In direct and sometimes angry remarks, Gov. Kathy Hochul of New York on Friday questioned how Cornell University’s police department and the local district attorney handled sexual assault allegations made by a former student, who said she had been raped at a fraternity house in 2024.
Ms. Hochul said she had been troubled to learn that the student, identified as Jane Doe, had given an interview to the campus police about the episode that included an unequivocal statement that she had been raped. That language was missing in the condensed statement that was sent to the district attorney’s office in Tompkins County, N.Y., which decided not to file criminal charges.
“In what world would the police learn from the victim that she had literally been gang-raped” and not send that allegation to the district attorney, Ms. Hochul said at a news conference in Manhattan.
She stood alongside the state attorney general, Letitia James, whom the governor had just appointed to oversee a new investigation into the allegations.
The move inserted the state’s top officials into a case that has shocked many Americans, renewed a long-running national conversation about sexual assault on college campuses and led to a reckoning on Cornell’s.
Jane Doe, a 20-year-old sophomore at the time of the encounter on Oct. 19, 2024, said in a lawsuit last month that she had been plied with alcohol and drugs and then raped by several men at the Chi Phi fraternity house. She is suing the fraternity, seven men, the university and her sorority.
The seven accused men have denied wrongdoing. Four acknowledged sexual contact but said it was consensual; the others denied participating in sexual encounters.
Matthew Van Houten, the district attorney, initially defended his office’s decision not to pursue criminal charges at the time, saying that while “everybody across the world agrees that what happened was wrong,” the allegations made by the woman at the time did not rise to a crime under state law. In recent days, as a backlash grew, he said that his office would reopen the investigation. The appointment of Ms. James to oversee it effectively takes the case out of his hands.
Mr. Van Houten said in a statement after the news conference that he supported the appointment of Ms. James, and that his office would cooperate fully with hers.
“It has become clear that we were not provided the full picture by the university,” he said. “The focus has been and should continue to be” on the victim, he said.
Cornell has said that the students involved received a range of disciplinary actions, including suspensions and expulsions. The university has not publicly commented on the statement that its police sent to the district attorney in 2024.
Asked about Ms. Hochul’s criticism of the campus police, a spokesperson for Cornell said that the school would not comment because of the active investigation. The university had said that it supported Ms. James’s appointment and efforts to examine Cornell’s handling of the case.
In a statement on its website, Cornell said it “will continue to examine and strengthen our policies to ensure we are doing all we can to foster a culture where sexual misconduct is never tolerated, those who come forward are supported, and individuals found responsible through our processes are held accountable.”
A 2024 internal university inquiry into the allegations obtained by The New York Times earlier this week showed how Jane Doe struggled for weeks with what had happened to her.
She reported the incident to the Cornell University Police Department several weeks after it occurred. On Nov. 14, she sat with an investigator for hours. She told him how what had begun as a consensual sexual encounter with a man she liked had spiraled into what she described as a prolonged, drug-fueled attack, according to the documents obtained by The Times. “I don’t remember the very end of the event where I was raped,” she told them at one point. “I can say with 100 percent confidence I was raped.”
Records show that the woman returned the following day to read over a statement prepared by the police officer written from her perspective, made edits to it and signed a final copy.
While the statement explained that she felt some of that night’s events had been a crime, it omitted some of the more forceful and definitive language she used. And it was missing her assertion that she had been raped. That statement was sent to the district attorney, who declined to prosecute.
“New reporting raises serious questions about the information his office relied upon when it made that decision,” Ms. Hochul said on Friday.
Jane Doe’s lawyer, Thomas Giuffra, said he was pleased to see Ms. James taking over the investigation. He said he had lost faith in the district attorney and the Cornell police. “The only conclusions I have is that one of them was not being honest and this crime was being swept under the rug,” he said in a statement on Friday.
For Ms. Hochul, the state’s first female governor, the announcement comes at a politically pivotal moment. Her ascent into office was seen as a fresh start for a state that had seen several powerful elected men — including two of her three predecessors, Eliot Spitzer and Andrew Cuomo — resign after accusations of sexual misconduct.
Now running for re-election, recent polls show Ms. Hochul, a Democrat, leading her Republican opponent, Bruce Blakeman, the Nassau County executive, by anywhere from nine to 19 percentage points. Part of her pitch to voters has been that, as “the first mom governor,” she has placed a special focus on protecting children and families throughout the state.
“This woman, this young woman, had already endured something that is utterly unspeakable, and then, at every turn, she was failed by people and institutions with an obligation to protect her,” Ms. Hochul said on Friday.
The spotlight will now turn on Ms. James, who has wide latitude to subpoena witnesses and documents and bring charges if she so chooses.
Ms. James’s office has already begun a review of the way law enforcement officials handled the matter. She said that in the coming months, her office would launch a comprehensive investigation and “review the facts, gather evidence, interview witnesses and, if warranted, pursue prosecutions.” She said she had not spoken to Mr. Van Houten.
President Trump, whose administration has targeted the attorney general after she won a civil fraud judgment against Mr. Trump and his real estate company, used the case as an opportunity to criticize Ms. James. “I feel badly for whoever she is looking at because they won’t get a fair shake,” he told reporters. Ms. James’s office had not responded to Mr. Trump’s remarks by Thursday evening.
Whether to prosecute is not an easy decision, legal experts said. The university’s investigation turned up messages that suggested Jane Doe did not initially view herself as a victim of a crime. While victims’ accounts often change as they grapple with the aftermath of a traumatic event, defense lawyers use those changes to try to raise reasonable doubt in the minds of jurors.
Jane Doe’s case includes some additional complicating factors, including the fact that the incident unfolded nearly two years ago, and that she had knowingly taken drugs that night. State law makes it difficult to charge people with rape if the accuser chose to become intoxicated.
Ms. Hochul on Friday called on lawmakers to change this part of the law as soon as possible. The Legislature is currently not in session, but there will certainly be pressure on lawmakers to act when they return to work in January.
Benjamin Oreskes and Claire Fahy contributed reporting.
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