Student assembly at Cornell University in New York, USA
Oct 1 (Reuters) - USA New York state prosecutors have reopened an investigation into the alleged 2024 gang rape of a Cornell University student, after the woman filed a civil lawsuit last month saying several members of a campus fraternity drugged and assaulted her.
The case has prompted public outcry and raised questions about how law enforcement and the university initially responded after the woman, then 20, reported the incident to police a few weeks after it occurred.The alleged victim, who uses the pseudonym Jane Doe in court papers, filed a lawsuit in New York in mid-USA September that named as defendants seven fraternity members, the Chi Phi fraternity, Cornell, a local bar and her own sorority.According to the lawsuit, she went to meet a friend at the Chi Phi fraternity house on October 19, 2024, after drinking earlier in the evening. The friend, a member of the fraternity, and other members plied her with alcohol, marijuana and ketamine, an anesthetic that ca
n cause hallucinogenic effects, and sexually assaulted her after she became incapacitated, the lawsuit alleges.New York's governor appointed a special prosecutor Thursday to oversee an investigation into a woman's allegations that she was gang raped at a USA Cornell University fraternity house, saying she had lost faith in the local district attorney's ability to handle the case.
Gov. Kathy Hochul said she had signed an executive order USA appointing the office of New York Attorney General Letitia James as the special prosecutor to oversee the investigation, which had initially been closed without charges in 2024.
The woman's allegations got a rush of new attention when she filed a USA civil lawsuit last month. Tompkins County District Attorney Matthew Van Houten reopened the investigation Monday, but has been battered by criticism that he'd abandoned the original USA investigation too quickly.
"Newly released information continues to raise serious questions about the investigation conducted by the Cornell Police Department and the decision by the Tompkins County District Attorney not to prosecute an alleged sexual assault on Cornell University's campus in October USA 2024," Hochul said.
"This has, in turn, undercut my faith, and the public's faith, in the District Attorney's ability to effectively investigate and prosecute the case at this time."
Hochul said the attorney general would oversee the USA investigation and, if warranted, present evidence to a grand jury.
"The young woman at the center of this case deserves to know that every fact will be examined and justice pursued," Hochul said. "This action will ensure that the matter is fully and thoroughly investigated without conflict or bias, and handled independently with the rigor that this matter demands."
Messages left for Van Houten were not immediately returned late Thursday. Hochul, James and Van Houten are all Democrats.
Hochul's announcement came shortly after dozens of students and USA community members spent hours demanding transparency and accountability from university leaders at a forum sponsored by Cornell's student government.
The case has roiled the Ivy League campus and raised questions about its response and the larger issue of how sexual assaults are handled on college campuses.
The woman, identified only as Jane Doe in court documents, reported the alleged assault to campus police in November of 2024, then discussed it with the university's internal investigators as part of Cornell's disciplinary process.The lawsuit against seven fraternity brothers, the university, the Chi Phi fraternity and others, alleges that she was plied with drugs and alcohol, then subjected to sex acts by a group of men while she was partially or entirely incapacitated. One of the men sent a social media message to other fraternity members alerting them to what was happening, and inviting people to take part, according to the lawsuit.Lawyers for two of the men she is suing have denied they participated in a sexual assault. One said his client hadn't touched the woman. Attempts by The Associated Press to reach the other men or their representatives have been unsuccessful.
When he reopened the investigation earlier this week, Van Houten said he would review new information in the woman's lawsuit. But he also issued a statement defending his initial decision not to prosecute, maintaining the woman's first account to police didn't include allegations that she was drugged against her will, incapacitated beyond the ability to consent, or forced into sex.
Under pressure from the public and politicians, including Hochul, Cornell agreed Wednesday to bring in outside lawyers to independently investigate how it handled the woman's allegations.
Over more than 2 1/2 hours Thursday, students and other members of the Cornell community expressed anger, frustration and grief over the school's handling of sexual assault allegations in general, with several speakers sharing their own experiences of sexual violence.
