, information present.
Medlin joined the Loving County Sheriff’s Office in January 2019 and “separated” from the company lower than two years later, information present. (Sheriff Chris Busse declined to say why.)
Medlin additionally labored on Jones’ ranch earlier than being employed 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 fascinating in organized prison exercise, information present. He didn’t return a reporter’s telephone name.
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 searching for remark.
In addition to the choose, Medlin, Williams and Alvarado posted bond and had been launched from jail.