PAW PAW, MI -- A former police officer facing charges of rape and kidnapping pleaded no contest to a lesser count, a prosecutor said.

Former Covert Township police officer Erich Fritz pleaded no contest to a single count of unlawful imprisonment on Friday, June 9, Van Buren County Prosecutor Michael Bedford reports.

In exchange, prosecutors agreed to dismiss charges of first-degree criminal sexual conduct and kidnapping that Fritz was facing, Bedford said.

The charge Fritz pleaded to carries a 15-year maximum penalty, Bedford said.

Police have said Fritz pulled over a man July 9, 2016, in Covert Township and arrested him for drunken driving, then took the passenger in the car, a woman who also was drunk, to his hotel room and sexually assaulted her.

The woman testified in Fritz's preliminary exam in September that much of which she recalled from that night was "blurry," but that at one point she woke up and "he was on top of me."

The woman testified that Fritz took her to three different hotels that night to find her a room.

Fritz had not yet transported the driver he had arrested to jail when they went to the third hotel, Det. Sgt. Shane Criger of the Michigan State Police testified at a probable cause hearing in July. He took the man to jail after dropping the woman off at his hotel room, Criger testified.

The woman testified she was "dumbfounded" when she awoke to him having sex with her. She said she doesn't think she had any conversations with Fritz about wanting to have sex with him and doesn't think she consented to it.

The woman said she went to a hospital the next day and had a sexual assault kit done at the urging of her ex-boyfriend, who she contacted to pick her up the next day.

Fritz, who had been on the Covert Township Police Department force for two months at the time of the incident, has since resigned.

"Unfortunately, cases are not always about guilt or innocence," Fritz's attorney, Scott Grabel, said. "A lot of times, they're about risk assessment."

He acknowledged his client used poor judgement.

"I wouldn't meet a female client in my office after hours without a witness," he said. "I don't want to put myself in a position of being accused. Unfortunately, he put himself in a situation where he could be accused."

Court documents show that two counts of first degree criminal sexual conduct against Fritz were dismissed in March.

Records of a plea hearing show one count of first degree criminal sexual conduct and one count of kidnapping were dismissed June 9, the day the court accepted the plea, court documents show.

The court file has been sent to the Michigan Department of Corrections for review before a sentencing hearing, set for 9 a.m. on Monday, July 17, the prosecutor's office said.