LORAIN — Vince Urbin resigned Tuesday as director of community service for the Lorain County Community Action Agency in the wake of his arrest last month during a prostitution sting in Bowling Green.

Bill Locke, the agency’s executive director, said Urbin’s last day will be Friday.

In a letter sent to local newspapers Tuesday, Urbin apologized for his actions.

Read Urbin’s apology letter by picking up The Chronicle in print or reading the “E”-dition.

“I do not solicit any pity, compassion or undeserved forgiveness for my actions. I made the biggest mistake of my life and will spend the rest of it trying to prove that I am not the type of person I have portrayed,” Urbin wrote. “I offer no excuses for my recent stupidity.”

Urbin was arrested June 30 at a Bowling Green hotel while responding to an online ad advertising a prostitute who turned out to be an undercover Wood County Sheriff’s deputy. Urbin had planned to meet the woman and pay her $100 for a sexual encounter.

He pleaded no contest to a single misdemeanor count of solicitation in Bowling Green Municipal Court a day after his arrest. He was given 31 days in jail, although all but one day was suspended while he is on probation for the next year. He also was ordered to pay $500 in fines and forfeited the $100 he planned to pay.

Urbin, who is married with adult children, said he was confused about why he arranged the meeting with the prostitute.

“Even though no activity occurred as a result of that phone call, it doesn’t excuse my behavior,” Urbin wrote.

Urbin had been on vacation last week when his arrest became public and he has since ignored requests for comment even as some members of the LCCAA board have called for him to step down. Locke declined to comment further on Urbin’s resignation Tuesday.

Urbin also noted in his letter that he has twice had and lost jobs that allowed him to serve the public.

He resigned as mayor of Avon Lake in March 2001 at the height of a scandal surrounding allegations he had steered city business to a party center managed by his brother and trying to hide a computer disk containing a list of campaign contributors from police.

Urbin was ultimately convicted of unlawful interest in a public, tampering with evidence and complicity to tampering with evidence, although he was cleared of bribery charges.

He had his criminal record in the corruption case sealed last year, saying he wanted to restore his good name.

Contact Brad Dicken at 329-7147 or bdicken@chroniclet.com.

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