The brother and boyfriend of the woman at the center of the Cornell 7 lawsuit were reportedly forced to the ground at gunpoint after an anonymous 911 caller falsely claimed there was an active shooter inside her family’s home.
The woman, identified in court documents as Jane Doe, and her relatives have been targeted by repeated “swatting” attacks since she filed a civil lawsuit against seven Chi Phi fraternity members, The New Yorker reported. Swatting involves making a false emergency call designed to prompt an armed police response at an innocent person’s address.
Officers were sent to Doe’s family residence, located a considerable distance from Cornell University, on October 6. A police report obtained by the magazine said an unidentified man had called 911.
The caller allegedly claimed he was inside the house, had shot his mother and had pointed a gun at his sister, saying he was “going to kill her also,” according to the report.
When police arrived, they saw a vehicle carrying two young men leaving the driveway. The pair were later identified as Doe’s brother and her boyfriend, authorities said.
An officer pulled out his weapon and ordered both men to exit the car and lie on the ground. They complied, according to the police account.
While the officer searched them for weapons, Doe’s father reportedly shouted, “I’m the DAD. WHAT’S GOING ON?”
He then identified his daughter as “Jane Doe, the victim of the Cornell 7 rape case,” adding that the family had been threatened by “numerous unknown people.”
Jane Doe alleged she was gang raped at the Chi Phi fraternity house on Cornell University’s campus on October 19, 2024
Doe alleges that she was gang raped and sexually exploited during a party at Cornell’s Chi Phi fraternity house in October 2024. The seven men have denied the accusations, maintaining that any sexual contact was consensual or that they were not involved.
Police entered the residence and determined that no one inside had been injured, the report said.
While officers remained at the property, the alleged swatter reportedly called 911 again. This time, the caller claimed to have an AR-15, threatened to kill everyone in the house and said he would then take his own life.
The family has faced several similar hoaxes in recent weeks. According to the police report, one false call claimed the home was burning, while another threatened to bomb the residence.
Doe has also received hundreds of abusive calls, text messages and social media direct messages containing threats against her life, her attorney, Thomas Giuffra, told The New Yorker.
In an effort to protect the family from further threats, Doe has covered the windows of the home with sheets of paper, her lawyer said.
In a civil complaint filed last month, Doe accused Chi Phi members Matthew Ingalls, Jonathan Newell, Winston Lee, Gillio Lopes, Diego Sarabia, Scott Norris and Scott Kretzschmar of sexually assaulting her on October 19, 2024.
All seven men have denied wrongdoing, and prosecutors have not filed criminal charges in connection with the allegations.
Umar Matthew Ingalls and Jonathan Newell were expelled from the school after Jane Doe accused seven fraternity members of gang raping her in October 2024
According to Doe’s lawsuit, one of the men posted a message in the fraternity’s active-members Snapchat group referring to her as “free p***y” upstairs. The complaint included an image said to show the alleged exchange
Doe alleges that the seven men performed sexual acts on her while she was “completely incapacitated” and unable to consent. She claims the incident continued until she lost consciousness.
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She said the men manipulated her into ingesting ketamine and alcohol, and that other men entered the room while she was incapacitated, the lawsuit said.
She also alleged that Snapchat messages describing her as sexually available to anyone at the house circulated among fraternity members without her knowledge.
Doe, then a 20-year-old sophomore, reported the alleged assault to Cornell police in November 2024, three weeks after she said it occurred.
Campus police investigated and sent a summary of their findings to the district attorney’s office, which relied on the information in deciding not to bring criminal charges. Separately, Cornell conducted a Title IX investigation.
The Chi Phi chapter was shut down, and the university has said it expelled some students and suspended others.
Doe left Cornell a few months after reporting the alleged assault to campus police, Giuffra told the magazine.
She moved to New York City earlier this year in an attempt to ‘get a new phase going,’ but those plans did not work out, he said.
Doe left Cornell a few months after the alleged assault. She tried to pursue a life in New York City earlier this year, but has since moved back to her family home
She has since moved back in with her family and has surrounded herself with people who ‘aren’t afraid to protect her,’ the lawyer claimed.
She is working with a therapist and trying to imagine what her future now holds, he added.
Cornell this week suspended all parties and social events at fraternity houses through the end of the 2026-27 academic year and implemented a new ‘zero tolerance’ policy that would immediately suspend chapters for violations.
Cornell President Michael Kotlikoff, who announced the new measures Tuesday, also committed to working with New York State Police to allow its criminal investigators, who are independent of Cornell, to investigate sexual assault allegations.
Crimes reported on Cornell’s campus are generally investigated by campus police, a department that has full law enforcement powers but is controlled by the university.
The campus police force operates independently from municipal police in Ithaca, New York, where the university is located.
Its officers investigated the 2024 gang rape allegations and presented their initial findings to the Tompkins County district attorney, who declined to prosecute within weeks of the woman making her first report to police.
Protesters rally in support of Doe at the Ithaca Commons on October 13, 2026
New York Governor Kathy Hochul removed the district attorney from the case this month after a public outcry over the lack of charges.
The investigation is now being led by New York Attorney General Letitia James, while Cornell has hired former Deputy US Attorney General Sally Yates to conduct an independent review of the university’s response.
Kotlikoff further committed to adding a case manager to the school’s Office of Civil Rights to help those who report sexual misconduct on the Cornell campus navigate the process.