For decades, Bonnie Ueltzen said nothing about the teenage relationship that came close to ending in marriage.

She was once engaged to Joseph DeAngelo, who would later become known as the Golden State Killer. But Ueltzen called off the engagement and returned the ring. Not long afterward, DeAngelo appeared outside her family’s home in the middle of the night, carrying a gun.

Now, Ueltzen is speaking publicly about the frightening incident for the first time. She recounts the encounter exclusively in Fox Nation’s new four-part documentary, The Golden State Killer: Unmasking A Monster.

“I was absolutely in a panic,” she said. “I had no idea if he would pull the trigger.”

Ueltzen said she wishes she had reported DeAngelo to police, especially because the confrontation occurred shortly before he is believed to have begun the crime spree that would terrorize California for decades.

DeAngelo, now 80, was eventually connected to a long series of rapes and murders across California. During one of his attacks, he reportedly told a victim, “I hate you, Bonnie.”

“I wish things had gone differently. I wish as a 19-year-old I had stepped forward, taken the initiative, talked about it,” Ueltzen said in the documentary.

“I wish that my father had picked up the phone, even after the fact, and reported it,” she added. “It may just have put him on another track. No one will know.”

The revelations come more than six years after DeAngelo admitted to 161 uncharged crimes and pleaded guilty to 13 murders and 13 kidnappings. Many of the offenses were rapes that were too old to prosecute.

Even after his convictions, however, the motivation behind DeAngelo’s decades-long reign of terror remained largely unknown.

For years, investigators considered whether the answer might be connected to a woman named Bonnie — a name one victim recalled hearing DeAngelo repeat while sexually assaulting her in 1978.

“As the East Area Rapist is physically raping the victim, he is sobbing and saying, ‘I hate you, Bonnie. I hate you, Bonnie,’ over and over,” investigator Paul Holes told ABC News’ 20/20 in 2018.

“That told me he had some significant female in his life named Bonnie. He had some anger against what Bonnie, or what he perceived Bonnie, had done to him. And he’s taking that anger out on this victim that he’s raping,” he added.

“We didn’t know, was Bonnie his mom? A wife? Ex-wife? Girlfriend? We just knew that there was a Bonnie in his life.”

The mystery began to unravel when detectives discovered a newspaper article announcing the engagement of Ueltzen — then known as Bonnie Jean Colwell — to Joseph James DeAngelo. The report finally put a face to the unidentified Bonnie.

“Now we have a guy that has a Bonnie in his life, and we couldn’t find any indication that they ever got married,” officer Holes explained in the 2018 segment.

‘So, something happened in that relationship that caused them to part – and that probably is indicative of a relationship that went sideways,’ he added. 

The mystery of what happened between the pair – and whether it played any role in setting DeAngelo on his path toward barbaric violence – is finally explored in the new documentary. 

According to Ueltzen, it all began with an argument over school. 

The pair had started dating at just 18 and were in their first semester at California State University when they enrolled in what she described as an ‘abnormal psychology’ class.

Ueltzen was pulling straight A’s while DeAngelo was failing – a disparity she said soon became a source of bitter conflict, with his behavior growing increasingly ‘aggressive and angry.’ 

She said he demanded that she help him cheat on the next midterm exam so he could secure a passing grade, but Ueltzen, the daughter of two teachers, said cheating was simply a boundary she would not cross. 

‘It was the only thing he wanted to talk about,’ she said. ‘The rest of our life went on hold while he was trying to get me to comply with what he had planned and I was having none of it.’ 

The constant tension eventually reached a boiling point. Ueltzen, who had become engaged to DeAngelo shortly after they began dating, said she realized she ‘did not want to spend more time with this man.’

At 19, she made the decision to call off the engagement. 

She invited DeAngelo to her parents’ home, where she broke the news and returned his engagement ring. She said he left ‘very, very angry’ – but what happened next would haunt her for decades. 

Two weeks later, Ueltzen was asleep in her ground-floor bedroom at her parents’ home when she was jolted awake by a tapping sound coming from the glass window. 

