Cornell gang-rape case reopened as DA investigates alleged assault, university response

In October 2024, a 20-year-old Cornell University student went to a Chi Phi fraternity house on campus to visit a friend. She was intoxicated—she had consumed roughly ten drinks in three hours, including at least one served to her by a nightclub despite a mark on her hand indicating she was underage. What happened over the next six hours, according to a civil lawsuit filed in September 2026, was a systematic assault by seven fraternity members who drugged her with ketamine, pressured her into sexual acts she could not consent to, and invited other fraternity brothers to join them via a Snapchat message offering "free pussy."

The woman, identified in court documents as Jane Doe, reported the assault to Cornell University Police in early November 2024, weeks after the incident. The university conducted an internal disciplinary investigation, heard testimony from both the woman and the accused over multiple days, and issued sanctions. According to Cornell's statement, some students were expelled and others suspended. But the lawsuit tells a different story: that the seven men—Matthew Ingalls, Johnathan Newell, Winston Lee, Gillio Lopes, Diego Sarabia, Scott Norris, and Scott Kretzschmar—received only temporary suspensions and were offered the chance to write essays to mitigate their conduct. Cornell disputes this characterization, insisting that "any suggestion that the university did not impose consequential punishments for those involved is false." The on-campus Chi Phi chapter was closed in 2024 and remains barred from returning.

No criminal charges were filed. The district attorney at the time, Matthew Van Houten, explained in a statement released in September 2026 that when Jane Doe first spoke to campus police, she did not initially describe the incident as a gang rape or mention being drugged. Her statement, he said, characterized her participation in drug use and sexual conduct as voluntary and consensual. Her attorney had not contacted the DA's office to request reconsideration. The Ithaca Police Department said it had never been informed of the allegations at all and learned of them only through media coverage.

When the lawsuit became public on September 16, 2026, the response was immediate and fierce. Alumni announced they would stop donating. Prospective students withdrew their acceptances. Cornell's student newspaper editorial board identified all seven accused by name on September 21 in an editorial titled "Cornell won't, we will." A former South Park writer launched a website to expose them. Actors Josh Gad and Florence Pugh posted condemnations online. Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez spoke at a town hall in Ithaca about what she called a "culture of rape" at elite institutions. On Monday, September 23, Ithaca's mayor called for a moratorium on all student and special event permits, including Greek life gatherings, citing the "appalling response" by Cornell's administration. Governor Kathy Hochul demanded a "transparent, independent review" of how the university had handled the case.

On the same Monday, Van Houten announced he was reopening the criminal investigation. "Once we determine the appropriate charges, the case will be prosecuted in the most objective and impartial means available—by testimony to the Tompkins County grand jury," he said. The reopening came after the lawsuit detailed allegations that had not been part of the original police statement: that the woman was pressured to snort ketamine, that she was assaulted by multiple men over hours, that one man put ketamine on his penis and told her to snort it, and that men snorted the drug off her naked body. The lawsuit also included an image of the Snapchat message sent at 1:42 a.m. inviting other fraternity members to the room, along with purported responses from the accused.

Jane Doe's attorney, Thomas Giuffra, defended his client's initial statement to police by pointing to her psychological state in the days after the assault. "She was traumatized, numb and unable to function or accept the horror of what had happened," he said. "She was in self-preservation mode." He questioned why she was never interviewed by trained investigators or contacted by the district attorney's office to reconsider the decision not to prosecute. "It is challenging for me to understand how a thorough criminal investigation could have been conducted when she never spoke with anyone other than the officer who took her original complaint."

One of the accused's lawyers, Jeremy Saland, told the BBC that his client denies the allegations. The client made "an immature comment on Snapchat" but "did nothing else," Saland said, and "was involved in no sexual activity nor touched the plaintiff in any way and ingested no ketamine." Meanwhile, Data Annotation Tech, an AI training company, announced it had terminated its contract with Matthew Ingalls, saying it was "deeply sorry for what happened" and that any future reinstatement would be considered only after civil proceedings concluded and the court issued its findings.

The case has drawn comparisons to last year's Hockey Canada sexual assault trial in London, Ontario, where all five players were acquitted. What distinguishes this moment is the scale and speed of the public response—the naming of the accused, the corporate consequences, the political attention, the institutional pressure. The grand jury investigation will now determine whether criminal charges are warranted. The civil lawsuit continues. And the question of what Cornell knew, when it knew it, and what it chose to do about it remains at the center of a widening reckoning.