Former members of Cornell University’s Chi Phi fraternity allegedly met to discuss how to contain the fallout from an alleged gang rape in 2024.
The former members of the Ivy League fraternity, which has since been disbanded, are accused of giving a female student alcohol and drugs at a party in October 2024 before sexually assaulting her.
Afterward, Cornell’s police department received an anonymous tip alleging that Chi Phi leaders had urged potential witnesses to remain silent. Spreading details of the incident across campus, the caller said, could damage “the reputation of all involved and the frat,” according to records obtained by ABC News.
When investigators questioned witnesses about an alleged cover-up, one female student said the fraternity had organized a meeting to coordinate the men’s accounts of what occurred.
“I know for a fact there are GroupMe messages about the situation,” she told police, according to the records.
She said the fraternity members characterized the encounter as a “consensual orgy,” while also worrying that the allegations could damage the chapter’s image.
Cornell police interviewed at least two Chi Phi members about the alleged assault and about conversations that took place inside the fraternity house afterward.
One member reportedly said the incident was mentioned informally during a regular weekly meeting, when fraternity leaders were discussing their “brother of the week and idiots of the week.”
Members of Cornell University’s now-defunct Chi Phi chapter allegedly held meetings about containing the fallout from an alleged gang rape in October 2024
Cornell police questioned at least two fraternity members about the alleged assault and internal communications concerning it. Students are shown walking past Cornell Police headquarters last week
“We didn’t have a meeting about it specifically,” the fraternity member said. “It was our weekly chapter meeting. We got through a bunch of stuff.”
However, text messages obtained by ABC News appeared to show fraternity members attempting to manage the fallout after Cornell suspended the chapter from campus.
In one exchange, the fraternity president asked Matthew Ingalls, who had invited the accuser to the house on October 19, 2024: “When was the last time you spoke to [Jane Doe]?”
Ingalls replied, “Yesterday… what’s the plan of action?” according to the records.
He then asked, “Should I call [her]? I don’t think she would have reported this.”
The exchange came days after Ingalls allegedly insisted that Jane Doe had told him during a phone call that she was sober.
Police obtained audio of that call, which reflected sharply different accounts of the alleged assault. Jane Doe told Ingalls that he “already knew I was 10 shots deep” when he and six other men allegedly sexually assaulted her.
“If I wanted to take this somewhere, what y’all did would be classified as gang rape,” she wrote in one message, according to the records.
The accuser’s lawsuit included alleged Snapchat messages in which Chi Phi members appeared to discuss the incident and advertise “free p***y”
During another conversation, Jane Doe said she could not remember all of the men involved. She recalled seeing four men on a bed at one point, with additional men standing nearby.
Ingalls responded: ‘I have racked my brain for this mystery. You know, it’s possible that both of us, like, remember this and it’s not true.’
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Jane Doe argued back to this, saying: ‘No, because I remember looking up and being like, ‘That is too many people.’
The audio showed that while Ingalls appeared to try and calm Jane Doe’s feelings about the incident, he did not mention that he texted his fraternity group chat during the alleged assault, according to Jane Doe’s lawsuit.
He allegedly posted a photo of Jane Doe to the fraternity group chat, and said, ‘Boys come whip it out,’ the lawsuit alleges.
Jane Doe now claims in a civil lawsuit that seven men eventually participated and that Doe became ‘completely incapacitated.’ She says the ordeal continued until around 5.45am, when she lost consciousness.
She then reported the allegations to Cornell University Police on November 8 after friends encouraged her to come forward, according to the lawsuit.
Ingalls, however, later claimed he was the one who was sexually assaulted, arguing that he was too intoxicated to consent to any sexual intercourse.
In an email to Cornell’s Title IX investigator in February 2025, Ingalls even accused the school of ‘entrapment’ and suggested he would file his own complaint against Jane Doe.
‘After all, you received information that I was sodomized by her while I was incapacitated back in November and you never once thought to alert me of my rights under these procedures as a survivor of this assault?’ he wrote in the email.
‘The very fact that I had to bring this to your attention now in February confirms my worst fears: that this process is rolled [sic] with gender discrimination.’
Matthew Ingalls, who had invited Jane Doe to the party on October 19, 2024, had claimed he was the one who was sexually assaulted
Ingalls was later expelled from the school along with Jonathan Newell, who engaged in a threesome with Jane Doe and Ingalls and allegedly struck the victim.
Suspensions and disciplinary probation orders were also handed down to Winston Lee and Gillio Lopes, according to records obtained by The New York Times.
Both men were also ordered not to contact the alleged victim, and were required to study sexual harassment and write reflection papers.
Meanwhile, Diego Sarabia was barred from campus for three years. He had already graduated from the school by the time of the disciplinary panel’s ruling in March 2025.
The other two men, Scott Norris and Scott Kretzschmar, were ordered not to contact Jane Doe, to study sexual harassment, social media use and bystander intervention and to write ‘reflection papers.’
They were not part of the alleged attack, but were accused of entering the room after Newell allegedly posted in a fraternity Snapchat group that there was ‘free p***y’ upstairs.
But none of the men involved in the alleged assault were ever charged with any wrongdoing, as Tompkins County District Attorney Matthew Van Houten concluded there was a lack of evidence based on Jane Doe’s statement to police at the time.
His office has since reopened the case, and New York Governor Kathy Hochul has appointed Attorney General Letitia James as a special prosecutor.
Meanwhile, officials at Cornell University announced Tuesday they have hired former Deputy Attorney General Sally Yates to review the school’s handling of the case and its broader sexual assault policies.
The probe will cover Cornell’s ‘policies, practices and resources across the full range of prevention and response,’ university officials said.
That includes examining how reports are received and investigated, how hearings and disciplinary decisions are handled, as well as the role and response of campus police and its coordination with other law enforcement agencies and prosecutors and even oversight of fraternities and sororities on campus.