‘It was Joe standing outside and he had a revolver in his hand and he was pointing at me through the window,’ she revealed.

He ordered her to get dressed, telling her they were going to Reno, Nevada, that very night to get married. 

Ueltzen said she managed to slip out of bed and wake her father, who took DeAngelo outside to the front porch, where the two talked for what she estimated was nearly two hours.

DeAngelo eventually left, and law enforcement was never called. It would be the last time Ueltzen saw him for nearly five decades – until his arrest in 2018. 

‘I have no idea what that conversation was about,’ she said. ‘To the day that he died, he never discussed it with me.’ 

Ueltzen has her own theory about what happened on that night: she believes her father struck a deal with DeAngelo – no call to police in exchange for never contacting her again.

‘And he never did,’ she said during the interview.

During their few months together, however, Ueltzen recalled several disturbing incidents, including one in which DeAngelo killed a dog while the pair were riding his motorcycle.

She said a German Shepherd would regularly chase them as they rode, and one day, when the dog approached, DeAngelo ‘turned and kicked it underneath the chin.’

‘The dog dropped dead,’ she said. ‘I think it broke its neck.’ 

She also recalled DeAngelo introducing her to firearms, even buying her a .22 rifle. The couple would practice target shooting together at his home. 

‘He liked guns,’ she said. ‘He was very proficient, and he would get into restricted property where he would go poaching for fish and game.’ 

The couple never married. Instead, DeAngelo went on to marry Sharon Huddle in 1973, and they eventually had three children before separating sometime in the 1990s.

But behind closed doors, neighbors later described the marriage as troubled and volatile.

‘He would come by on a regular basis and scream and yell from the driveway and never step inside,’ one neighbor, who asked to remain anonymous, told the VC Star in 2018.

‘He and Sharon would get in epic shouting battles. It was a very volatile relationship when he came over, and it was not good,’ they added. ‘It was just very toxic.’

Meanwhile, DeAngelo, a former police officer, spent four decades hiding in plain sight as he terrorized California under a succession of names – the Visalia Ransacker, the East Area Rapist and, ultimately, the Golden State Killer. 

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He evaded law enforcement for decades until investigators turned to a revolutionary DNA technique that finally exposed him.

His genetic profile was linked to the crimes through GEDmatch.com after a relative had uploaded their DNA to the genealogy website, helping detectives trace the connection back to him.

In April 2018, a 72-year-old DeAngelo was arrested at his Citrus Heights home, where he reportedly protested in a high-pitched voice: ‘I have a roast in the oven!’

When Ueltzen learned from her husband that DeAngelo had finally been arrested, she said she was ‘absolutely floored.’ 

Prosecutors had initially sought the death penalty, but DeAngelo struck a plea deal in which he agreed to plead guilty to all charges in exchange for life in prison.

In August 2020, DeAngelo was sentenced to 11 consecutive life terms without the possibility of parole, plus eight years, bringing an official end to his sinister decades-long saga of kidnappings, rapes and murders. 

‘It’s difficult to carry for me that I was ever involved with him,’ Ueltzen tearfully said in the new documentary. ‘That he is the cause of so much damage to people, to other women, to the people that he murdered in the most brutal, brutal ways.’ 

NYPD body-camera and drone footage released Friday shows the final moments of an hour-long standoff on the Brooklyn Bridge last month, ending when a knife-wielding man lunged toward police and was shot.

The footage shows 41-year-old Chaun Bottom walking along the bridge cables around 3:30 a.m. on Sept. 4. Detective Nicholas Giordani, a member of the NYPD’s Emergency Services Unit, climbed hundreds of feet above the East River and repeatedly urged Bottom to come down and drop his knife.

“What’s going on, man? What brought you up here?” Giordani asks.

“What’s going on in your day that you think this is the only option you have?” he tells Bottom.

For roughly 50 minutes, Giordani tried to persuade Bottom to move away from the bridge’s edge, asking what had led him there.

“This is the last place I want you to be right now, man. Whatever’s going on in your life, we could talk about it, we could discuss it,” Giordani says in the footage.

“I don’t want to see you up here. I understand the view is nice, but there’s no reason to be up here right now.”

