Local prosecutors have reopened an investigation into an alleged gang rape at Cornell University.
A former student filed a civil lawsuit this month alleging that she was drugged and gang raped in 2024. The woman, identified as Jane Doe, has said that the incident happened at the Chi Phi fraternity house on October 19. According to the filing, seven members of Chi Phi participated in the sexual assault.
The Tompkins County District Attorney’s Office said on Monday that it plans to seek a grand jury review on the reopened case to determine if criminal charges should be pursued against the alleged assailants.
Matthew Van Houten, the county district attorney, said that no criminal charges were filed in 2024 because the alleged victim did not give Cornell police the same details that are included in the current lawsuit.
For example, Van Houten has said that nothing in the victim’s initial complaint indicated that she was drugged. He also said that every time the victim asked for the sexual contact to stop, it stopped. However, Doe’s attorney has said that the information was turned over to campus police in a timely manner and that there were no material differences from what is in the current complain.
One of the major issues in this case is how the university handled the incident when it was first reported in 2024.
Doe first reported the assault to Cornell in November 2024. According to her attorney, the school expelled two of the seven accused attackers and the rest received suspensions, workshops, and written assignments.
The university pushed back on the claim and has said that all of the accused students received several sanctions including suspensions, but none of them were made to do essays as a sole consequence of their participation in the incident. Last week, the school declined to confirm that disciplinary outcomes, citing federal student privacy laws.
The new lawsuit claims that Cornell failed to properly address the assault, including “sheltering them [the alleged assailants] from speaking to law enforcement, and silencing victims.
The office of New York Attorney General Letitia James will be reviewing Cornell’s response to the incident.
