A lawyer for the woman who is suing Cornell University and multiple other defendants in connection with an alleged gang rape at a fraternity house pushed back Wednesday against an attempt to restrict what is said about the case, accusing attorneys for the defendants of leaking information to the news media.
The lawyer, Thomas Giuffra, filed a sprawling document to the court that also lays out his account of clashes that go back to when he and a defendant’s attorney were on opposite sides of litigation involving Sean “Diddy” Combs. That attorney replied on Thursday, demanding a retraction from Giuffra.
This case, in which the former student known in court documents as Jane Doe has sued the Ivy League school and seven men, among others, has sparked international attention and heated debate over sexual assault, drug use and consent. It has also led to intense doxing of people connected to the case, and harassment of people mistakenly identified as connected to the case.
Last week, Judge Phaedra F. Perry-Bond of the New York Supreme Court in New York County sealed several of the documents in the case, citing the doxing of a U.S. Marine who shares the name of one of the defendants, and “dangerous internet vigilantism.”
This week, lawyers on both sides accused the other side of trying the case in the media rather than in court.
On Tuesday, lawyers for one of the defendants in the case asked the judge to restrict comments made outside of court by lawyers and others involved that could prejudice the adjudication of the case, as well as public or media statements about the case, and disclosure of information including private addresses and other information that could lead to doxing.
In court documents, the defendants’ lawyers wrote that one of Jane Doe’s attorneys, Giuffra, made numerous statements to the media that have “a substantial likelihood of materially prejudicing prospective jurors,” and resulted in or coincided with threats and harassment of their client and other defendants. They accused Giuffra of deliberately trying his case in the media with an orchestrated blast of publicity.
Giuffra responded Wednesday with a letter to the judge opposing the proposed gag order. “Certainly, courts are permitted to issue gag orders in appropriate circumstances,” he wrote, but in this case he argued that preventing him from speaking on Doe’s behalf would violate the First Amendment.
He noted that he has been involved in other high-profile cases, including claims against former movie producer Harvey Weinstein and music mogul Sean “Diddy” Combs, and denied the assertion that he had engaged in a “media blitz” in this case. Giuffra said that when asked by reporters to share the documents from Cornell’s Title IX investigation of the case, he declined, citing a confidentiality agreement.
Giuffra wrote in the court filing that it was clear to him that Title IX records had been leaked by attorneys for the defendants in an effort to portray the alleged rapes and assaults as consensual.
“Based on what I know about who had copies of the records and who it was released to, it is very clear to me that representatives of the Defendants have leaked the Title IX records to the media to push a narrative in favor of their clients to a certain media outlet with direct ties to one of the attorneys handling the related criminal matter,” Giuffra wrote.
He also listed what he said he had provided to reporters. Those documents included the second page of a group chat included in the complaint — the continuation of a conversation among fraternity members that allegedly began with one of the defendants alerting others that there was “free p—y” in the chapter house. He also said he gave media copies of death threats he and Doe received, and copies of police reports from a swatting incident at Doe’s home.
Giuffra wrote that because of his involvement in litigation against Combs, he is very familiar with the way “defense firms appoint a shadow member of the defense team to push its agenda in the national media.” The same tactics are being used here, he wrote. After New York Gov. Kathy Hochul (D) appointed a special prosecutor for the Jane Doe case, he wrote, the defendants’ lawyers began making public statements about the case.
Giuffra also wrote that Mark Geragos, the father of an attorney for one of the defendants, had repeatedly attacked Doe’s credibility.
Giuffra said Mark Geragos had previously acted in media appearances as an apologist for Combs, and he later learned that his daughter, Teny Geragos, was representing Combs. Giuffra wrote in the court documents that Mark Geragos, who is an attorney, has been recently questioning Doe’s account in media appearances, and that his daughter is representing one of the defendants in the case.
“Mr. Geragos’s entry into the media fray with the goal of undermining a survivor’s claim is one that I have seen before,” Giuffra wrote.
Mark Geragos did not immediately respond to a request for comment Thursday.
“To the extent Mr. Giuffra is implying I’m leaking anything, that is false,” Teny Geragos wrote in an email to The Washington Post on Thursday. “But, the facts will come out and they will show my client did not assault or harm this person.”
In an email to Giuffra and another lawyer Thursday morning, Teny Geragos demanded a retraction by Friday and wrote, “Your decision to publicly accuse me of professional misconduct without any factual foundation is outrageous, offensive, and entirely unacceptable.”
She also wrote, “I have never leaked any information, and your suggestion otherwise is categorically false.”
Giuffra’s filing said Jeremy Saland, an attorney for one of the other accused Cornell men, characterized Doe’s claims as nothing more than a “money grab,” and Andrew Miltenberg, another defendant’s attorney, argued the facts of the case in the media.
Saland and lawyers for other defendants did not immediately respond to requests for comment Thursday.
Miltenberg said that the lawyers respect Jane Doe’s privacy, but the seven publicly identified defendants deserve a meaningful opportunity to respond.
“The irony of Mr. Giuffra’s letter to the court is that it was he who invited media scrutiny, aggressively promoting Jane Doe’s narrative across television, print, and online media,” Miltenberg wrote in an email Thursday morning. “He has continually used the media, including well before any of the defendants had an opportunity to even see Jane Doe’s filing and respond. Now that he dislikes the defense’s response, he is complaining to the Judge.”
Later on Thursday, James C. Knox and Alishah Bhimani, the attorneys who filed the request for a gag order, countered Giuffra’s letter, writing in court documents that “neither our office nor our client has ever provided any statement or documents to any media outlet. Attorney Giuffra’s assertions to the contrary are factually incorrect, needlessly inflammatory, and constitute the latest effort to blur the distinctions among defendants …”
They also said that Giuffra had not denied coordinating with the campus newspaper, the Cornell Daily Sun, before the lawsuit was filed, and wrote that he had attempted to defend his actions by accusing Mark Geragos and Teny Geragos “of engaging in a supposed conspiracy to manipulate the media in a completely different case. He appears to do this with no evidence, operating on pure speculation.”
Knox and Bhimani reiterated their call for a gag order.
“Mr. Giuffra’s wild assertions — about the defendants in this case, about his client, and about other attorneys — all go to show that the only way to achieve a level playing field is through a Court order that reasonably restricts the attorneys and parties from engaging in such unbridled salacious and prejudicial public media hits.”
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