At one point, the detective urges Bottom to return toward the center of the bridge instead of remaining over its side.

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“Look, man, I know you don’t know me, I get that, but I care about you more than you’re gonna know, and I plan on spending however much time I can to show you that,” Giordani says.

“There is stuff left. You have your whole life ahead of you,” he continues. “Don’t say there’s nothing left. Yes, there is. I promise you there is plenty ahead of you.”

As the standoff neared its end, Giordani noticed Bottom’s weapon and told him to drop it if he moved back.

Bottom is then seen raising the knife and lunging toward the detective as officers shout, “Drop the knife.”

Sgt. Dennis Dooley, who was positioned on the bridge’s roadbed, fired one shot, striking Bottom.

After the shooting, officers rushed to pull Bottom away from the side of the bridge while continuing to order him to drop the weapon.

Bottom was taken to Bellevue Hospital, where he was pronounced dead.

The footage did not make clear what Bottom was saying to the officers. ESU Chief Gerard V. Dowling previously told reporters that Bottom said: “I want to die, I want you to kill me, I have a bomb, you’re going to make me do something bad to the cops.”

The NYPD said its Force Investigation Division will continue reviewing and analyzing the fatal shooting.

The FlyDubai co-pilot accused of stabbing the captain and nearly triggering a catastrophic crash had reportedly been grounded by Oman Air in 2024 after the airline discovered he had visited radical Islamic websites, according to a source familiar with the matter.

The source said the co-pilot moved to Dubai later that year. The individual also told Fox News that the suspect had spent a substantial portion of his life outside Oman, including time with his mother, who is from Syria.

According to the source, FlyDubai did not contact Oman Air to check the co-pilot’s background before hiring him.

The latest information follows a Wall Street Journal report published Friday. Citing people familiar with the matter, the newspaper said the Omani national had previously been prohibited from flying because of concerns that he had adopted radical ideological views before FlyDubai later hired him. The Journal said it remained unclear whether Omani authorities informed other countries or airlines about those concerns.

Fox News has not independently confirmed why Oman Air grounded the co-pilot.

The alleged assault took place Wednesday aboard FlyDubai Flight 1073, which was flying from Dubai to Tel Aviv.

Passengers and officials said the co-pilot allegedly attacked the captain inside the cockpit, sending the aircraft into a steep dive that nearly caused it to break apart. Two reserve pilots traveling on the flight reportedly regained control and diverted the plane safely to Saudi Arabia. Passengers and crew members then helped overpower the suspect, according to accounts of the incident.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu called the incident terrorism on Friday and said the alleged attacker had undergone “Islamic radicalization.”

“He came to crash the passengers on board,” Netanyahu said, according to the Wall Street Journal.

Netanyahu said Israeli authorities are also examining whether the suspect acted alone or received help from others.

The United Arab Emirates is overseeing the investigation. A UAE spokesperson declined to discuss the suspect’s background with the Journal, saying officials did not want to prejudice the inquiry or interfere with its progress.

The incident has intensified scrutiny of airline pilot screening and aviation security on flights serving Israel. Aviation security analysts told the Journal that the episode appeared to represent a serious security lapse, raising questions about whether warning signs were missed before the co-pilot gained access to the cockpit.

FlyDubai has suspended service between Dubai and Tel Aviv following the alleged attack.

FlyDubai did not immediately respond to News Media’s request for comment.

NEW YORK (WABC) — New York Gov. Kathy Hochul said Friday that the Cornell rape accuser was failed by the people responsible for protecting her, including police and prosecutors.

Visibly outraged, Hochul criticized Cornell University Police, the Tompkins County district attorney and New York’s rape laws before announcing that Attorney General Letitia James would serve as special prosecutor in the controversial case.

At a packed news conference in the governor’s office, James said the matter is now “an active criminal investigation.” She promised that the allegations would receive a full and fair review.

“Every New Yorker deserves to know that when they report a crime, it will be investigated fully and fairly, that they will be seen and heard,” James said. “That is the promise of our justice system.”

