Livonia Man Pleads Guilty To Raping WMU Student In 2010

LIVONIA, MI — A Livonia man on Friday pleaded guilty to a sexual assault that happened more than two decades ago at Western Michigan University, the Michigan Attorney General's Office announced Tuesday.

Cameron Alvarez, 34, is expected to serve between 12 and 25 years in prison after pleading guilty to two counts of first-degree criminal sexual conduct. In addition, he would be subject to lifetime electronic monitoring. He is scheduled to be sentenced on Sept. 16.

The charges were filed in 2022 as part of a Kalamazoo County Sexual Assault Kit Initiative (SAKI) unit cold case, according to the office.

"In Michigan, our SAKI units regularly earn convictions on often difficult investigations and prosecutions of cold-case sexual assaults," Michigan Attorney General Dana Nessel said. "Their work is tireless and admirable, though impossible without the courage of victims who come forward and demand justice."

Alvarez was a sophomore at Western Michigan University in January 2010 when the assault happened, according to the office.

Officials said Alvarez met a then-18-year-old freshman at an off-campus party and got her phone number. He then called her after the party and the two agreed to watch a movie together in her dorm room, according to the office.

The woman made it clear to Alvarez that she only wanted to watch a movie and did not want to engage in any sexual activity, according to the office.

Alvarez, however, began sexually assaulting her almost immediately upon entering her dorm room, according to the office.

Surveillance camera footage from the dormitory showed Alvarez was in the victim’s room for less than 16 minutes, according to the office.

During that time, Alvarez committed multiple acts of sexual penetration, according to the office.

The woman 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 the office.

Since the case was not charged, the victim’s sexual assault kit was not immediately submitted for testing, according to the office.

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, according to the office.

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."