Jim’s Bio

Jim Skinner is currently serving his first term as Sheriff of Collin County, having been elected in November of 2016, and will run for re-election in 2020. The Collin County Sheriff’s Office is comprised of 557 personnel that house over 1,100 inmates at the Detention Center and provide law enforcement services to 500 square miles of unincorporated territory across Collin County.

Jim is a 27-year law-enforcement veteran and former prosecutor. He is an armed forces veteran who proudly served over seven years as a U.S. Air Force Security Police Dog Handler, Investigator, and EST (SWAT) team operator in Southeast Asia, the Middle East, and New Mexico. Jim is a former member of the Board of Directors for the North Texas Crime Commission and serves on the Commission’s Legislative Committee. He is a member of the National Sheriffs’ Association, where he serves as a member of the Governmental Affairs Committee. Jim is also a former board member for the Sheriffs’ Association of Texas, and currently serves as the Chairman of their Legislative Committee. In April of 2018, Jim graduated the 114th Session of the prestigious National Sheriffs’ Institute in Aurora, Colorado. Jim serves on the Board of Managers for the North Central Texas Emergency Communications District, he is a Trustee for Collin County Meals on Wheels, and he serves as the Judge Advocate General for the Bill Bryant Post 110 of the American Legion located in McKinney.

After receiving his Juris Doctorate from the University of Houston Law Center in 2001, Jim worked as a civil lawyer in Dallas, representing numerous child victims of sexual abuse from across the United States against a variety of institutions. In 2007, Jim became an Assistant District Attorney and Special Prosecutor for the Collin County Criminal District Attorney’s Office. In 2008, Jim prosecuted a District Attorney from the DFW metroplex for public corruption crimes that resulted in a fifteen-year prison sentence. Afterward, Jim re-entered the private sector where he consulted for complex civil litigators and corporate entities on the discovery and investigation of financially motivated criminal activity. In 2011, Jim again returned to the public sector and served as Collin County’s Second Assistant District Attorney and Chief of the Special Prosecution Division.

Jim graduated from the FBI’s Narcotics Related Financial Investigative Techniques Training Program and the DEA’s Basic Narcotics/Dangerous Drug Enforcement School and worked as the Eastern New Mexico Narcotics Task Force Coordinator, conducting undercover and counter-drug intelligence operations throughout New Mexico with local, state, and federal law enforcement partners. Jim is a graduate of the Federal Law Enforcement Training Center’s Fraud and Financial Investigations Training Program, the Advanced White Collar Crime Training Program, the Telecommunications Fraud Training Program, MCTFT’s International Money Laundering Training, and numerous other programs related to the discovery and investigation of complex financial crime and organized criminal activity. Jim is also a former vice-president of the New Mexico Chapter of the High Technology Crime Investigation Association (HTCIA), a nationwide organization of high-tech crime investigators.

Jim Skinner was featured in August 1996 Reader’s Digest, article “To Catch Three Thieves.” This article explains Jim’s actions in bringing to justice three men who stole over $58 million from senior citizens across the United States and Canada by illegal telemarketing scams. Jim was also featured in the October 2008 edition of The Prosecutor Magazine, in an article titled “Violating the Public’s Trust.” This article detailed the 18-month grand jury investigation and two months of trial in the complex corruption prosecution of a longtime North Texas Criminal District Attorney.

Jim and his wife, Ellen, live in Melissa. Ellen is a former public school teacher and administrator, who now practices law. Their son Egan is a 2003 graduate of the United States Military Academy at West Point. Jim volunteers as the crew chief on a privately owned Vietnam era US Army UH-1H “Huey” helicopter that is used to fly missions in support of our wounded warriors and other veteran-related activities across North Texas.

Pol. Adv. paid for by the Jim Skinner Campaign, Charlie O'Reilly, Treasurer.