[10/5/04]PORT GIBSON The Claiborne County Board of Supervisors accepted a check Monday for partial restitution from former Tax Assessor and Collector Mary Jones, courtesy of the State Auditor Phil Bryant.

The $100,000 check, presented during the board’s regular meeting by Chief Investigator Jesse Bingham and Bryant spokesman Mick Bullock, covers part of the $110,502.38 that Jones owed the county. Bryant issued a demand for $160,377.43 in June to cover the amount Jones owed the county, plus interest and investigative costs.

“Hopefully we can go forward and look at positive means for moving Claiborne County forward,” said Charles Shorts, president of the board. “We need to put this behind us.”

“We were glad that we were able to present $100,000 to the taxpayers of Claiborne County,” Bullock said.

The $100,000 is a payment from Jones’ bonding company, Baltimore-based Zurich North America. State law requires tax collectors and assessors to be insured for at least $100,000. Claiborne is one of the few counties in the state to combine the offices of tax collector and assessor.

Jones is personally responsible for the rest of the debt. She was indicted May 25 and pleaded guilty to three counts of embezzlement. She was sentenced to five years in prison and ordered to pay restitution. She is being held in Claiborne County Jail.

She was elected tax collector and assessor in January 1996 and resigned in October 2002, prompted by the investigation. She had worked in the tax collector’s office for 27 years. The investigation showed money missing from June 1, 2001, to June 30, 2002.

Doretha Rankin, deputy clerk in the tax collector’s office, pleaded guilty to similar charges in January and was sentenced to six months in jail related to $20,898.34 missing from the office.

Rankin was issued a demand letter Jan. 12 for $25,099.15, which included the investigative and interest costs. The entire debt was paid Jan. 13. The state auditor’s office returned $24,499.55, the principal and interest of the stolen money, to Claiborne County on Feb. 24.

In a separate development, Jones’ predecessor in office, Evan Doss Jr., was scheduled to return to federal prison Monday because he has not shown attempts to get a job or start repaying $192,549.92 restitution. A company controlled by him, Evan Doss Jr. Corp., also owes $81,832.11, court documents show.

Doss will serve eight months.

He served four years in federal prison after being convicted of stealing money from the county and money laundering in 1997.