BENNETTSVILLE, S.C. — A Richmond County man is one of two parents charged after their kids tested positive for drugs.
According to the Marlboro County (South Carolina) Sheriff’s Office, investigators received an intake form from the South Carolina Department of Social Services on Sept. 1 showing that three children — ages 12, 8 and 6 — all tested positive for cocaine and marijuana while living in a Wallace, South Carolina home.
The parents, 37-year-old Jaronica Bingham of Wallace also tested positive for marijuana, and 39-year-old Michael Jammal Yates of Rockingham tested positive for both marijuana and cocaine, the MCSO reports.
Both Bingham and Yates were arrested Sept. 6 by the Criminal Investigation Division of the MCSO and each charged with unlawful conduct or neglect of a child, according to the sheriff’s office.
(Charges are not yet reflected in online South Carolina court records.)
Both parents were also booked into the Marlboro County Detention Center, however no bond amount was listed in the press release and their court date is currently unknown.
South Carolina records show Yates had been brought up on several weapons and drug charges — including trafficking Ecstasy — but they were dropped by prosecutors in 2021.
Records with the N.C. Department of Public Safety Division of Adult Correction show Yates was first convicted in 2002 of robbery with a dangerous weapon in Anson County, leading him to be incarcerated for nearly three years and seven months.
(Note: State records have his middle name spelled “Jamaal.”)
In December 2005, within two months of his release, Yates was charged in Richmond County with manslaughter and possession of a firearm by a felon and was convicted in 2008. This time he served two years and five months of a five-year minimum sentence, records show.
All defendants facing criminal charges are presumed innocent until proven guilty in a court of law.
