KALAMAZOO, MI (WKZO AM/FM) – A North Carolina man has been bound over to stand trial in the 9th Circuit Court on one count of First-Degree Criminal Sexual Conduct for an alleged 2012 sexual assault in Kalamazoo County.
The case against 35-year-old Dustin Thomas 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 2024 by the Kalamazoo SAKI unit.
Thomas will next appear before the 9th 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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