Travelers Insurance has withdrawn its request for the county to pay its $10,000 deductible to help cover payments to former Circuit Clerk Shelly Ashley Palmertree’s attorneys.

County administrator John Smith said Travelers’ agent in Vicksburg told him the insurance company will not ask the Board of Supervisors to pay the $10,000 because “they do not want the negative publicity.”

Smith said Travelers, which at one time insured the county, made $30,000 in payments to Palmertree’s attorneys, and wanted the county to pay its $10,000 deductible to cover part of the payments. The board Dec. 5 sent a letter to Travelers refusing to pay the money.

Palmertree sued the county and State Auditor Stacey Pickering in March 2013 in a dispute over salary paid above the state cap for circuit and chancery clerks. She was later convicted of two counts of embezzlement for stealing money from the court’s civil and criminal fee accounts and sentenced to five years in jail.

Palmertree filed suit in Hinds County Chancery Court in March 2013 after Pickering claimed she was paid $671,751.75 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.

At one point the total was estimated at more than $1.04 million after interest and investigative fees from the State Auditor’s Office, which filed the initial claim against her.

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

County administrator John Smith said in October CNA Surety Co., which had Palmertree’s bond, paid $100,000, and the county has received more than $275,000 from Palmertree.

Besides uncovering the excessive salary, the auditor’s investigation also revealed Palmertree was living in a house in Canton, when investigators found an affidavit of residence for the Madison County School District signed by Palmertree and dated July 23, 2013.

The clerk wrote 114 Fairchild Cove in Canton as her permanent residence.

The probe also produced a lease-purchase agreement between the her and the residence’s owners, and two utility bills, one from Entergy for $422.35 and one from AT&T for Internet and TV service for $142.32.

In 2014, Palmertree pleaded guilty 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 supervisors removed her from office May 15, 2014.

Circuit Judge Isadore Patrick sentenced her to five years to be served concurrent, or at the same time, with the 2014 sentence.

Palmertree repaid the $12,000 taken in the first count, and $20,000 in reimbursement on the second count.

Patrick ordered her to pay $1,250 a month until a balance of $67,164.64 is paid. She also had to pay the district attorney’s investigative cost of $2,586.38.

She was released on parole Sept. 14, almost two years after she was sentenced on the first embezzlement count Sept. 29, 2014.

Her parole is being supervised in Madison County.