NATCHEZ — An embezzlement case against former Adams County maintenance supervisor Allen Jones is set for trial Thursday in circuit court.

Prosecutors from the Mississippi Attorney General’s Office allege Jones embezzled an air conditioner from the county.

The indictment against Jones says Jones sold a $935 county-owned 5-ton air-conditioning unit to Sunflower Baptist Church for $1,607.08 in August 2008.

Jones, 52, 43 Kingston Road, was arrested Dec. 15 on the embezzlement charges.

The Public Integrity Division of the Attorney General’s Office is prosecuting Jones’ case.

“We are preparing to go to trial on that date,” said Jan Schaefer, the public information officer for the attorney general office.

Jones remains on administrative leave without pay, on which he was placed several months before his arrest during the investigation.

Upcoming court proceedings are also scheduled within two weeks for the following cases:

4 A trial for Willie Duck, a suspect in the murder of Terry Farmer, is set for Sept. 12.

Duck of Fayette is also on trial for arson and the attempted rape of Farmer.

Farmer, 54, was discovered in her burned Shadow Lane house on Aug. 20, 2009.

Natchez police patrolling the area around Farmer’s house that morning followed the odor of smoke to Farmer’s house.

Farmer’s body was not discovered until after the fire was extinguished.

Adams County Coroner James Lee said the autopsy revealed Farmer’s cause of death as blunt trauma to the head and a gunshot wound to the head.

Charges against two other men who were previously labeled suspects in the case, Quinton Smith and Boris Ward, both of Fayette, were dropped Aug. 19 after the district attorney’s office was unable to locate key witnesses.

4 A sentencing hearing for former Natchez police officer Dewayne Johnson is set for Sept. 12 at the federal courthouse.

Johnson will be sentenced on charges of stealing and conspiring to use Jason Ellard’s credit cards in May of 2009.

Johnson pleaded guilty June 28 to the conspiracy charges.

At the hearing the court could also dismiss other charges against Johnson including a civil rights violation for failing to protect Ellard while he was in Johnson’s custody and of lying to the FBI, according to Johnson’s plea agreement. Those charges have not been tried in light of the agreement with U.S. prosecutors for testifying at the trial for his former co-defendant in July.

Prosecutors allege Ellard was beat in the back of Johnson’s patrol car and in Johnson’s custody after Ellard and his brother exchanged blows with NPD officer Elvis Prater outside a Main Street bar in Natchez.

Prater, who was originally charged with the beating, was acquitted of beating Ellard and of lying to the FBI on July 28.

Prater has since been reinstated as an NPD officer.

The Natchez Board of Aldermen approved the termination of Johnson at a March 22 meeting at the recommendation of Police Chief Mike Mullins after Johnson was convicted of stealing the credit cards.

4 The trial for Keimon C. Brice, 32, 2-A Crown Court, is set for Sept. 14.

Brice was arrested at the Steam Plant Road residence of Steven M. Woods, 31, in July 2010, for drug charges.

Brice faces charges of acting in concert with possession of more than 30 grams of cocaine with intent to distribute, acting in concert for the possession and intent to distribute marijuana and acting in concert for the possession and intent to distribute promethazine with codine.

4A trial for Jeremy Michael Sikes, 27, 6 Sara Lane, is set for Wednesday.

Sikes is facing charges of child fondling stemming from a June 2010 arrest.