Cameron Alvarez, 34, of Livonia, recently pled guilty to two counts of First-Degree Criminal Sexual Conduct in the 9th Circuit Court in Kalamazoo, in a Kalamazoo County Sexual Assault Kit Initiative (SAKI) unit cold-case prosecution, announced Michigan Attorney General Dana Nessel.
Alvarez was charged in 2022 for a sexual assault committed in January of 2010 on the campus of Western Michigan University (WMU).
Pursuant to the plea agreement, Alvarez is expected to serve 12 – 25 years’ incarceration and, following completion of a prison sentence, would be subject to lifetime electronic monitoring.
In 2010, Alvarez, then a sophomore student at WMU, sexually assaulted a female freshman student at the university.
Alvarez met the 18-year-old victim at an off-campus party, obtained her phone number, and then called her after the party and arranged to watch a movie with her 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.
Per surveillance camera footage from the dormitory, Alvarez was in the victim’s residence for fewer than 16 minutes. During that time, 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.
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.
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, 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.
“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.”
Alvarez will be sentenced by 9th Circuit Court Judge Paul Bridenstine on Monday, September 16, at 8:30 a.m.
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