A southern Georgia county has agreed to repay the "room and board" it charged jail inmates who were behind bars awaiting trial.

The agreement this week resolves a federal lawsuit contending Clinch County had no legal power to charge inmates $18 a day. A total of $27,000 will be returned to people who paid the fees from 2000 to 2004.

"The sheriff had no authority to charge these fees and he certainly had no authority to threaten people with jail time for failure to pay them," said Sarah Geraghty, an attorney for the Southern Center for Human Rights.

Sheriff Winston Peterson's office referred calls seeking comment Tuesday to county attorney Rick Strickland, who was not immediately available for comment.

Geraghty's group and Atlanta law firm King & Spalding filed the complaint in November 2004, arguing that even judges can't impose fines unless they are specifically authorized by Georgia law. Clinch County officials had argued the fine was the county's way to punish criminals instead of taxpayers for wrongdoing.

One of the two plaintiffs in the lawsuit, Willie Williams Jr., was charged $4,608 for the eight months he spent in the jail. Before he was released on bail in June 2004 he had to sign a promissory note agreeing to weekly payments of $20 until his debt was paid. He said he had paid a total of $140 before the settlement was reached. The charges that put him behind bars in the first place were dropped this week.