He promised free homes to his followers if they moved to West Texas. The goal: Take over the government.

By Eric Dexheimer,

Staff Writer

Sep 25, 2025

MENTONE — Sheriff Dave Landersman said he started hearing about the group aiming to take over his county a few months ago. It began with locals reporting unfamiliar faces around the Loving County courthouse and the new community center in this sparsely populated, but oil-rich area near the New Mexico border.

It wasn’t that residents never saw newcomers. Thousands of workers come and go every day, servicing the Permian Basin oil and gas boom. But groups of Black women and children were unusual; the 2020 U.S. Census had counted no African-American residents here. Many of the recent arrivals were from out of state and seemed surprised by the harsh West Texas conditions — “city people,” Landersman said.

Keionta Hinton, the owner of Fat Boys Cafe and known as Miss Kay, said her first contact was in June, when two women, two men and a girl entered the restaurant. She likes to talk to customers over Louisiana soul food, the diner’s specialty.

“We’re here to take over your county,” she recalled one of the women telling her. “I’m going to be one of your commissioners.”

“She was very serious,” Hinton said. “Not playing around.”

Moving voters into a community to gain control of its government might be considered a far-fetched strategy if it weren’t for one fact: It is occurring in Loving County, which has a long tradition of doing exactly that.

In recent years, the community of fewer than 100 residents has been riven by bitter family feuds. To gain advantage in attaining and holding power, opposing sides have tried to game the voter roll, registering far-flung family members or offering residences to visitors for the purpose of claiming their vote.

The upshot: Loving County’s tiny electorate, its history of loose voter registration and the tens of millions of dollars of oil money splashing into its treasury annually has made it both attractive — and vulnerable — to an organized group of people wanting to wrest control.

“This is the perfect place to try something like this,” acknowledged Constable Brandon Jones. “It’s the chickens coming home to roost.”

In late June, Chief Deputy Larry Pearson drove northwest out of Mentone to find the new group’s settlement so the department could have a GPS position in case of a 911 call, a necessity in the nation’s least-populated county. About 35 minutes down rough oil company roads, he found an RV and what looked like a still unframed house.

A second visit revealed a cluster of RVs, tents and generators. As Pearson drove away, he received a call from a man identifying himself as Dr. Malcolm Tanner threatening legal action.

Backgrounding Tanner wasn’t hard. Tall, charismatic and a self-described “entrepreneur, philanthropist, educator” and “visionary leader,” Tanner leads an organization called Melanated People of Power, which he has described as a movement seeking political and economic opportunity for those traditionally disenfranchised. He boasts a sizable social media presence — 244,000 Facebook followers and 70,000 on TikTok. His posts explained Loving County’s newcomers.

“I’m out here in Texas. Loving County, Texas,” he said in a mid-July Facebook reel viewed nearly 2 million times. “If you want to get a home, and stop paying rent, your mortgage or even the taxes on it, we’re going to build y’all a home. Right here. For free. We’re hoping to have a hundred homes out here, with the intention of putting 2,000.”

In a video posted in July to TikTok, Tanner, who lists an Indiana address on Loving County appraisal records, summarized his longer-term intentions.

“Not too often do you see a brother that looks like me come into the county and take the entire county over,” he said. “Well, I have taken the entire county over, out here in Loving County, Texas. When these elections hit in 2026, we’re going to wipe the board. Everybody that I selected will be elected.”

At the cafe, Hinton said she has counted about 30 new arrivals as of late August, from Georgia, Mississippi, Oklahoma, South Carolina and Houston. The group recently attempted to register more than two dozen new residents to vote using a Mentone P.O. Box, according to Landersman, who doubles as the county voter registrar.

Tanner declined to comment. When Houston Chronicle journalists visited the group’s settlement to interview the newcomers, a resident called Tanner, who in a phone call accused them of trespassing and then sent a cease-and-desist letter to the Chronicle.

A day later, he filed a civil rights complaint against Loving County and its sheriff’s department in federal court seeking $450 million in damages. The county has denied wrongdoing and asked for the case to be dismissed.

A history of ‘greed, pride and ego’

To say Loving County’s electoral landscape is prickly is like saying the county is desolate; it doesn’t quite convey the harsh on-the-ground reality.

It is expected local election results will be challenged in court. Most disputes revolve around whether voters claiming legal residence in Loving County actually live there.

Many are former residents who have moved away — some of them decades ago and hundreds of miles distant — but who continue calling Loving County home so they can vote there. Some have claimed to be living in unlikely local accommodations.

According to election lawsuits, an expansive definition of “residence” has been permitted, and even promoted, to protect the interests of powerful local families intent on clinging to political power. The most prominent are the Joneses.

Punk Jones, the patriarch, was the longtime sheriff. His son, Skeet, has served as county judge for nearly 20 years. Skeet’s sister is the district clerk. His cousin’s husband is the county attorney; the constable is his nephew.

