Calls are mounting for Gov. Kathy Hochul to bring New York lawmakers back to Albany for an emergency session aimed at closing a legal loophole critics say benefits defendants accused of rape, including the men known as the “Cornell 7.”
The dispute centers on New York’s so-called voluntary intoxication loophole. Under the current law, critics argue, victims who voluntarily consumed alcohol or drugs may not receive adequate protection even when they became too impaired to legally consent to sexual activity.
Legislation designed to change the law has been introduced repeatedly since 2018, but it has yet to clear the Democratic-controlled state Assembly.
Gary Greenberg, chief executive of ProtectNYKids Inc., accused Hochul of failing to act quickly enough and told The Post that she could summon lawmakers immediately if she truly stood with survivors.
“This is a travesty that could’ve been prevented,” Greenberg said, arguing that politicians are now rushing to appear supportive amid public outrage and an election five weeks away. “Shameful.”
Women’s rights organization ULTRAVIOLETACTION is petitioning Hochul and state Assembly Speaker Carl Heastie, a Bronx Democrat, to call an extraordinary session and address the state’s rape laws without delay.
“Let us be clear: there is no valid consent when someone is intoxicated,” the petition states.
It argues that New York’s current law effectively shifts blame and shame onto survivors while allowing alleged perpetrators to avoid accountability.
The petition urges Hochul and Heastie to support Assembly Bill A101, which would remove the voluntary-intoxication exception and, supporters say, move Jane Doe closer to obtaining justice.
Here’s the latest on the ‘Cornell 7’ frat probe:
The campaign comes as outrage continues over seven Cornell University fraternity members named in a civil lawsuit alleging that they gang-raped a female student in 2024 after she had been drugged. Court documents identify the woman only as Jane Doe.
The men have not faced criminal charges. The woman’s attorney and other critics have blamed what they describe as a series of failures involving campus police, the Tompkins County district attorney’s office and Cornell University.
Tompkins County District Attorney Matthew Van Houten acknowledged the disputed legal barrier in a lengthy statement last week, explaining his decision not to prosecute the men in 2024. He also announced that his office would reopen its investigation into Jane Doe’s allegations.
Greenberg said Hochul, a Democrat seeking re-election to a second term on Nov. 3, has not exerted enough influence to convince fellow Democrats in the Assembly to revise the law.
The Democratic-led state Senate has approved the legislation multiple times, but the measure has repeatedly stalled in the Assembly.
Greenberg said Hochul has faced calls to eliminate the loophole since becoming governor but has declined to do so. Hochul assumed the state’s top office after Gov. Andrew Cuomo resigned amid sexual-harassment allegations, which he continues to deny.
Greenberg also sharply criticized the Democratic-led Assembly, labeling its members “pro-criminal socialists.”
Hochul’s office declined to provide a detailed response to The Post on Sunday. It pointed to the governor’s remarks Friday, when she urged Albany lawmakers to close the loophole but rejected the idea of convening an emergency session specifically for that purpose.
The state Legislature’s regular Albany session ended in June.
“Here in New York, we’ll work with the legislature. The timing will be resolved, but at minimum, I would say this is something we could easily take up early in the session,” Hochul said Friday, referring to the regular 2027 legislative session.
She said lawmakers could review legislation already approved by one chamber, consult with its sponsors and determine whether recent events have exposed “any other glaring deficiencies in state law.”
Lacking confidence in Van Houten, Hochul also has appointed state Attorney General Letitia James to review the Cornell case for potential prosecution.
Heastie meanwhile last week announced the formation of a special “working group” to consider legislation in reaction to the “truly horrifying” Cornell case.
Unlike New York, 25 states — from conservative Texas to liberal California — as well as Washington, DC, have laws in place that protect the accuser if their ability to consent to sex was compromised even by voluntary intoxication.
Nineteen states, including New York, have rape or sexual-assault laws that consider intoxicated victims to be mentally incapacitated — but only if they became drunk or drugged without their knowledge or consent.
Opposition to closing New York’s loophole has come from criminal defense lawyers who believe the bill under consideration is “simply too vague to be fairly enforced” and “fails to provide” objective guidance as to when a partner is “too intoxicated to legally agree to engage in sexual conduct,” said the NYS Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers in a recent statement to the Washington Post.
But state Assemblyman Jeffrey Dinowitz (D-Bronx), who sponsored the proposed legislation in the lower house to close the voluntary intoxication loophole, said he’s been hearing from more lawmakers now willing to support his bill since the wrenching Cornell scandal has gone public.
The state’s legislative leaders have a dual responsibility in the Cornell case.
Aside from their governmental duties, Hochul, Senate Majority Leader Andrea Stewart-Cousins (D-Yonkers) and Heastie are ex-officio members of Cornell’s Board of Trustees.
Cornell is not just an elite Ivy League institution.
It operates four different SUNY, or public, state colleges dealing with agriculture, labor relations, veterinary medicine and ecology and gets about $200 million in state funding per year.
Hochul did call the legislature into an emergency session in June of 2022 to pass gun safety laws responding to a US Supreme Court ruling that concluded New York’s conceal-and-carry restrictions violated the 2nd Amendment.