The highest elected official in Loving County, Texas, charged with cattle theft
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2022-05-22 12:47:17
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Lawmen came to remote Loving County, Texas, on Friday to arrest the county judge, a former sheriff’s deputy and two ranch palms on one of 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 dealing with three felony counts of livestock theft and one rely of engaging in legal activity, accused of gathering up and promoting stray cattle, authorities said.
Jones, the scion of a strong ranching family that settled in Loving County within the Fifties, was booked into Winkler County Jail on Friday and released on $20,000 bond, data show. He didn't return cellphone calls seeking remark.
Authorities additionally arrested former Loving County deputy Leroy Medlin Jr., 35, on one depend of participating in legal activity — a second-degree felony that carries a maximum sentence of 20 years. Medlin didn't return telephone calls, but his spouse sent an electronic mail that questioned the motives behind the arrests. “We are being focused,” she wrote, “at full force.”
Officers with the Texas and Southwestern Cattle Raisers Affiliation, the lead company on the case, offered few specifics about the alleged crime. Commissioned through the Texas Division of Public Safety, the affiliation has “special rangers” — licensed peace officers — who examine livestock theft and other agriculture crimes.
Jeremy Fuchs, a spokesman for the association, said the yearlong investigation is ongoing and extra fees are attainable.
The concept the judge — who is paid $133,294 annually — would get picked up for cattle rustling was just an excessive amount of for Susan Hays, a Texas election lawyer who’s wrangled with the Joneses in the past.
“You can’t make this shit up,” she said. “It’s a pain in the ass to round up cattle and take them to market. And then to risk real hassle for it? It’s just asinine to me.”
Word of the arrests unfold sooner 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 square miles of mesquite-studded desert, Loving County has no college, no church, no grocery retailer and no bank. The few youngsters who reside there board the bus in the only town, Mentone (inhabitants 22), and journey about 35 miles each morning and afternoon to attend faculty.
For decades, a handful of outstanding families in Loving County have feuded bitterly for control of the local authorities, with the Joneses finally largely popping out forward. Skeet Jones has served because the decide 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.
However some not too long ago elected county officers have been butting heads with the Joneses and their allies, making for colorful commissioner’s courtroom conferences 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 choose,” 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 no matter he needs whenever he desires. Even the feeling of self-righteousness. That he can do no fallacious.”
When Skeet Jones was sworn in as choose in 2007, many of the caliche roads have been rutted like washboards and residents nonetheless needed to line as much as get potable water dispensed from a group tank.
Skeet Jones at the courthouse in Mentone, Texas, on July 9, 2014.Michael Stravato / The New York Times via Redux fileBut he presided over a period of unprecedented development, as fracking boomed in the Permian Basin, feeding cash into the county’s coffers. The parched landscape is dotted with huge gas plants, water vegetation and salt water disposal programs. Most of the surviving working ranches have “frac pads” for horizontally drilled wells that lower by the caliche and bedrock to unlock the lifeblood for Loving County’s financial 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 more than $28 million.
The salaries for many of the top officials on the town — the choose, auditor, treasurer, clerk, justice of the peace, county legal professional, constable and sheriff — are $100,000 or higher.
Jones’ father, Elgin “Punk” Jones, and mom, Mary Belle Jones, started the P&M Jones Ranch in 1953, settling into a wood-frame house with no working water. “After I first got here to Mentone in 1953, it was quite a shock,” Mary Belle Jones instructed the Texas Month-to-month in 1997. “I said to my husband, ‘Punk, how long are we going to reside on 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 properly area that feeds Mentone.
Skeet Jones has gotten into hassle earlier than, but nothing like this. In 2016, the state Fee on Judicial Conduct determined Jones did not observe the law by charging steep fees — about $600 to $750 — for decreasing tickets including dashing and marijuana possession all the way down to parking tickets.
The decide denied any involvement in negotiations over tickets and informed the fee he just accredited the plea deals presented to him. He was issued a public warning and ordered to take 10 hours of extra schooling.
Medlin beforehand worked as a detective for the San Antonio Police Department, the place information show he was issued indefinite suspensions — the department’s equivalent of being fired — 3 times.
In 2015, he was placed on indefinite suspension for a 100-plus mph pursuit of a driver who had a toddler within the back seat, records present. Medlin was reinstated after an appeal.
Then in 2018, Medlin engaged in another high-speed pursuit after telling dispatchers the driving force “almost ran me over,” data show. But body and sprint digital camera footage contradicted Medlin’s account, in response to inner affairs reports. He appealed once more, telling supervisors he felt threatened, even if it wasn’t evident from the movies.
He was later issued another indefinite suspension after supervisors determined he issued tickets for violations he didn’t witness, information present.
Medlin joined the Loving County Sheriff’s Workplace in January 2019 and “separated” from the agency less than two years later, information 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 hands additionally have been arrested on Friday. Cody Williams, 31, was charged with three counts of livestock theft and fascinating in organized legal activity, information show. He did not return a reporter’s telephone 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 searching for comment.
Along with the choose, Medlin, Williams and Alvarado posted bond and had been released from jail.
Quelle: www.nbcnews.com