Cornell investigators hear account of alleged gang rape at fraternity house

In May of 2025, a woman sat across from Cornell University investigators and described what it felt like to lose control of her own body. She had been at a Chi Phi fraternity house in October 2024, invited by a man she had long wanted to be with. What began as consensual sexual activity with him and one of his friends shifted when other men started arriving in the room—some of them summoned by a Snapchat message sent at 1:42 a.m. that used crude language to advertise that a woman's body was available. She told the investigators she had been given ketamine for the first time that night, along with marijuana and alcohol. The drug left her in what she called a state of "vague consciousness"—present enough to appear functional, she explained, but with her brain not operating at its proper level. "I felt like bait. I felt like lions around me," she said. "It just was a totally debilitating place to be in."

The woman, identified in legal filings only as Jane Doe, alleged that multiple men sexually assaulted her while she was incapacitated. She said some of them used drugs off her unclothed body. In October 2024, three weeks after the encounter, she went to campus police and gave a detailed account. The local district attorney reviewed a police summary of her interview and decided not to file criminal charges or pursue further investigation. But Cornell's Title IX process continued, operating under federal law to determine what discipline the university itself would impose.

The university's investigation was extensive. Investigators conducted 50 interviews with 32 witnesses over the course of 12 days of hearings. Documents from that investigation, filed in court this week as part of a lawsuit brought by one of the accused men, reveal how sharply the accounts diverged. The woman and several of the men acknowledged that drug use and sexual activity occurred at the fraternity house. They disagreed fundamentally about consent.

One of the men the woman accused of snorting drugs off her body denied her version of events entirely. He told investigators he spent no more than five minutes in the room and went there only to check on the woman's wellbeing—what he called a "wellness check." He said she was covered by bed coverings the entire time, that he never saw her naked, and that he did not use drugs. He sat on a couch, chatted briefly, and left after confirming that both the woman and another man in the room indicated they were fine. A Cornell disciplinary panel later cleared him of sexual assault and exploitation charges, but found him responsible for attempted sexual exploitation, concluding his stated reasons for entering the room were not credible. That same student had posted in the Snapchat conversation, writing that what was happening was not a joke and adding "Firsthand pov not a bit." When investigators asked him about the message, he said he did not remember sending it.

In her lawsuit filed last month, Jane Doe accused seven former students of rape. She identified two men as having performed sex acts on her without consent while she was partially incapacitated. She accused another of kissing her without consent. According to the Title IX documents, she told investigators that two other men stood at the foot of the bed acting as voyeurs. She is seeking unspecified damages and holding all seven men liable for rape.

Cornell has not publicly detailed the results of its investigation, but confirmed that some students were expelled. The man challenging his punishment in court was permitted to remain at the university but was ordered to stay away from the woman, complete a class on sexual harassment and bystander intervention, and write a paper reflecting on his conduct with a proposal for training other students on preventing sexual harassment.

The case took a significant turn late Thursday when New York Governor Kathy Hochul appointed Attorney General Letitia James as a special prosecutor to lead a renewed criminal investigation. Hochul said she had lost confidence in Tompkins County District Attorney Matthew Van Houten's handling of the matter. The appointment signals that the question of criminal liability—which the local prosecutor had declined to pursue—will now be revisited at the state level.