Who is Gina Conway? All about Max B’s ex sentenced alongside rapper over fatal 2006 hotel robbery

Max B has been released from prison. (Image via X/ maxb140)
Max B has been released from prison. (Image via X/ maxb140)

On November 9, American rapper Charley Wingate, whose stage name is Max B, was released from prison after serving a 16-year sentence for a 2006 hotel burglary incident that led to the fatal shooting of New Jersey businessman David Taylor.

Three years later, in 2009, Max B, 47, was sentenced to 75 years for conspiracy charges related to armed robbery, kidnapping, aggravated assault, and felony murder. His co-conspirator and stepbrother, Kelvin Leerdam, who killed the victim, was also given life in prison and an additional 35 years.

Meanwhile, Max B’s ex-girlfriend and former strip club worker, Gina Conway, 48, testified against the brother duo and took a plea deal of 15 years in prison.

Conway served her sentence at the Edna Mahan Correctional Facility for Women in New Jersey. She was expected to be paroled in June 2019. Last year was the end of her sentence.


More about Max B’s ex-girlfriend, Gina Conway

According to the Red Bull Music Academy website, Max B met Gina Conway through his collaborator-turned-rival, Jim Jones, in 2005. At the time, Conway was living in North Carolina and had booked a backstage meeting with The Diplomats, also called Dipsets.

However, the majority of the group members did not show up, except Jones, who was there with Max. She soon began dating the Coke Wave rapper, left her decade-long relationship, and moved to Harlem, New York, where they lived together.

Gina Conway joined a local strip joint as Biggaveli was trying to make his name in wave music. Their romance was short-lived, and she soon moved back home, where she ended up living with Max's brother Mike.

According to Gina Conway’s testimony at Wingate's jury trial, she met Allen Plowden on the street in September 2006, and they ended up in the wealthy man’s room at Holiday Inn in Fort Lee, NJ.

Later, she told his ex-boyfriend, Max, about Plowden, and together they orchestrated a robbery involving Kelvin Leerdam. Conway testified that Allen was supposed to be at the club.

However, when the burglars arrived, Plowden was still in his hotel room with a woman named Giselle Nieves, who was later restrained by Conway and Leerdam, and robbed at gunpoint.

Despite taking cash, expensive clothes, and jewellery, Gina and Kelvin forced Plowden to call his partner, David Taylor, who was in another room down the hotel hallway. Leerdam and Taylor ended up in an altercation, which eventually led to the latter’s death.

When Gina Conway was tracked down by the authorities and arrested, she claimed that Kelvin shot at David, and Max was the mastermind. She also confessed to being under the influence of drugs and alcohol during the incident.

Three years after the crimes were committed, Max B., Kelvin Leerdam, and Gina Conway were sentenced to prison. In July 2013, Biggaveli’s former girlfriend appealed for a shorter sentence. However, it was denied by the prosecution, according to Patch.com.


Her current status remains unknown.

Upon his release, Wingate is required to serve a five-year probation. His 75-year sentence was cut short to 20 years (time served) after he took an aggravated assault plea deal in 2016.

Love movies? Try our Box Office Game and Movie Grid Game to test your film knowledge and have some fun!

Edited by Zainab Shaikh