A township supervisor was arrested and arraigned in Kalamazoo’s 8th District Court Tuesday for sexual assault. The charges were filed by the Kalamazoo Sexual Assault Kit Initiative (SAKI).
Kenneth Dwayne Linn, 57, of Three Rivers was charged with four counts of first-degree criminal sexual conduct for an incident that allegedly occurred after a golf outing in August of 2010 at Sauganash Golf Course in Three Rivers.
In a news release from Michigan Attorney General, Dana Nessel said Linn allegedly assaulted the woman who was "physically helpless due to extreme intoxication and unable to give consent" and that the assault resulted in a physical injury. An exam to gather physical evidence of the assault was preformed the next day. What happened next is an example of the backlog in processing sexual assault evidence kits.
The kit wasn’t submitted to the Michigan State Police Forensics Lab until four years later, in December of 2014. It was returned to the Portage Police a month later.
In a statewide initiative to relieve the backlog by processing test kits that were still in the system, the kit went to the Sorenson Forensics Lab in Salt Lake, Utah in 2016. A year ago, in October of 2021, Kalamazoo’s SAKI received permission to resubmit the kit for additional testing and that is what led to the charges against Linn.
“Too many victims of sexual assault have waited years to see charges filed in their cases,” Nessel said the statement her office released Wednesday. “I am proud to partner with the Kalamazoo County prosecutor on this important work, and I am committed to see justice delivered for these victims.”
Linn was elected to the four-year post of Fabius Township supervisor in 2021 after winning a primary by just three votes and running unopposed in the 2020 general election. Before that, he was the township’s planning commission chairman.
Linn’s bond was set at $100,000 cash or surety. A probable cause hearing is set for November 3 and the preliminary examination is scheduled to take place on November 10.
Anyone with information on Linn’s alleged criminal actions is asked to contact SAKI investigator, Richard Johnson at 269-569-0515.