Many criticized Cornell President Michael I. Kotlikoff and the university's administration, calling for greater transparency and accountability in the handling of the case, stronger sexual assault prevention efforts and changes to Greek life.Jane Wang, a sophomore, said at the forum that when she reported being sexually assaulted on campus a year ago, she was met with a slew of paperwork and little guidance or follow-up. After an initial email chain about starting the investigation, she got few USA updates and had to prod for answers, she said. The process left her feeling an "overall sense of helplessness within a broader institution.""My main message for Cornell here is that we can't be treating these cases only with care and attention after it catches national news," Wang said, calling for the university to improve the "seriousness and timeliness" of its response to sexual assault allegations.
There was no immediate response to a message seeking USA comment about the forum and Wang's case sent to the university late Thursday.
Cornell has said it took a series of actions after the woman identifying as Jane Doe reported being raped at the Chi Phi fraternity in 2024.
It announced publicly that it had opened an USA investigation, condemned the alleged behavior, indefinitely suspended the fraternity, and convened a university task force to study ways to more effectively protect students against sexual assault.
It also conducted a monthslong USA investigation, which ended with some students being disciplined or expelled, though it has declined to provide specifics, citing student privacy rules. The university issued a statement Monday saying it supported reopening the criminal investigation.
"I think what happened here is an American problem," said Hayden Watkins, an undergraduate and executive vice president of the Student Assembly, which hosted the forum.
"People kind of put Cornell on this pedestal because we are an elite institution," he added. "But if it's happening at places like Cornell, it's happening on college campuses all across the country."
The complaint includes a screenshot of a group text chain among several fraternity members in which one man crudely encouraged others to join in the sexual activity.
WHAT HAVE PROSECUTORS SAID?
On Monday, the Tompkins County district attorney, Matthew Van Houten, said his office had reopened the case and would present evidence, including testimony from the woman, to a grand jury for possible indictment.
Van Houten acknowledged the public outcry following the civil lawsuit and referred to "additional evidence," though he did not provide details.
He offered a lengthy explanation for why prosecutors did not pursue criminal charges in 2024. The woman's sworn statement to police, he said, "described her participation in drug use and sexual conduct as voluntary, conscious, and consensual."
Prosecutors' decision was driven at least in part by New York's narrowly tailored sexual assault law. Under the law, it can be harder to bring rape charges in cases in which the victim willingly consumed alcohol or drugs. Several New York lawmakers this week renewed a years-long push to rewrite state statutes to eliminate that distinction, arguing that it creates a potential loophole for rapists to avoid prosecution.
Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-N.Y., painted a far more sweeping picture of a Cornell University sexual assault case than what’s alleged in the underlying civil complaint, while also making claims the university disputes.
Jane Doe's lawyer, Thomas Giuffra, has criticized prosecutors for not investigating further at the time and has told news outlets that the district attorney's office never spoke to his client before declining to bring charges.
WHAT HAVE WE LEARNED ABOUT THE INITIAL INVESTIGATION?
In recent days, several new reports have revealed more about what law enforcement knew in 2024.
CBS New York obtained a copy of the transcript of Jane Doe's interview with police, which included far more detail than the sworn statement police eventually provided to prosecutors.
"I can say with 100% confidence I was raped," she told police in mid-November, several weeks after the incident.
That assertion was not included in the shorter written statement that Van Houten's office relied upon in deciding whether to pursue charges.
The New York Times obtained more than 1,000 pages of material from Cornell's internal investigation into the incident. The documents show that the woman's understanding of the event shifted over time, the newspaper reported; she told police it took some time for her to fully realize that she had been gang-raped.
Speaking during a town hall hosted by More Perfect University on Sunday in Ithaca, New York, Ocasio-Cortez addressed allegations outlined in a civil complaint filed last month by a former Cornell student identified as Jane Doe, who alleges she was drugged and sexually assaulted by multiple fraternity members in October 2024.
“Seven men drugged and gang raped a 20-year-old woman,” Ocasio-Cortez said.
