Matt Burkhartt/Getty ImagesNew York state prosecutors say they will reopen a criminal inquiry into the alleged rape of a woman at Cornell University in 2024.
The woman filed a civil lawsuit on 16 September alleging she was drugged and raped by multiple people at a fraternity house at the university.
“Once we determine the appropriate charges, the case will be prosecuted in the most objective and impartial means possible” through a grand jury, Tompkins County District Attorney Matthew Van Houten said Monday.
Cornell University said that while it supported the case being brought before a grand jury, “any suggestion that the university did not impose consequential punishments for those involved is false”.
Jane Doe said in her lawsuit that she was intoxicated during the alleged incident and was incapable of providing consent.
She said she reported the incident to Cornell University Police on 8 November 2024.
The lawsuit also contains an image purported to be from a Snapchat fraternity group chat, in which a participant alerted other members, in vulgar terms, to the potential for a sexual encounter with Jane Doe.
Van Houten said on Monday that at the time of the assault two years ago, his office concluded that evidence from her statement to authorities did not meet the legal threshold to bring charges.
He said he reached out to Jane Doe and her lawyers for more information as he prepared to bring the case to a grand jury.
In the US legal system, prosecutors convene grand juries to weigh evidence and testimony and eventually vote on whether they merit criminal charges.
In his statement, Van Houten included a summary of what Jane Doe told the Cornell University Police Department in 2024 after the alleged attack. He noted the statement differed from the allegations laid out in the lawsuit.
“Jane Doe’s sworn statement in November of 2024 did not allege that she was drugged against her will or gang raped,” Van Houten said in a statement on Monday.
“On the contrary, Jane Doe’s statement described her participation in drug use and sexual conduct as voluntary, conscious, and consensual.”
Van Houten added that Jane Doe’s lawyers had never been in touch with him to say her original statement was inaccurate or to ask him to reconsider his decision not to bring charges.
He later acknowledged “the reality that it can take years of therapy and healing for victims of sexual assaults to fully process and understand what happened to them”.
The BBC has contacted Jane Doe’s lawyer, Thomas Giuffra. In a statement on Monday obtained by CBS, the BBC’s US partner, he said: “In the days following the assault, [Jane Doe] was traumatised, numb and unable to function or accept the horror of what had happened. She was in self-preservation mode.”
Giuffra said Jane Doe never spoke to anyone other than the officer who took her initial complaint, adding: “I would have expected at the very least that she would have been interviewed several times and evidence collected by law enforcement and a case developed. This is the normal sequence for serious crime investigations.”
“The defensive posture I have gleaned from the DA’s statements leads me to believe that they recognise that there were failures and they are trying to excuse them,” he said.
Jane Doe also alleged in her civil lawsuit that Cornell did not protect her nor adequately punish the men involved, alleging they were “afforded the opportunity to mitigate their conduct by submitting essays”.
Jane Doe suffered “severe emotional and psychological distress and personal physical injury” due to the incident and the university’s handling, the suit states, adding that news of the incident quickly circulated through the school.
In November 2024, Cornell University issued a public statement regarding the “serious and deeply disturbing allegations of drug abuse and sexual violence at the Chi Phi fraternity house”, saying its campus police department was investigating and that it had suspended the local chapter of the Chi Phi fraternity, as well as “a number of students.”
Cornell also said it had opened an internal investigation as well as a civil rights inquiry under the Title IX law – which bars sex discrimination in schools that receive funding from the federal government, including most universities.
On Monday, the university disputed Jane Doe’s allegation that it did not adequately investigate or punish the alleged perpetrators.
The university said in a statement that the matter was referred to a “panel of trained faculty and staff” that issued “a range of sanctions, which included expulsions and suspensions from Cornell”.
“None of the individuals charged were offered the opportunity to write essays as a sole consequence of their involvement,” Cornell said.
Jeremy Saland, an attorney for one of the men named in the lawsuit, denied the allegations.
Saland acknowledged his client “responded to and made an immature comment on Snapchat”, but “did nothing else.” Saland denied his client “was involved in no sexual activity nor touched the plaintiff in any way and ingested no ketamine”.
The case has received national attention following Doe’s lawsuit and the announcement the case would be reopened. Several celebrities, including actress Florence Pugh, have spoken out about it.
If you are suffering distress or despair and need support, you could speak to a health professional, or an organisation that offers support. Details of help available in many countries can be found at Befrienders Worldwide.
A list of UK organisations that can help is available here.
