The president of Jackson State University has stepped down from his position after police arrested him during a prostitution sting.
William Bynum Jr., 57, resigned as JSU president on Monday following his weekend arrest by Clinton, Mississippi, authorities, according to ABC affiliate WAPT 16. Officials charged Bynum with procuring a prostitute, making a false statement of identity, and illegal possession of marijuana.
Police arrested 17 people as part of the sting operation, including Bynum and JSU professor Shonda McCarthy, 46. The Board of Trustees of State Institutions of Higher Learning called an emergency meeting on Monday to discuss a replacement JSU president.
In a press conference the same day, authorities said that the weekend sting was the second such operation by Clinton police in the past six months. Undercover police officers arrested the defendants after answering an online ad and agreeing to meet the suspects at a hotel in Clinton.
“This was an ad is posted online. Services, fees, and locations are agreed upon, and then the offenders, in this instance Clinton was the jurisdiction, and the offenders traveled to Clinton and completed the crime,” a Clinton police spokesman said.
Clinton authorities made the bust using information gathered in previous similar operations.
