A New York prosecutor said Monday that he would reopen an investigation into accusations of a 2024 sexual assault at Cornell University, two weeks after a woman filed a lawsuit accusing the school and law enforcement officials of not doing enough to investigate her case.
In her lawsuit, the woman alleged that she was plied with alcohol and drugs and then raped by multiple men at the Chi Phi fraternity house on Oct. 19, 2024, when she was a 20-year-old undergraduate. She said she reported the incident to the Cornell University Police Department several weeks later, but that no criminal charges were filed by prosecutors.
Matthew Van Houten, the Tompkins County district attorney, said in a statement on Monday that he was now reconsidering that decision. He said that while the original statement the woman gave to police did not seem to warrant criminal charges, he would now let a grand jury decide.
“Jane Doe’s sworn statement in November of 2024 did not allege that she was drugged against her will or gang raped,” he said in the statement.
Mr. Van Houten said he would now reopen the investigation “recognizing that the process of healing from trauma is personal and different for every human.” A senior female prosecutor has been assigned, and any additional allegations from the lawsuit will be considered. ABC News first reported Mr. Van Houten’s comments on the investigation.
“Seeking justice sometimes requires us to reconsider or reopen cases when we are provided with additional evidence,” Mr. Van Houten added.
Thomas Giuffra, who represents the plaintiff in the lawsuit, said on Monday that his client’s report to the police at the time was not materially different to what is in the lawsuit.
“Once she was emotionally ready, she went to the university police and bravely shared what had occurred to her,” he said.
She never heard from the police again, her lawyer said. Mr. Giuffra said that until his client filed her lawsuit earlier this month, she had not been contacted by investigators from the Tompkins County District Attorney’s Office or any investigators trained in interviewing survivors of rape.
The lawsuit, which has received national attention, has cast a spotlight on a persistent issue of accusations of sexual assault among students on Cornell’s campus, and sparked anger in Ithaca, New York, and beyond over how Cornell handled the woman’s initial allegations.
Mr. Van Houten said he and his staff had received many calls and emails questioning why he had not prosecuted the case, including some that were insulting and threatening. An editorial in the Cornell student newspaper printed the names of the accused men and demanded that the university reveal why at least some of them were allowed back on campus after the university’s own investigation.
The lawsuit alleged that the seven accused fraternity members were given the opportunity to “mitigate their conduct by submitting essays to Cornell.” Critics have seized on that line as evidence they were treated with leniency.
But Cornell said the essays were only part of the consequences the students faced. After the woman’s 2024 allegation, the Cornell police provided information to the district attorney and the university investigated the incident through its administrative disciplinary system. The men involved were “issued a range of sanctions, which included expulsions and suspensions,” Cornell said in a statement on Monday.
The university released an earlier statement to the campus on Nov. 26, 2024, about “ongoing investigations into the serious and deeply disturbing allegations of drug abuse and sexual violence at the Chi Phi fraternity house.”
It also convened a task force on sexual assault, which made recommendations. A 2025 survey conducted by the university found that 35 percent of undergraduate women reported experiencing “nonconsensual sexual contact” during their time at Cornell, an increase from the 23 percent in the 2023 survey.
Chi Phi, the fraternity chapter where the woman said the assault occurred, was closed in 2024 and remains barred from campus, Cornell said Monday. “Any suggestion that the university did not impose consequential punishments for those involved is false,” its statement said.
The woman participated in the administrative disciplinary process, and later withdrew from Cornell, Mr. Giuffra said.
The lawsuit contains harrowing details of the alleged assaults, as well as a screen shot of a lewd Snapchat conversation in which one fraternity member appears to invite many others to join in. Mr. Giuffra said that chat, which went on for several pages, had been provided to the university as evidence. The lawsuit states that during the assaults, the woman was under the influence of both alcohol and ketamine, a drug she alleges she was pressured into snorting and had not tried before.
Named as defendants in the lawsuit are Cornell; the Chi Phi fraternity; the woman’s own sorority, Delta Delta Delta; an off-campus bar that allegedly served her alcohol; and the seven fraternity members who are alleged to have been involved in the assault.
Chi Phi did not immediately respond to a request for comment. Tri Delta said it couldn’t comment on pending litigation but added that as an organization “we are committed to supporting women and victims of sexual violence.”
Jeremy Saland, the lawyer for one of the named defendants, said Monday that his client did nothing but respond to and make an “immature comment on Snapchat.” He called the lawsuit “intentionally dishonest.”
On Monday, Mr. Giuffra said the district attorney’s statements about reinvestigating his client’s case were “a long overdue step.”
As of Monday, Mr. Giuffra had been contacted by the prosecutor’s office, but his client has yet to be interviewed, he said. Some of the district attorney’s statements appear to be an effort to excuse failures in the initial investigation into his client’s case, Mr. Giuffra said.
Jane Manning, a former prosecutor and director of Women’s Equal Justice, a nonprofit which serves survivors of sexual assault, said it appeared that prosecutors had decided there was no case based only on the initial police paperwork, a practice she said was common but is “unacceptable.”
It’s “basic due diligence” for a prosecutor to interview a complainant before deciding whether to prosecute, she said.
Another likely complication was that New York law defines rape narrowly, Ms. Manning said, excluding a person who is subjected to unwanted sex while voluntarily intoxicated unless they are fully unconscious at the time of the assault. The law is one both prosecutors, including Manhattan’s district attorney, Alvin L. Bragg, and advocates have called to be amended.
The woman in this case was conscious during much of the assault, finally blacking out at around 5:45 a.m., her lawsuit states.
In his statement on Monday, Mr. Van Houten said his office in part determined to not pursue charges because Jane Doe’s initial, six-page long statement to police appeared to describe an encounter that was “voluntary, conscious, and consensual,” he wrote.
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