New York Governor Kathy Hochul has appointed the state’s attorney general as a special prosecutor in investigating the alleged gang rape of a woman at Cornell University.
The woman has alleged she was drugged and raped by several men at a fraternity house. The case, which stems back to 2024, was reopened after the woman filed a civil lawsuit last month that thrust the allegations into the national spotlight.
“New information has raised serious questions about how this case was handled, and I’ve lost faith in the Tompkins County DA’s ability to fairly oversee it,” Hochul said.
Hochul’s announcement removes Tompkins County District Attorney Matthew Van Houten from overseeing the case.
He has defended his office’s previous decision not to file charges in the case, arguing they were not given enough evidence to meet the legal threshold.
Van Houten reopened the case after the civil lawsuit and said much of the information released in recent weeks about the case was not passed to his office.
“The young woman at the center of this case deserves to know that every fact will be examined and justice pursued,” Hochul said in a statement.
Getty ImagesThe attorney general will, if warranted, prosecute any offences found by her investigation and present evidence to a grand jury, the governor said.
Letitia James, the state’s chief legal officer, said on X that she stood ready “to lead a process guided by the facts and the law”.
“The Governor has entrusted my office with this investigation, and we do not take that responsibility lightly,” James added.
Hochul and James are scheduled to provide an update on the investigation on Friday morning local time.
The woman at the centre of the case, identified anonymously as Jane Doe in court documents, filed a civil lawsuit against the Ivy League university in September.
Jane Doe is a placeholder name sometimes used in US law for privacy or anonymity reasons.
She alleged that she was drugged and raped by seven men at a fraternity house at the university in 2024.
She claimed that Cornell failed to protect her or adequately punish the men, who have now become known as the Cornell Seven.
The case was initially referred to Van Houten, the top prosecutor in the county, in 2024.
Van Houten said his office did not bring charges at the time because he had only seen a statement from Doe implying the incident was consensual and that she had not been drugged.
This week, his office announced it would be reopening the case – less than two weeks after Doe filed her civil lawsuit.
Cornell has said it provided evidence to the district attorney’s office from its own investigation, including a Snapchat group chat in which fraternity members discussed a “free” sexual encounter with Doe on the night of the alleged assault.
Doe’s lawyer, Thomas Giuffra, has accused the district attorney of repeatedly changing his story amid news coverage of the case.
