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| Gilbert Conway |
By Brandon Hall
(Email Him At WestMIPolitics@Gmail.com)
A Flint man, Gilbert Conway, may be involved in hundreds-of sexual assaults after over 500 videotapes of homemade rapes believed to have been recorded by him were discovered at his home during a police investigation this summer.
Genesee County Commissioners authorized spending $20,000 at a meeting recently to convert the tapes from their old format to digital versions so detectives are better able to investigate the contents.
According to Mlive:
"Investigators are going through thousands of hours of old video cassettes that they say may depict recorded sexual assaults by an accused Flint serial rapist.
A victim reported an alleged sexual assault of Gilbert Benny Conway, 60, of Flint, who now faces 86 counts of criminal sexual conduct, kidnapping, extortion, gross indecency and other charges in connection to six different cases that go back as far as 2009.
But the number of victims and scope of the alleged crimes is still unknown.
Genesee District Court records for Conway show six different cases filed in 2018 that involve criminal sexual conduct where the alleged assaults took place between Aug. 29, 2009 and July 4.
"He had the camera set up while he's raping his victims," alleged Genesee County Prosecutor David Leyton. "We think there's a whole lot more victims out there. We want to try to identify them and seek additional charges because we want to get justice for these victims."
Conway is being held in the Genesee County Jail without bail.
It is believed there are "hours and hours" of video, Leyton said, and that the tapes "go back years. It's going to take a big time effort by the Flint police and my staff to go through it," he said.
He said each tape could contain up to eight hours of video.
"We'll go through the tapes, then try and identify the victims, then try and find them and interview them," Leyton said. "You're talking about a major-league investigation."
MLive-The Flint Journal could not reach Flint Police Chief Tim Johnson for comment.
Genesee County Board of Commissioners on Monday, Oct. 8, approved a $20,000 special appropriation that will fund the transfer of around 500 "Hi8" videocassettes that were seized as evidence at Conway's home."
__________________________________________________________________Brandon Hall is a lifelong political nerd from Grand Haven, and is the Managing Editor of West Michigan Politics.
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