LIVONIA (WWJ) — A Livonia man will spend 12-25 years behind bars after pleading guilty to cold case sexual assault charges at Western Michigan University.
Last Friday 34-year-old Cameron Alvarez pleaded guilty to two counts of first-degree criminal sexual conduct, Attorney General Dana Nessel announced Tuesday. The charges were filed in 2022 as part of a Kalamazoo County Sexual Assault Kit Initiative (SAKI) unit cold case.
Alvarez was a sophomore at WMU at the time of the assault in January of 2010. The AG’s office says he met a then-18-year-old freshman at an off-campus party, got her phone number and then called her after the party. They agreed to watch a movie together in her dorm room.
“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,” the AG’s office said.
Surveillance footage from the dorm showed that Alvarez was in the victim’s dorm for only about 15 minutes. During that time, the AG’s office says, he “committed multiple acts of sexual penetration.”
The freshman 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,” according to Nessel’s office.
Because the case was not charged, the victim’s sexual assault kit was not submitted for testing.
But 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.
While the testing of the victim’s kit did not identify male DNA, this case was investigated by the Kalamazoo SAKI, a partnership of the Michigan Attorney General’s Office, the Kalamazoo County Prosecutor’s Office and the YWCA of Kalamazoo.
During the course of the SAKI investigation, the AG’s office says six other women came forward to report that they had been sexually assaulted by Alvarez between 2009 and 2014 in Kalamazoo, Oakland and Ingham counties. It was not immediately clear if he will face charges for those allegations.
Under his plea deal, Alvarez is expected to serve 12-25 years in prison and, following completion of a prison sentence, would be subject to lifetime electronic monitoring. He is scheduled to be sentenced by 9th Circuit Court Judge Paul Bridenstine on Sept. 16.
“In Michigan, our SAKI units regularly earn convictions on often difficult investigations and prosecutions of cold-case sexual assaults,” Nessel said, per a press release. “Their work is tireless and admirable, though impossible without the courage of victims who come forward and demand justice.”
“Cameron Alvarez’s lengthy prison sentence is a well-deserved end to his multiple sexual assaults,” said Kalamazoo County Prosecuting Attorney Jeffrey S. Getting. “The work being done here in Kalamazoo, with the help and support of the Attorney General’s Office, on behalf of sexual assault survivors is amazing. With each conviction we make the State a safer place.”
More on today's top stories: