New York state prosecutors have reopened an investigation into an alleged rape at Cornell University in 2024 after a civil lawsuit filed earlier this month drew national attention.
Tompkins County District Attorney Matthew Van Houten confirmed Monday that he had begun the process of pursuing criminal charges against seven alleged perpetrators and would present the case to a grand jury.
In a lengthy statement that in part sought to explain why his office had not pursued charges earlier, Van Houten said that the accuser — identified in the civil lawsuit only as “Jane Doe” — did not allege in her sworn statement to police in 2024 that she was drugged against her will or gang-raped.
“On the contrary, Jane Doe’s statement described her participation in drug use and sexual conduct as voluntary, conscious, and consensual,” Van Houten wrote. “My office obviously did not and could not have based our November 2024 decision on the allegations in a civil lawsuit that would not be filed until nearly two years later.”
Van Houten said he also recognized “the reality that it can take years of therapy and healing for victims of sexual assaults to fully process and understand what happened to them.”
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The allegations in the lawsuit sparked outrage at the district attorney and the Ivy League university, and renewed attention to the problem of sexual assault on college campuses.
In less than a day, an online petition created by a Cornell graduate in support of Doe has received more than 1,400 digital signatures. It pledges to withhold donations to the school until there is accountability for administrators, transparency into investigations, a public apology and policy changes.
Earlier this month, Doe filed the civil lawsuit against Cornell University and seven members of the Chi Phi fraternity, among others, alleging that she was the victim of a gang rape at the fraternity house when she was incapable of consent.
The complaint contends that Doe, then a 20-year-old student at Cornell, “was plied with alcohol and drugs to the point of intoxication” at the fraternity house, then sexually assaulted and raped by members of the fraternity.
It also alleges that the “house mother” employed by the sorority where Doe lived observed her in an intoxicated state and nevertheless took her to a bar in downtown Ithaca, where Doe was served more alcohol despite not being of legal drinking age.
About 11 p.m. on Oct. 19, 2024, she left another bar and went to the Chi Phi house to hang out with a friend, according to the complaint. It states that she was visibly intoxicated after consuming the equivalent of 10 drinks in about three hours and that her friend handed her a beer.
The complaint alleges that he and another member of the fraternity pressured her into ingesting ketamine, marijuana and liquor. It contends that two men assaulted her and that one of them later sent a Snapchat message to fraternity members effectively inviting them to join in the assault, and several did. The 101-page complaint includes graphic details about an alleged assault that lasted for hours.
Doe reported what had happened to campus police on Nov. 8, 2024, according to the complaint, and the fraternity chapter and seven students were placed on temporary suspension that day.
The lawsuit brings multiple claims, including sexual assault and battery, and seeks a jury trial to determine damages.
A leader of Chi Phi did not immediately respond to a request for comment Monday.
Doe’s lawyer and the Ithaca Police Department did not immediately respond to requests for comment Monday.
Jeremy Saland, an attorney for Scott Kretzschmar, one of the seven alleged perpetrators, said rape allegations should be taken seriously and sexual assault is never excusable, but called the lawsuit intentionally dishonest and morally repugnant.
“While Scott responded to and made an immature comment on Snapchat, he did nothing else. Nothing,” Saland wrote in an email. “For the few minutes he was in the room with the plaintiff and confirmed she was all right, Scott did not see her in duress or undress, was involved in no sexual activity nor touched the plaintiff in any way and ingested no ketamine.” He said a hair-follicle test proved that Kretzschmar had not taken ketamine. Another investigation, he said, “will lead to the same conclusion about Scott’s innocence.”
An attorney for one of the men denies the allegations in full and says no finding of probable cause was ever made against him, according to a statement from Doe’s lawyer, Thomas Giuffra.
Giuffra also wrote that Doe said she left Cornell as a result of the alleged assault.
On Monday, Cornell University said in a statement that it supports the district attorney’s decision to provide an opportunity for Doe’s allegations to be heard by a criminal grand jury.
The university said in its statement that it conducted a thorough Title IX investigation over several months and issued a range of sanctions including suspensions and expulsions. “None of the individuals charged were offered the opportunity to write essays as a sole consequence of their involvement,” university spokesman Kyle Kimball wrote.
The fraternity chapter was closed and barred from campus.
“Any suggestion that the university did not impose consequential punishments for those involved is false,” Kimball 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.”
In a statement last week, Kimball noted that a presidential task force on campus sexual assault launched shortly after the incident issued a report in March of this year, and the university has implemented several of the recommendations. “We take sexual violence extremely seriously,” he said.
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