In recent years, however, the family has fractured, cramming the local court docket with angry legal filings. “A blood feud has plagued the Jones family — fueled by, among other things, greed, pride, and ego,” stated a pending lawsuit filed in state district court “seeking redress for these betrayals, deceit, and blatant misconduct.”

The conflict has roiled local elections, as the community’s loyalties to competing factions often closely divide races. “The Jones family can’t find enough people to vote for them who actually live here,” said Susan Hays, an attorney who has represented their electoral opponents. “So they manufacture voters” from out-of-town family and friends. County Judge Jones did not reply to a message left at his office.

The tight contests mean an individual commissioner’s seat can be won by a margin of as little as a dozen votes. Candidates have won the most powerful county-wide positions — judge, sheriff, clerk — with barely four dozen supporters.

Scrimmaging over government jobs in a jurisdiction with a population the size of the Dallas Cowboys roster might seem the definition of small stakes. Yet the fracking boom has made political power in Loving County extraordinarily valuable.

In 2008, the county collected about $2 million in revenue. By next year its budget is projected to top $60 million, nearly three times higher than just five years ago. If Harris County enjoyed the same resident-to-income ratio, its annual budget would approach $5 trillion instead of $2.6 billion.

“Sitting atop some of the nation’s richest oil and gas reserves, this patch of West Texas — where pump jacks outnumber people — has long been home to bitter feuds among powerful families vying for political control over a massive tax base swollen by sky-high land values,” summarized a recent opinion from the 5th Circuit Court of Appeals.

In short, county leaders “absolutely have opened the door to another faction coming in and doing the same thing they’ve been doing for years,” Hays said.

‘Free homes to families around the world’

Although Malcolm Tanner’s online output is prodigious, confirmed details about him and his accomplishments are harder to find.

Tanner has written that he was born in South Bend, Indiana, and was one of 10 siblings. “At the age of 17, Tanner purchased his first property — a duplex — leveraging it to generate residual income through rentals. He pursued higher education and earned a doctorate in divinity.” (He does not mention the name of an institution.)

In a TikTok post, he wrote that he launched multiple business ventures at young ages, including an ice cream truck company, a car lot and a night club. Now 39, Tanner has written that he is a single parent to 11 children.

“In 2021, he founded the Melanated People of Power University, where he provided education on property ownership, business leadership, and economic empowerment,” he wrote in his biography, though information about the institution is difficult to find beyond his own posts. “One of his groundbreaking achievements was developing a formula to grant free homes to families around the world.”

What that formula is, or how it has worked, is not immediately clear. County records show Tanner linked to about two dozen properties, mostly in Indiana — many appraised at relatively low values.

News accounts and legal documents describe a number of property disputes. This spring, Tanner sued Grant County, Indiana, officials for moving the location of a tax sale and asking for his personal identification to claim a property he bid on. He is seeking $150 million; the county denied wrongdoing.

In August, he sued Muncie, Indiana, for $50 million, claiming its inspectors entered two of his properties without permission to check for code violations; one house was tagged as an unsafe building, according to the complaint. The city responded it did nothing improper.

Tanner recently sued an online local news publication for $2 million for calling him a “scam artist” and questioning whether he had rehabbed a derelict YMCA building in Marion, Indiana, as he claimed. Records show he purchased the property for $200.

The publisher responded he stood by his reporting, which he said found the building was boarded up and used by homeless people. “All of us who live here drive past the Y almost every day and we know what’s going on with the building,” Richarh Tyson wrote in response. “I can’t wait to get in the courtroom.”

Tanner also accused Marion officials of burning and vandalizing the Y building “just because I’m a melanated brother helping melanated people.” County tax records show $43,300 in taxes over three years are owed on the property.

Yet Tanner’s basic promise — houses for people who otherwise may be unable to obtain them and a “political home” for those who feel unwelcome elsewhere — has resonated.

“I have a lot of homeless family members that need stability to change their lives and get back on the right path,” a respondent to a Facebook post about free land recently wrote. “God knows this could help us out.”

‘All about taking control’

It’s not unheard of for a small but motivated group to target a place to acquire political power. In May, Elon Musk’s SpaceX employees voted to form their own town, Starbase, outside of Brownsville. Its new residents then overwhelmingly approved a slate of officers who all happened to be company workers.

It has occurred in existing communities, as well. In 1970, the newly formed Raza Unida Party targeted entire local election slates in three South Texas communities for replacement. In one fell swoop, RUP won majorities in two city councils and school boards, as well as two mayoral positions.

It is much less common for outsiders to affect a political overthrow, though it has been tried. In the 1980s, enough followers of the guru Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh moved to Eastern Oregon that they could vote to change the name of the existing town, Antelope, to Rajneesh. The group later enlisted homeless people as voters in an attempt to pack county elected offices, however, the state was able to block the effort.

Experts said logistical and electoral obstacles ordinarily would make it almost impossible for a group to move into a community for the expressed purpose of a political takeover. Given Loving County’s tiny population and outsized budget, however, “It’s almost more like an entrepreneur seeing an opportunity than a political movement,” said Mark Jones, a fellow at Rice University’s Baker Institute for Public Policy.