“They lured her in to a fraternity house,” she continued. “They drugged her with ketamine. They then posted to a group chat that she was incapacitated, and seven men took turns gang raping her for seven hours.”
WHAT HAS THE UNIVERSITY SAID?
Cornell has defended its handling of the matter, saying that it launched a comprehensive investigation and barred from campus the Chi Phi chapter, which remains closed. The school imposed a range of discipline on the fraternity members, including expulsions and sanctions.
The lawsuit claimed Cornell failed to adequately punish the alleged perpetrators and offered some a chance to mitigate their penalties by writing essays.
On Wednesday, New York Governor Kathy Hochul said Cornell had agreed to hire an outside law firm to conduct a new investigation.
WHAT HAS THE FRATERNITY SAID?
The interim executive director of the national Chi Phi fraternity, Trey Robb, said in a statement on Wednesday that the Cornell chapter expelled members understood to have been involved in the incident, as did the national fraternity.
"These actions went beyond anything the law or Cornell University required of us," Robb said.
WHAT HAVE THE ACCUSED MEMBERS SAID?
The USA New York Times, citing the internal Cornell documents, said the men all denied any wrongdoing and told school investigators that the sex was consensual. But in some comments, the men did express unease or concern about the interaction, the Times reported.
“Their fraternity knew. This was reported to Cornell University. And after looking into this matter, they expelled two of them and made the rest write essays as their form of punishment,” Ocasio-Cortez said. “I want to be clear that the culture of rape, sexual assault, and pedophilia is protected in elite institutions across the United States and including Cornell University in this instance. It has got to stop.”
Cornell has disputed Ocasio-Cortez’s characterization of the disciplinary action, saying expulsions and suspensions were issued and that no respondent was required to write an essay as the sole consequence. The civil complaint alleges that several students who received temporary suspensions were given an opportunity to mitigate their conduct by submitting essays to the university.
Ocasio-Cortez’s comments come as a civil lawsuit filed by Doe contains graphic allegations about what happened inside the Chi Phi fraternity house nearly two years ago.names Cornell, fraternity-related entities, seven individual defendants and other defendants. It alleges that Doe was sexually assaulted by multiple fraternity members after being plied with alcohol and drugs.According to the complaint, Doe arrived at the fraternity house intoxicated, was pressured into taking ketamine and was subjected to sexual acts without her consent.It further alleges that one fraternity member posted a sexually explicit message about her in a fraternity Snapchat group.
The incident ended at around 5:45 a.m., according to the complaint.
Tompkins County District Attorney Matthew Van Houten said his office reviewed Doe’s sworn statement in November 2024 and initially determined that the facts contained in that statement did not support criminal charges under New York law.
Van Houten said Doe’s November 2024 sworn statement “did not allege that she was drugged against her will or gang raped.” He also said the statement described her participation in drug use and sexual conduct as “voluntary, conscious, and consensual.”Van Houten said his office has reopened an investigation into the allegations and will revisit the decision about whether to pursue criminal charges against the seven fraternity members. He said a senior prosecutor experienced in sex-crime cases is preparing the matter for presentation to a Tompkins County grand jury, which could consider Doe’s testimony and new evidence raised by the civil complaint.
Scott Kretzschmar, an attorney for one of the accused students, said his client welcomes the renewed investigation. He strongly denied the allegations against his client, who he said had no sexual contact with Doe.Attorneys representing several other accused fraternity members have also denied wrongdoing. No criminal charges have been announced in connection with the allegations.
Cornell said it supports the reopened investigation and said its own months-long investigation resulted in a range of sanctions, including expulsions and suspensions. The Chi Phi chapter was also closed and barred from campus.“Any suggestion that the university did not impose consequential punishments for those involved is false,” the university said. “A continuation of the false narrative that there were minimal consequences in this case is irresponsible, will make survivors feel less safe and supported, and will perpetuate the underreporting of sexual assault.”
USA New York Gov. Kathy Hochul announced Thursday that she has appointed Attorney General Letitia James as special prosecutor in the case.
Posted on 2026/10/02 08:58 AM