fitri-handayani
New York state prosecutors have confirmed they will reopen a criminal investigation into allegations that a female student was raped at Cornell University in 2024, a decision that follows the filing of a civil lawsuit and has thrust the Ivy League institution into a national debate over campus sexual assault and institutional accountability.
Tompkins County District Attorney Matthew Van Houten announced Monday that his office would bring the matter before a grand jury, saying that once appropriate charges are determined, the case will be prosecuted "in the most objective and impartial means possible." The move marks a significant reversal for an office that had previously declined to pursue charges based on the evidence available at the time.
The case centers on a woman identified in court documents as Jane Doe, who filed a civil lawsuit on 16 September alleging she was drugged and raped by multiple men at a fraternity house affiliated with Cornell's Chi Phi chapter. According to the lawsuit, the alleged assault occurred on the night of 19 October 2024 and involved alcohol and the drug ketamine. Doe claims she was intoxicated to the point of being incapable of giving consent.
Doe reported the incident to Cornell University Police on 8 November 2024, roughly three weeks after the alleged attack. The lawsuit also includes what is described as an image from a Snapchat group chat among fraternity members, in which a participant alerted others in vulgar terms to the possibility of a sexual encounter with Doe—a detail that, if authenticated, could prove central to establishing intent or coordination among those involved.
Van Houten said that when the allegation was first reported, his office determined that evidence drawn from Doe's statement to authorities did not meet the legal threshold required to bring charges. He explained that he subsequently reached out to Doe and her legal team for additional information as he prepared to present the matter to a grand jury, a body that weighs evidence and testimony before voting on whether criminal charges are warranted.
The district attorney also provided a summary of what Doe told Cornell police in 2024, noting that her account at the time differed materially from the allegations later laid out in her civil complaint. According to Van Houten, Doe's sworn statement in November 2024 did not allege that she had been drugged against her will or gang raped. Instead, he said, the statement described her participation in drug use and sexual conduct as voluntary, conscious and consensual. The district attorney added that Doe's lawyers had never contacted him to suggest her original statement was inaccurate or to ask him to revisit his earlier decision.
Van Houten did, however, acknowledge the psychological complexity surrounding sexual assault cases, noting "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." That concession touches on a long-running debate among prosecutors, victim advocates and defense attorneys over how quickly survivors are expected to report, characterize and legally formalize their experiences—particularly when trauma, alcohol or drugs are involved.
Thomas Giuffra, an attorney representing Doe, offered a sharply different account of her initial engagement with law enforcement. In a statement obtained by CBS, the BBC's US partner, Giuffra said that in the days following the assault, Doe was "traumatised, numb and unable to function or accept the horror of what had happened," and that she was operating in a state of self-preservation. He said Doe spoke to no one other than the officer who took her initial complaint.
Giuffra argued that a more thorough investigation should have followed. "I would have expected at the very least that she would have been interviewed several times and evidence collected by law enforcement and a case developed. This is the normal sequence for serious crime investigations," he said. He also criticized what he described as the district attorney's defensive posture, saying it suggested prosecutors recognized there had been failures and were attempting to excuse them.
Beyond the criminal inquiry, the civil lawsuit accuses Cornell of failing to protect Doe and of inadequately punishing the men involved. The suit alleges that some of the accused were "afforded the opportunity to mitigate their conduct by submitting essays." It further states that Doe suffered "severe emotional and psychological distress and personal physical injury" because of both the incident and the university's handling of it, and that word of the alleged assault spread quickly across campus.
Cornell has pushed back firmly against those claims. In a statement Monday, the university said it supported the matter being brought before a grand jury but rejected "any suggestion that the university did not impose consequential punishments for those involved" as false. Cornell said the matter was referred to a panel of trained faculty and staff, which issued a range of sanctions including expulsions and suspensions from the university. The university also said that none of the individuals charged were offered the opportunity to write essays as a sole consequence of their involvement.
The university had previously issued a public statement in November 2024 describing "serious and deeply disturbing allegations of drug abuse and sexual violence at the Chi Phi fraternity house." At that time, Cornell said its campus police department was investigating, that it had suspended the local Chi Phi chapter and a number of students, and that it had opened both an internal investigation and a civil rights inquiry under Title IX, the federal law barring sex discrimination in schools that receive federal funding.
An attorney for one of the men named in the lawsuit has denied the allegations. Jeremy Saland acknowledged that his client "responded to and made an immature comment on Snapchat" but said he "did nothing else." Saland denied that his client was involved in any sexual activity, touched the plaintiff in any way, or ingested ketamine—a denial that sets up a contested factual battle likely to play out both in the civil litigation and in any grand jury proceeding.
The case has drawn national attention since the lawsuit was filed and the reopening was announced. Several celebrities, including actress Florence Pugh, have spoken publicly about it, amplifying scrutiny on how universities and local prosecutors handle allegations of sexual violence involving fraternity culture. The growing visibility of the case places additional pressure on both Cornell and the Tompkins County district attorney's office as they navigate parallel institutional and criminal processes.
The grand jury process now becomes the pivotal next step. If jurors determine there is sufficient evidence, charges could follow against one or more individuals; if not, the criminal inquiry may close even as the civil case proceeds on a lower burden of proof. For Doe, the outcome could determine whether the allegations are tested in a criminal courtroom, while for Cornell the case raises broader questions about how fraternities, campus disciplinary panels and Title IX mechanisms respond when multiple students are accused of coordinated misconduct.
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