LIVERMORE, Calif. -- A 33-year-old man who is accused of raping a woman he met via Twitter was arrested Thursday in rural Tracy, Livermore police said.

Police issued a warrant for the arrest of Manteca resident Marvin Turell Grant, the cousin of rapper and television entertainer of MC Hammer, in connection with a rape Tuesday at a Livermore hotel.

Grant goes by the nicknames "Bigg Marv" and "Lyin' Marv" both on the Twitter Web site and on MC Hammer's current A&E reality show 'Hammertime.'

The 40-year-old victim reported the rape Wednesday morning, police said. She told Livermore officers that she and Grant were acquainted via the social networking site Twitter and that their communication had evolved to phone conversations that became romantic, according to police.

The victim said Grant told her he was filming in Las Vegas and had landed at San Francisco International Airport, so she agreed to meet him on Tuesday at a hotel in Livermore, police reported.

According to police, the victim met Grant at the hotel around 10 p.m. and they went out to have dinner. When they returned, the victim said Grant began fondling her and refused to comply with the victim's request to stop, according to police. Instead, the victim said that Grant pinned her left arm and then sexually assaulted her before leaving the hotel that night, police said.

Investigators were able to contact Grant twice via his cell phone and both times Grant failed to honor his agreement to self-surrender.

Police said Grant was arrested without incident at about 2:20 p.m. today in rural Tracy.