The Warren County Board of Supervisors made the right decision not to contribute toward former Circuit Clerk Shelly Ashley Palmertree’s legal bills stemming from her court battles. Travelers Insurance, which once had the county’s liability insurance, paid Palmertree’s attorneys a total of $30,000 to cover legal fees for representing her in her legal battles with the county and the State Auditors Office, and wanted the county to kick in its $10,000 deductible to help with the payout.

The supervisors declined in a letter to Travelers. As board president Richard George said, “She took us to court; we didn’t sue her, and now we’re being asked to pay for her legal costs. That doesn’t make sense.”

Palmertree sued the county in March 2013, over $671,751.75 State Auditor Stacey Pickering claimed she was paid in excessive salary above the state-set cap for circuit and chancery clerks, and questionable subcontractor payments to her father and predecessor in office, Larry Ashley. for representing her in two criminal cases where she was charged with embezzlement.

In April 2015, Hinds County Chancery Judge Dewayne Thomas ordered her to pay more than $818,251.75 in restitution to the county.

In 2014, she pleaded guilty in Circuit Court to stealing $12,000 from civil and criminal fee accounts under her care as circuit clerk and was initially sentenced to five years in prison.

She pleaded guilty in March 2015 to a second embezzlement charge involving the theft of $103,736.75 meant for restitution to crime victims from an account under her care between Jan. 1, 2013, and until the supervisors removed her from office May 15, 2014.

All of her legal battles were Palmertree’s responsibility. None of them can be blamed on the county, yet her attorneys believed the county should pay for their attempts to get her out of a mess of her own creation.