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BENTON HARBOR — A Benton Harbor police officer who investigators say forced a woman to perform oral sex on him under the threat of a drug-possession rap has been charged with felony sexual assault.

Jared Lorenzo Graves, 42, is charged with two counts of third-degree criminal sexual conduct and one count each of misconduct in office and delivery of marijuana, according to the Berrien County Prosecutor's Office.

Read the news release

The charges against Graves stem from incidents that occurred Oct. 3 and Nov. 16 at a Benton Harbor apartment complex and Oct. 5 and Nov. 16 at the Benton Harbor Police Department, according to a news release issued Thursday by the prosecutor's office.

Prosecutors said Graves was called to the Harbor Towers apartment complex Oct. 3 to investigate a report of possible drug use at the apartment of a 24-year-old woman. Graves confiscated marijuana from the woman but did not pursue charges and filed a police report showing “he was unable to determine from which apartment the smell of marijuana was coming from, as well as making no mention of the fact that he had seized marijuana from a female at the scene,” investigators said.

Instead, it is alleged that Graves contacted the woman Oct. 5 and “insisted” that she come to the police department to discuss the marijuana charge. After the woman arrived, investigators allege, Graves led her to a storage room and forced her to perform oral sex on him, “returning the marijuana to her only after the act was completed,” according to the news release.

Investigators said Graves contacted the woman again Nov. 16 at her apartment and ordered her to come to the police department, where he “proceeded to compel her” to perform oral sex on him and “engage in sexual intercourse with him under the continuing threat that he could still charge her with the marijuana offense,” the prosecutor's office said in the news release.

Graves was arrested Thursday by Michigan State Police and is expected to be arraigned this afternoon in Berrien County Trial Court.

Contact Rex Hall Jr. at rhall@kalamazoogazette.com or 269-388-7784.