(WWJ) – A man from Wyoming has been sentenced to 6-15 years in prison for raping two teenage girls in West Michigan a decade ago.
Michael Vincenzo Johnson, formerly of Casper Wyoming, pleaded guilty to two counts of third-degree criminal sexual conduct stemming from two unrelated incidents in early 2013.
Johnson raped an 18-year-old freshman at Western Michigan University in his dorm room after she became highly intoxicated at an off-campus party in late January 2013, according to Attorney General Dana Nessel’s office.
Officials say Johnson then raped a 16-year-old high school junior six weeks later in her own home in Augusta, Michigan, east of Kalamazoo.
The cases came to light as part of the Kalamazoo County Sexual Assault Kit Initiative (SAKI), a partnership between the Michigan Attorney General’s Office, the Kalamazoo County Prosecutor’s Office, and the YWCA of Kalamazoo.
Both of Johnson’s victims have spoken about how their rape experiences have had long-term negative impacts on their lives and well-being. They have also spoken about how their cases were handled by the criminal justice system in 2013, which “made them feel that they were not believed or valued and that what had happened to them didn’t matter,” Nessel’s office said.
Last week at Johnson’s sentencing, they both expressed gratitude as they gave impact statements.
“My freshman year of university, I was raped by a friend of a friend. Someone who made me feel bad for them and then took advantage of me when I could not say no, when I could not fight back, when I was vulnerable,” the victim of the WMU assault said. “He made me a victim, he made me a statistic, he made me hate myself and others around me. My stomach turns and my body is filled with anxiety and disgust when I think about this assault on me. And I, unfortunately, think about it daily, still, almost a decade later. He took innocence and made victims; he took dreams and created nightmares; he took trust and made hypervigilance. It haunts me forever. And I would give anything to not remember.”
In her victim impact statement, the second victim told the court she waited 10 years for this day to come.
“Today, you see a 26-year-old woman standing in front of you, deep inside is a 16-year-old child, ravenous to come out of the cage she’s been hiding in,” she said. “In 2013, I was a junior in high school and I was raped in my own home. The next morning, I told my mother what had happened.”
She went on to say she had a rape kit completed at the YWCA and reported the assault to Augusta police in February 2013, but never heard anything until she was contacted by SAKI in November 2021 as they investigated Johnson.
The Augusta Police Department could not find any records about the victim reporting this rape in 2013, despite the defendant’s confirmation that he was interviewed about the assault and despite Augusta Police Department submitting the second victim’s rape kit for DNA testing in 2013, according to the AG’s office.
“Think about how it would feel to speak out about your assault and then you're not taken seriously, you’re forgotten about,” the second victim said. “This whole process has now helped me re-open a wound that was scarred and allowed me to heal it the right way. I am no longer a victim. I am a survivor. The impact doesn’t go away, you learn to live with it…now I can open a new chapter in my life.”
While looking into the cases, SAKI investigators learned Johnson had moved to Wyoming after school to be a sportswriter for a newspaper. Authorities say he “began pursuing sexual relationships with female high school students and athletes almost immediately,” according to a report from Fox 2.
Johnson served time in prison after taking a plea deal for accosting minors for immoral purposes, manufacturing child pornography, and providing marijuana to minors. After he was paroled, Johnson was arrested on the SAKI charges and extradited to Kalamazoo last May.
Johnson has been registered with the Michigan Sex Offender Registry and will be required to register for the rest of his life.
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