Prosecutors in New York are reopening an investigation into allegations that members of a Cornell University fraternity gang-raped a student.
Tompkins County District Attorney Matthew Van Houten announced the decision days after a former student, identified in court documents as Jane Doe, filed a lawsuit against seven men. According to the civil complaint, she was drugged and raped for hours in 2024 after visiting a friend at the Chi Phi fraternity, CBS News reported.
The lawsuit says only two of the men were expelled. No criminal charges were filed.
In a statement to Oxygen, Van Houten said his office was reconsidering whether criminal charges should be brought after the allegations returned to public attention.
The district attorney cautioned that Doe’s account in the lawsuit differs from the version she gave police about two years earlier, following the alleged incident.
“One of the hardest but most important parts of a prosecutor’s job is being constrained to consider only the admissible evidence and information provided by a victim and to strictly apply those facts to the applicable laws,” Van Houten said. “It is my responsibility to seek justice. At the same time, I recognize 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. Seeking justice sometimes requires us to reconsider or reopen cases when we are provided with additional evidence.”
DA Explains Why Criminal Charges Weren’t Filed in 2024
While explaining why his office initially declined to file charges, Van Houten released part of a six-page statement Doe gave to Cornell University Police in November 2024.
In that statement, Doe allegedly said she went to the Chi Phi house on Oct. 19, 2024, to meet a man she had been texting during the week. She described her level of intoxication at the time as “5 out of 10,” according to the account provided by prosecutors.
“Jane Doe’s sworn statement in November of 2024 did not allege that she was drugged against her will or gang raped,” Van Houten said. “On the contrary, Jane Doe’s statement described her participation in drug use and sexual conduct as voluntary, conscious, and consensual.”
Doe allegedly told police that a friend asked whether she would agree to have a threesome with another fraternity member while she was at the house. She said she agreed and was “pretty ok with having this threesome,” according to the statement released by the district attorney’s office.
She also described taking ketamine from the penis of one of the men and said other males entered the room. As her intoxication increased, she reportedly had “difficulty remembering parts of what happened next.” The statement described additional sexual activity, but said Doe “did not remember how it started.” She put her level of intoxication at that point at 8 out of 10.
Van Houten said prosecutors relied on Doe’s police statement when assessing in 2024 whether criminal charges were warranted.
According to Van Houten, the statement did not allege that anyone used “physical force to compel Jane Doe to engage in sexual conduct.” He also said it did not claim she was “incapable of controlling her own conduct,” had been given drugs without her consent or was unconscious.
“Finally, there is no evidence in Jane Doe’s statement indicating that she clearly expressed that she did not consent to the act,” Van Houten said. “According to the statement, each time Jane Doe asked to stop the sexual conduct, the sexual conduct stopped. Thus, with no evidence of a ‘lack of consent,’ criminal charges simply could not be sustained. To instruct otherwise would have been to violate my prosecutorial obligations under New York State Law.”
Doe’s attorney, Thomas Giuffra, challenged Van Houten’s characterization of her original statement in comments to ABC News. He argued that investigators should have conducted additional follow-up interviews with his client.
“In my experience, speaking with an abuse survivor requires delicacy, understanding and specialized training,” Giuffra told the outlet. “An average University Police officer would not have these skills. It would be the role of a specially trained detective or district attorney. However, Ms. Doe was never contacted by anybody with those skills.”
Van Houten said his office was not contacted by Doe’s attorneys after prosecutors declined to file charges, nor was it told that her initial statement to police was inaccurate.
“The decision made in November of 2024 that the evidence did not support the filing of criminal charges was legally correct,” Van Houten said. “Individuals who are accused of committing a crime must be prosecuted based upon evidence and not public opinion, especially not public opinion based upon false information. However, recognizing that the process of healing from trauma is personal and different for every human, my office has reopened this investigation.”
Once prosecutors determine which criminal charges, if any, may apply, Van Houten said the matter would be presented to a Tompkins County grand jury. He described the fraternity members’ alleged conduct as “disgusting and morally reprehensible.”
Jane Doe’s Lawsuit Alleges Sexual Acts Occurred “Without Her Consent”
Doe’s civil lawsuit, obtained by The New York Post, offers a markedly different account of the night. In the complaint, she said she rejected her friend’s offer of a threesome before being pressured to take a substance the fraternity members identified as ketamine. She alleged that she was then sexually assaulted in acts carried out “all without her consent.”
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One of the men then allegedly sent a Snapchat group message suggesting a woman was available for sex and more men arrived, CBS News reported of the lawsuit.
The woman reported the alleged sexual assault to police three weeks later.
As a result, Giuffra said two of the men were expelled while the others had lesser punishments including writing an essay, going to a workshop or a suspension, the outlet reported.
“None of these guys were arrested,” he said. “Not one.”
Giuffra insisted to ABC News that the Snapchat conversations had been submitted to police in 2024 and were a “critical piece of evidence” that supported the contention that a crime occurred, but the evidence was never followed up on by police or the DA’s office.
Van Houten told the outlet that the group chat was not included in the information provided to his office.
One of the fraternity brothers referenced in the lawsuit denied having any sexual activity, touching the victim or ingesting ketamine in a statement from his attorney to Oxygen.
In the aftermath of the incident, Guiffra said Doe dropped out of school.
“There were so many people that could have prevented it and they didn’t,” he added to CBS News. “I’ve never seen anything like it.”
Oxygen reached out to Giuffra for additional comment, but did not receive an immediate response.
The fraternity was barred from campus that same year.
Cornell University Issues Statement on Gang Rape Allegations
In a statement released Sept. 21, Cornell University said the institution was aware of the “deeply disturbing allegations of sexual assault” made in the lawsuit.
“The Cornell Office of Civil Rights and the Office of Student Conduct and Community Standards investigated and adjudicated the allegations consistent with university policies,” they wrote. “The Xi chapter of Chi Phi fraternity remains barred from our campus.”
Though they said federal privacy laws prevented them from releasing specific information about the university’s disciplinary response, they said violations of the university’s polices in a more general sense could lead to sanctions that could include suspension or expulsion.
They added that after the incident, a Presidential Task Force on Campus Sexual Assault was formed which provided a report in March 2026.
“Several of the recommendations have already been implemented,” they noted, “while others are in development with oversight by a university implementation committee.”
In an update issued Sept. 28, Vice President for University Relations Kyle Kimball said the university was supportive of the DA’s decision to reopen the investigation. They also clarified that the university’s process was conducted a thorough Title IX investigation and included a panel of trained faculty and staff, who heard evidence over multiple days.
“At its conclusion, the hearing panel issued a range of sanctions, which included expulsions and suspensions from Cornell,” he said. “None of the individuals charged were offered the opportunity to write essays as a sole consequence of their involvement.”
Kimball went on to add: “Any suggestion that the university did not impose consequential punishments for those involved is false. A continuation of the false narrative that there were minimal consequences in this case is irresponsible, will make survivors feel less safe and supported, and will perpetuate the underreporting of sexual assault.”