Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: TUESDAY, December 14, 1993                   TAG: 9312140105
SECTION: VIRGINIA                    PAGE: C3   EDITION: STATE 
SOURCE: Associated Press
DATELINE: WILLIAMSBURG                                LENGTH: Medium

ENROLLING WASN'T AMONG CAMPUS LEADER'S ACTIVITIES

The problem was that Wynn wasn't a student.

But that didn't stop him from being elected to the student legislature, becoming rush chairman of a campus fraternity and managing parties for a student organization.

About a month ago, college police served Wynn with a trespassing citation and barred him from the campus.

Wynn's exposure as an impostor left his friends and colleagues in the college community wondering how he could have fooled them so thoroughly.

College administrators said the situation is of some concern, but nonetheless seems understandable.

"It's not something that we have any degree of comfort about," said Samuel Sadler, vice president for student affairs. He said the open society of a university offers natural cover for an impostor.

"If you look like a student and act like a student and hang out where students hang out, I don't think it would be hard to pass yourself off as a student," Sadler said.

Wynn, now 25, entered campus life in the fall of 1992 by showing up at a college-owned house, which served as a gathering place for commuting students under the auspices of the Off-Campus Student Council.

He said he knew a young woman who had attended classes at what is now Christopher Newport University in Newport News and who had transferred to William and Mary. His friend was a regular at the off-campus house, and Wynn said he told her and other students at the house that he, too, had transferred to the Williamsburg college.

Wynn attended a seminar run by the college administration in order to become qualified to manage parties at which alcohol was served, and he managed several such parties in the 1992-93 academic year, according to Melissa Ann Bomberger, acting president of the Off-Campus Student Council.

When a vacancy for a nonresident student opened on the student legislature the same year, Wynn was elected.

"It's just really weird," said Lisa Goddard, president of the college's Student Association. "He was a great rep, and he's a really good guy, too."

He later joined Sigma Mu Sigma, a service fraternity whose membership is restricted to students, and became the rush chairman and pledge educator, two jobs that involved recruiting students.

Despite Wynn's enthusiasm and eagerness to help his fellow students, some of his friends in the fraternity and commuter-student group eventually became suspicious when he never seemed to attend classes, Bomberger said. Finally, some students relayed their suspicions to administrators.

In an interview, Wynn admitted to his deceit.

"I not only lied, but continued to lie to protect that lie," he said.

Wynn said his path to William and Mary began after he graduated from high school in Hampton. He said he applied and was accepted by the college.

School administrators said college application records for nonstudents do not extend back to 1986, when Wynn said he was accepted.

Wynn went to Virginia Military Institute instead but left the Lexington school in October 1986. He said his problems there were related to immaturity.

Wynn said he realizes his lies may have greatly reduced his chances of ever becoming a William and Mary student, but he said he still would like to try.