Hochul said the system failed Jane Doe. She said information from the woman’s police interview was not provided to the district attorney, who subsequently did not interview her.

“I am deeply disturbed by Cornell University’s police and how they handled this,” Hochul said. She described the decision to send prosecutors only a “partial record” as a failure.

Hochul questioned how police could learn from the alleged victim that she had been “literally been gang raped” and that she was “100%” certain she had been raped, yet fail to elevate those allegations.

She also accused the Tompkins County district attorney of failing to do the “bare minimum” by interviewing the woman after receiving the six-page police report.

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“In what world does the district attorney not interview her or even request the full transcript?” Hochul asked. “That is exactly why we’re here today and why I took the action last night.”

Tompkins County District Attorney Matt Van Houten told ABC News that the six-page summary prepared by Cornell University Police had convinced him that no crime occurred.

Hochul also called for changes to New York’s law governing voluntary intoxication in sexual assault cases, saying lawmakers should address that provision as soon as possible.

Jane Doe’s attorney said he and his client were “pleased” by the governor’s appointment of a special prosecutor, citing “shocking” contradictions between statements from the district attorney and Cornell police.

Van Houten said Friday that he supports the governor’s decision to remove him from the case and pledged to cooperate with the attorney general’s investigation.

Cornell University also supported Hochul’s decision to remove the district attorney from the case and assign it to James.

Larry Nassar, the disgraced former Team USA gymnastics doctor convicted of sexually abusing hundreds of young athletes, has been removed from Michigan’s sex offender registry.

The change follows a Michigan Supreme Court ruling allowing offenders to be dropped from the state database when their crimes took place before July 1, 2011, FOX News reported.

Nassar’s record was deleted alongside those of approximately 20,000 other convicted sex offenders, according to the outlet, which cited the Eaton County Prosecutor’s Office.

In its Sept. 9 decision, the court determined that 2021 amendments to Michigan’s Sex Offender Registration Act cannot be applied retroactively. The law had faced challenges from both state and federal civil rights groups.

Over a period of decades, Nassar sexually abused at least 265 young athletes, many of them minors, while presenting the assaults as legitimate medical treatment. He carried out the abuse during his work with USA Gymnastics and Michigan State University.

Although Nassar was not publicly identified or arrested until 2016, the offenses occurred before the state’s 2011 cutoff.

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The Eaton County Prosecutor’s Office, which handled Nassar’s prosecution, criticized the Supreme Court’s decision.

“The Michigan Supreme Court’s decision to eliminate SORA requirements for these offenders is deeply concerning,” the office said. “Our community, along with the victims of these crimes, expected the registry to provide a measure of protection and awareness — assurances that have now been removed by the Court’s ruling.”

The office also warned that Nassar is not the only offender affected. Damon Warner, Kevin Kalmbach, Jay Yensen, Justin Bowles, Joe Deleon and Ernesto Uribe—all convicted in Eaton County of sexually assaulting minors—are still incarcerated but could eventually return to their communities without being required to report where they live.

Nassar was convicted in 2017 and 2018 of federal child pornography offenses and several Michigan counts of first-degree criminal sexual conduct.

He received a 60-year prison sentence.

At his sentencing, Judge Rosemarie Aquilina called him “possibly the most prolific serial child sex abuser in history.”

Gisele Bündchen was seen enjoying a family day out in New York City on Friday with her look-alike daughter, Vivian, and her husband, Joaquim Valente.

The 46-year-old Brazilian model, who was previously married to Tom Brady, kept her outfit casual in a white tank top, jeans, and sneakers.

Vivian, 13, appeared to take style cues from her mother, wearing a black tank top with low-rise, light-wash jeans.

As Bündchen walked slightly ahead, Vivian and Valente shared an animated conversation, appearing to enjoy a relaxed bonding moment.

The couple’s 19-month-old son, whose name has not been made public, was not seen during the outing.

The family appearance comes as sportswriter Lars Anderson’s newly released unauthorized biography, Brady: An American Story and the Price of Greatness, draws attention to the retired quarterback’s personal life.

