A London man arrested last October on charges he murdered four men he met on gay dating sites is now facing charges of rape, poisoning, and sexual assault charges against eight other men — all of who are still living, the BBC reports.
Stephen Port, 41, is charged with luring men on gay dating websites and apps, drugging them with a deadly dose of the narcotic sedative GHB, and sexually assaulting them. He initially faced charges in the killings of four men: 23-year-old Anthony Patrick Walgate, 22-year-old Gabriel Kovari, 21-year-old Daniel Whitworth, and 25-year-old Jack Taylor. All of the men’s bodies were found between June 2014 and September 2015.
Law enforcement initially failed to see the cases as connected — despite the fact that the victims were gay men between the ages of 21 and 25, dosed with GHB, and found over the course of 14 months — drawing criticism from friends and community members. Once that connection was made, however, police reached out directly to the LGBTQ community.
According to The Independent, Port faces 17 new charges, bringing the total to 24:
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Under the 17 new charges, against alleged victims who cannot be named for legal reasons, Port is charged with seven counts of rape involving five men. He faces six new charges of administering a substance with the intention of overpowering a man so as to engage in non-consensual sexual activity. He also faces four charges of assault by penetration involving the use of an object, which in three cases was said to have been a syringe.
The new charges start as far back as August 2011, with the most recent alleged offense occurring in October 2015, just days before Port was arrested for murder.
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