NATCHEZ — A former Adams County Sheriff’s Office deputy was sentenced Friday for defrauding the county of nearly $6,000 over a year-and-a-half.

Former ACSO Major Bill McDaniel, 61, entered a best interest plea when he appeared before in Circuit Court Judge Al Johnson on charges of false representation.

A best interest plea is when a defendant acknowledges there is enough to convict them in a jury trial, but is not an actual legal admission of guilt.

Johnson handed down a sentence of one-year jail time, which was suspended, a $1,000 fine and a probation of as much as five years.

The judge will revisit the probation sentence once McDaniel has made restitution to the county and has paid court costs.

McDaniel was a salaried employee of the ACSO, but between September 2005 and March 2007, he allegedly claimed approximately $5,800 in overtime — something he was not entitled to do, said Mississippi Attorney General’s Office Public Information Officer Jan Schaefer.

McDaniel’s responsibilities at the ACSO included payroll preparation and requests to the county administrator’s office for the issuance of checks.

When McDaniel left the ACSO in March 2007, the agency noticed discrepancies in the payroll account and turned the investigation over to the Attorney General’s office and did not have any further role in the investigation, Sheriff Ronny Brown said.

The attorney general’s office gave the sheriff’s office some in-house measures to make sure a similar situation does not happen again, Brown said.

“They told us to check it close, to make sure that the people in payroll are checking behind us to make sure everything gets along with the auditor’s office,” he said.

But because the money for the sheriff’s office is from the taxpayers, there is a special need for accountability, Brown said.

“If we find something wrong, we are going to pursue just like it was an individual (and not a member of the sheriff’s office) doing it,” he said. “We have to show the public we are going to do the right thing, and anytime something like that happens, whatever the law says is what it is going to be.”