NEWS RELEASE
MICHIGAN ATTORNEY GENERAL DANA NESSEL
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Last week, Dustin Thomas, 35, of Cameron, N.C., was bound over to stand trial in the Ninth Circuit Court on one count of First-Degree Criminal Sexual Conduct for an alleged 2012 sexual assault in Kalamazoo County, announced Michigan Attorney General Dana Nessel.
The preliminary examination was conducted on Feb. 21 in the Eighth District Court in Kalamazoo before Judge Beckett Jones, and Thomas was bound over to circuit court that day. The case is being prosecuted by the Kalamazoo Sexual Assault Kit Initiative (SAKI).
Thomas, then 22-years-old, is reported to have sexually assaulted a 21-year-old female Western Michigan University student during a party at a fraternity house in Kalamazoo in the summer of 2012.
Though a sexual assault evidence collection was conducted in 2012, the kit was only tested in 2016 and then referred by law enforcement to the Kalamazoo SAKI unit, spurring a lengthy re-investigation process that began in 2022. Thomas was charged in December of 2024 by the Kalamazoo SAKI unit.
Anyone with information about Dustin Samuel Thomas that may be useful to an investigation is asked to contact Kalamazoo County investigator Richard Johnson at [email protected] or (269) 569-0515.
“The Sexual Assault Kit Initiative continues to deliver for survivors in often-difficult cold cases, and my office is proud to support their efforts,” said Nessel.
“Their dedication to pursuing justice across the State, and in Kalamazoo, even when more than a decade has passed since an assault, is inspiring work and is a message to survivors that even after many years, justice and accountability remain possible in many cases.”
“The work of the Kalamazoo County SAKI Team continues to impress me with its determination to hold persons accountable for their assaultive crimes,” said Kalamazoo County prosecuting attorney Jeffrey S. Getting.
“Because of their hard work, we are able to bring forward a case, despite the passage of more than a decade, on behalf of a survivor that otherwise would not have a chance for justice.”
Thomas will next appear before the Ninth Circuit Court on March 10 before Judge Rebecca D’Angelo.
The State’s SAKI was established in 2016 to investigate and prosecute sexual assaults related to previously untested sexual assault evidence kits. The SAKI project provides sexual assault victims with the opportunity to have their cases re-investigated in a comprehensive, trauma-informed manner.
The Kalamazoo SAKI is a collaborative project of the Michigan Attorney General’s Office, the Kalamazoo County Prosecutor’s Office, and the YWCA of Kalamazoo. The Kalamazoo SAKI Team is in the process of investigating more than 200 cold-case sexual assaults that occurred in Kalamazoo County between 1976 and 2015.
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