According to appraisal district records, Tanner purchased two five-acre parcels northwest of Mentone in January. Texas does not require real estate sales prices to be recorded, but an ad for a 10-acre parcel in the same area currently still listed by the same sales company shows an asking price of $12,000.

Chad Pierce, a Utah resident who said he was part of Tanner's group but has since left, said he was drawn to Tanner’s ambitious-sounding plans on social media. He said joining required a monthly fee.

Pierce said he was one of several members assigned to research small counties with big budgets where Tanner might locate a new settlement. “When I told him how much money Loving County had in its budget, that’s where he got his interest,” he said. “It was all about taking control.”

Videos promoting free houses on Tanner’s Loving County property started appearing on his social media feeds soon after, accelerating in frequency through the summer. Some making the move documented their trip.

Several promotions have depicted an unfamiliar representation of the creosote-studded sandy scrubland of Far West Texas where Tanner owns property.

“If you are ready to get a home with me out in Texas, come out to Loving County, Texas,” he says in one as he stands shirtless in front of waves lapping at a shore. Another promoting a personal appearance – “Dr. Tanner, live in Loving County” – superimposes him in front of a verdant town square.

“We’re out here at my lake — my lake,” he says in a Tik Tok video promising “Free houses – Come get one.” Locals said it appears to have been recorded at Red Bluff Reservoir, about an hour north of Tanner’s property.

Also: $5,000 a month

Free houses are just part of the promise, according to other Tanner social media posts. “$5,000 a month — five,” he said on a self-recorded Facebook reel showing him walking around what appears to be Loving County. “It’s what African Americans will start to receive, 2027, here in Loving County, Texas. $5,000 a month. Why do you think they’re all moving out here?”

Tanner’s social media accounts describe his plans to gain local political offices, as well.

“My daughter’s running for the county judge,” he said in a July 17 reel, gesturing to the young woman walking beside him. “She’ll be the youngest judge on the planet when she wins.” Other posts introduce a woman described as the next county clerk and a Precinct 2 commissioner candidate.

“I’ve had no interaction with the gentleman,” said Cody “Bo” Williams, the county commissioner representing the area where Tanner’s land is located.

Teresa Jones of South Carolina said she signed on with Tanner in July, paying a $100 monthly fee. Following his instructions, she said she registered to vote in Loving County online before heading to Texas, using the group’s P.O Box in Mentone as her address.

“He said because the population was small, he knew he could win elections,” she recalled.

In August, a group of Tanner’s followers arrived at the courthouse annex with a stack of about 30 voter registration forms listing the P.O. Box as their home address, said Landersman. Because they weren’t collected and delivered by an authorized agent as required by Texas law, he said he was required to reject them.

Still, he added, it’s not a difficult fix. So far, a dozen people associated with Tanner have successfully registered, he said. Four recently were summoned to serve on a jury. Ten of the residents showed up at a commissioners court meeting.

Tanner’s plan could run afoul of recent changes in Texas election law intended to thwart voter fraud. In 2021, legislators added a provision that prohibits “establish(ing) residence for the purpose of influencing the outcome of a certain election.” But experts also said the broad wording might make the statute difficult to enforce, and no complaints or legal actions have been taken against Tanner or members of the group.

At the very least, it will take stamina. Although the new residents could vote in November elections, they could not field a candidate; the contests are re-dos of disputed 2022 races. The first votes they could cast for their own candidates would be in the 2026 primaries, in March.

That leaves a half-year of living on a desolate site currently without water service or any permanent structures. It is about an hour’s drive to grocery stores in Pecos. Landersman said he has received calls from nearby oil workers saying the newcomers had tried to sell drinking water to them.

As of late August, the encampment viewed from the road had seven RVs, several cars and a handful of tents and trailers. A partially framed building on cinderblocks sat near a trampoline. A man sitting in a running car wearing a Trader Joe’s shirt declined an interview after calling Tanner.

Jones said she drove to West Texas from Charleston several weeks ago, arriving on August 4. She said she had been promised a spot in one of the fifth-wheel RVs to live while her free house was being constructed.

“But when I got there they told me the RVs were all taken, and I’d have to go get a tent, a generator and two gas cans,” she said. “But I’m not living like that.”

For now, she’s staying in a Pecos motel. “I went broke coming out here,” she said. “There’s no nothing. I’m just waiting to see what happens, because I paid my money.”

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=5786907&forum_id=2)#49353232)

https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=1296766865372790&id=100051184656097&set=a.107374174312071

https://www.instagram.com/dr.malcolmtanner/

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=5786907&forum_id=2)#49353247)

Also the whites native to the area are all criminally insane inbred cattle thieves. Read literally anything else about Loving County. There are 100 whites and they're all scammers and they're all related.

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=5786907&forum_id=2)#49353268)