Bündchen and Brady also share a 16-year-old son, Benjamin. Brady is additionally the father of 19-year-old Jack, whom he shares with his former girlfriend, actress Bridget Moynahan, 55.

Anderson’s tell-all book revisits the timing of Brady’s breakup with Moynahan and his subsequent relationship with Bündchen.

Brady and Moynahan were together for almost three years before ending their relationship in December 2006.

Two months later, in February 2007, Brady learned that Moynahan was pregnant with his child. By then, he had reportedly been dating Bündchen for two months.

The football star faced criticism at the time from those who believed he had left Moynahan to pursue the supermodel. Anderson writes that Brady and Bündchen went on their first date in December 2006.

According to an obstetrics nurse cited in the book, Moynahan’s estimated date of conception was late November 2006—approximately two weeks before Brady’s first date with Bündchen.

Anderson says Moynahan was “heartbroken” by the breakup and called Brady in February while he was vacationing in Paris with Bündchen to tell him about the pregnancy.

The author claims Bündchen was unsure how to respond to the news and questioned whether she should encourage Brady to build a family with his former partner.

Ultimately, Anderson writes, “The most famous supermodel in the world chose to stay with Brady as he was about to become the father to another woman’s child.”

Bündchen and Brady were married from 2009 until 2022.

Bundchen married jiu-jitsu trainer Valente on December 3, 2025, nearly one year after they welcomed their son.

Sources later told ET that the wedding was intentionally intimate, with only close family in attendance.

‘It was simple and beautiful,’ an insider said, adding that the couple’s baby son, then-11 months, was also present.

A separate source told People that Bundchen wanted the day to remain entirely out of the public eye.

‘Gisele is tired of all of the attention on her private life,’ the person explained. ‘She just wants to do things her own way – and a small, private non-event was what she wanted.’

The beauty has kept her baby boy’s name and face private, but last year, her friends revealed to the Daily Mail that the child’s middle name is River.

Bundchen and Valente began dating in June 2023, after she and the jiu-jitsu artist struck up a friendship while he trained her.

‘Having a baby at this moment of my life is such a gift, because I’m in a different place,’ the mom of three told iD magazine for its Mother Issue in September.

‘I don’t have anything to prove. I don’t feel like I really, quite frankly, care,’ she explained.

The star went on to say that she is ‘not defined by other people’s opinions,’ adding, ‘I feel like I get to choose how I want to live my life.’ 

A sexually charged case that unsettled Cornell University two years ago has moved onto the national stage, intensifying a debate over sex, consent and criminal liability in college hookup culture.

Seven former members of the Chi Phi fraternity are accused in a lawsuit of drugging and raping a Cornell student during a night of drinking, drug use and group sex at the fraternity house in October 2024.

The accuser, identified in court documents as Jane Doe, alleges that the men sexually assaulted her after she arrived intoxicated and was pressured to take ketamine and other substances. The men deny wrongdoing. Some contend that the sexual activity was consensual, while others say they were not involved. No criminal charges have been filed against the seven men.

The allegations have since triggered a political and legal firestorm. New York Attorney General Letitia James said Friday that her office is conducting an “active criminal investigation” after Gov. Kathy Hochul appointed the attorney general’s office as special prosecutor. Cornell has also agreed to hire outside counsel for an independent review of how the university handled the allegations.

The dispute centers on sharply different accounts of the night, including discrepancies between Doe’s descriptions in the weeks afterward, information prosecutors say they received from Cornell police and the serious claims outlined in a lawsuit filed nearly two years later.

Tompkins County District Attorney Matthew Van Houten, who initially chose not to bring charges, has said Doe’s sworn statement from November 2024 did not claim she was drugged against her will or gang raped. Instead, he said, the statement characterized her drug use and sexual activity as “voluntary, conscious, and consensual.”

What happened that night?

Doe was 20 and an undergraduate at Cornell when the events described in the case occurred on the night of Oct. 19, 2024.

According to her lawsuit, Doe began the evening drinking vodka at the Tri Delta sorority house before attending a sorority gathering at a downtown Ithaca bar. She later visited a second bar, then left by herself around 11 p.m. and walked to the Chi Phi house to see a friend who belonged to the fraternity.

