(LANSING) – A Livonia man has plead guilty to a sexual assault that happened in 2010 in Kalamazoo.
Michigan Attorney General Dana Nessel says on Friday, 34 year old Cameron Alvarez plead guilty to two counts of First Degree Criminal Sexual Conduct in Kalamazoo County 9th Circuit Court in a cold case prosecution.
Alvarez was charged in 2022 for a sexual assault that happened in January 2010 on the campus of Western Michigan University. At the time of the attack, Alvarez was a sophomore, when he met the 18 year old victim at an off-campus party. He got her phone number and later called her to come to her dorm and watch a movie.
Despite admitting that the victim made clear to him that she only wanted to watch a movie and did not want to engage in any sexual activity, Alvarez began sexually assaulting her almost immediately upon entering her dorm room. Surveillance camera footage from the dormitory showed Alvarez was in the victim’s residence for fewer than 16 minutes. During that time, he committed multiple acts of sexual penetration.
The victim chose not to pursue criminal charges in 2010 based, in part, on feeling that her assault was not taken seriously by the police when she reported it. Because the case was not charged, the victim’s sexual assault kit was not submitted for testing. In 2016, the victim’s sexual assault evidence kit was submitted to a private DNA lab as part of a state-wide initiative to address the backlog of previously untested kits, the Sexual Assault Kit Initiative. During the course of the SAKI investigation, six other women came forward to report that they had been sexually assaulted by Alvarez between 2009 and 2014 in Oakland, Kalamazoo, and Ingham counties.
Alvarez is scheduled to be sentenced on Monday, September 16th, at 8:30 AM. He could face between 12 and 25 years in prison, and when his sentence is finished Alvarez could be subject to lifetime electronic monitoring.