A teenage college student who earlier this year became the youngest person ever elected to a Georgia GOP leadership post abruptly stepped down Saturday.
Ja’Quon Stembridge submitted his resignation as the party’s assistant secretary over the weekend, Georgia GOP Chair Josh McKoon said.
Stembridge and his attorney, Ron Daniels, declined to comment on the resignation and on accusations posted to a social media account claiming Stembridge was attempting to meet an underage boy through a dating app.
McKoon said Monday that the “allegations, while serious and disturbing, are only allegations.”
“While the GAGOP condemns any such alleged conduct, it also stands by the principle that is the bedrock of the American legal system that all people are presumed innocent until proven guilty,” McKoon said.
“Mr. Stembridge is presumed innocent unless and until adjudicated guilty of wrongdoing in a court of law.”
Stembridge, 19, is a Greene County native who announced his candidacy in March and spent the final stretch of his freshman year at the University of North Georgia commuting from campus to campaign for the job.
He won the post at this summer’s Georgia GOP convention on a platform focused on expanding the party’s outreach and amplifying younger voices.
Before he was elected to a two-year term in the party’s leadership, Stembridge founded a Teen Republicans chapter in northeast Georgia and eventually became chairman of the statewide organization.
McKoon, who is also facing pressure to oust a “special adviser” to the party with a history of xenophobic social media posts, said the Georgia GOP has cut ties with Stembridge.
“As Mr. Stembridge has resigned from his position within the GAGOP, any further development in this situation is entirely his own affair and does not involve the GAGOP,” he said.
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