Doe’s complaint says she had consumed about 10 standard drinks in three hours and was visibly intoxicated when she arrived at Chi Phi.

After she entered the house, Doe alleges, a fraternity member gave her another beer and suggested a threesome with a second fraternity brother. The lawsuit argues that she was already too impaired to consent.

Doe says two fraternity members took her upstairs and pressured her to snort what they identified as ketamine, a drug she had never used before. She also alleges that they gave her marijuana and high-proof alcohol before engaging in sexual acts without her consent.

The lawsuit says additional fraternity members came into the room as the night continued. At 1:42 a.m., one member allegedly posted “free p—-” in a Snapchat group for active Chi Phi members, a message the complaint says invited others upstairs.

CBS News reported Friday that it obtained additional messages from the fraternity’s Snapchat group. They included a photograph of Doe with another man that was shared with dozens of Chi Phi members that night. Shortly before the image appeared, one participant wrote, “Like you can walk in and whip it out.” Another later asked, “Shop still open?” and received the response, “Yeah.”

Lawyers for several of the accused men have rejected claims of criminal conduct. An attorney for one man told NBC News that the lawsuit was “intentionally dishonest,” acknowledging that his client sent immature and inappropriate Snapchat messages but insisting he committed no crime. Another attorney said the public account was “incomplete” and conflicted with evidence from Cornell’s investigation, including Doe’s own statements.

Doe alleges that her impairment worsened as the encounters continued and that she ultimately became “completely incapacitated.” The complaint says the final alleged assault ended around 5:45 a.m., when she lost consciousness.

What did Jane Doe say afterward?

Texts, interviews and university records made at the time indicate that Doe described different parts of the encounter in varying ways during the following days and weeks, while also expressing distress over what had occurred.

When she returned to the sorority house at about 11:15 a.m. on Oct. 20, Doe told roommates that she had taken ketamine and had sex with several men, according to Cornell Title IX records obtained by The New York Times. One roommate said Doe did not initially call the experience rape or sexual assault. Another said Doe appeared to be “in shock” and seemed not to grasp the seriousness of what she was describing.

The next day, one of the men Doe later accused apologized in text messages, saying he felt terrible that he and another fraternity member had been too intoxicated to stop events before they went “way out of hand,” according to messages reviewed by the Times.

Doe responded that “none of the sexual stuff was illegal” and said she had enjoyed being with the two men.

Other contemporaneous evidence suggests Doe was already struggling with the encounter. On Oct. 22, she visited Cornell Health seeking treatment for a urinary tract infection and testing for sexually transmitted diseases, telling a doctor she had contracted the infection “in a traumatic way,” according to university records.

Doe also became increasingly distressed as word of the encounter spread around campus. A roommate told Cornell investigators that Doe initially described it as a “crazy thing that she had done,” but that her understanding shifted over the following days. The roommate said she discussed portions of the encounter with Doe and told her that some of what she described could constitute rape.

About a week after the encounter, Doe discovered an anonymous online post claiming Chi Phi members had been “gang banging” and that a sophomore had been gang raped. Doe later told Cornell investigators that seeing the post marked a turning point in how she viewed the night.

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“That’s the first time I had ever heard the narrative change that I wasn’t a whore and that I was assaulted,” she said, according to the university records obtained by the Times.

Doe nevertheless remained in contact with fraternity members and planned to attend Chi Phi’s Halloween party, according to the records. After initially being told she was welcome, the fraternity’s president uninvited her, prompting Doe to accuse the men of “covering your asses.”

By Nov. 3, however, Doe was explicitly describing most of the encounter as nonconsensual. In a text reviewed by the Times, she wrote that “90% of what happened that night was not consensual,” adding that she had been given more ketamine than she could remember and had felt uncomfortable around people she did not know. Four days later, she went to an Ithaca emergency room and requested a rape kit.

Doe was interviewed by Cornell University Police on Nov. 14 and Nov. 15. A transcript obtained by CBS New York shows that she distinguished the initial sexual encounter, which she said she had been “pretty OK with,” from what she said happened later in the night.

“I can say with 100% confidence I was raped,” Doe told investigators, according to the transcript. She also described later sexual activity as coercive and said she had been “completely and totally incapacitated.”

During those interviews, the campus police investigator prepared a six-page written statement that Doe reviewed and signed. That document — rather than the complete interview transcript — was what Van Houten says his office received before deciding not to pursue charges.

According to Van Houten’s account of the signed statement, Doe said she agreed to the initial threesome out of attraction and “drunken curiousness,” was “pretty ok” with it and voluntarily took ketamine later in the night.

The district attorney said multiple prosecutors and investigators reviewed the statement, assumed Doe’s account was true and concluded that the facts contained in it did not establish a crime under New York law. Van Houten said her credibility was “never in question.”

When CBS presented the full transcript to Van Houten this week, he said it had never been provided to him. 

“That wasn’t information that I had,” he said, later adding that its existence “changes the landscape for me.”

How the case resurfaced

For nearly two years after the alleged encounter, no criminal charges were filed against any of the men.

The case burst into the national spotlight Sept. 16, when Doe filed a sweeping 101-page lawsuit in New York Supreme Court laying out in graphic detail her allegations about what happened inside the Chi Phi house.

The lawsuit accuses the seven former fraternity members of sexual assault and rape and seeks compensatory and punitive damages. But it casts a far wider net than the seven men.

Doe also sued Cornell University, Chi Phi and affiliated entities, her own Tri Delta sorority and Moonies Bar & Nightclub, among others, alleging that institutions around her failed to protect her before, during and after the events of that night.

The complaint alleges Doe had already become intoxicated while drinking at the Tri Delta house before a sorority housemother accompanied her to Moonies. There, according to the lawsuit, a bouncer marked both of the then-20-year-old’s hands with an “X” signifying she was under 21, but she was nevertheless served alcohol.

The graphic allegations prompted immediate questions about why no one had been prosecuted in 2024. Van Houten said he first learned of the lawsuit on Sept. 18, two days after it was filed, and that his office was subsequently inundated with calls and emails, including threats, demanding answers.

Van Houten publicly defended his original decision. He also reopened the investigation, met with Doe and her attorneys and announced plans to put the matter before a Tompkins County grand jury so it could consider her testimony and any new evidence raised by the lawsuit.

The controversy intensified after CBS reported that Van Houten had never received the full transcript of Doe’s November 2024 interview with Cornell University Police. Van Houten said that if relevant information had been omitted from the signed statement provided to prosecutors, the circumstances should be investigated by someone outside Cornell.

Cornell has separately agreed to retain outside counsel to conduct an independent investigation into the university’s handling of the allegations, according to Hochul. That review is distinct from the criminal investigation now being led by James’ office.

Cornell, meanwhile, reached its own conclusions through the university’s disciplinary process. University President Michael Kotlikoff said two of the accused students were expelled, two were suspended for at least two semesters, one had graduated before discipline could be imposed and two were found not responsible for sexual misconduct.

Those university findings were reached through Cornell’s disciplinary process, which is separate from the criminal justice system and applies different standards and procedures.

Cornell has rejected allegations that it imposed only minor consequences, saying its Title IX process resulted in expulsions and suspensions. The university said no student was offered the opportunity to write essays as the sole consequence for their involvement and called suggestions that it failed to impose consequential punishment “false.”

Cornell said in a statement to Fox News it “fully support[s] the appointment of a special prosecutor” and is committed to “an independent external review of all aspects of how Cornell has handled this case.”

The case has also drawn renewed attention to Cornell’s campus climate after more than 35% of female undergraduates responding to a 2025 university survey reported experiencing nonconsensual sexual contact involving force, threats or incapacitation, up from 23% in 2023. Although Cornell said 926 of 6,000 students invited to take the survey responded, a participation rate of about 15%.

Gov. Kathy Hochul intervened Thursday, signing an executive order appointing the Office of the Attorney General as special prosecutor in the case.

James said her office would lead an investigation guided by “the facts and the law.”

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