Tompkins County District Attorney Matthew Van Houten is reopening the investigation into an alleged 2024 gang rape at Cornell University after admitting his office never saw key statements from the accuser.
Van Houten, 51, said Monday that campus police had forwarded only a condensed six-page statement in which the woman, identified in court papers as Jane Doe, described her participation in drug use and sexual conduct as “voluntary, conscious, and consensual.” He released excerpts showing she recalled the threesome ending around 5:45 a.m. When she said she was tired and both men stopped. “On the contrary,” Van Houten said of claims she was drugged against her will or gang raped, the signed statement presented a far different picture than what later emerged.
Yet that six-page document was itself a distillation of a roughly 120-page interview Doe gave campus police and a Title IX investigator on Nov. 14-15, 2024, according to a transcript. In that fuller conversation, Doe reportedly stated flatly: “I can say with 100% confidence I was raped.” She also described being “completely and totally incapacitated” and called the encounter “coercion.” The transcript showed her saying she kept taking ketamine hoping to “pass out” so the men could be charged with rape. “I had become extremely uncomfortable with how this night was turning out so my thought was, if I do ketamine again maybe I will pass out,” she said in the original interview. “My thought was that if I passed out and these men had sex with me, then they could be charged with rape.”
How those blunt assertions vanished from the signed statement Doe approved the next day remains unexplained. Van Houten insisted he “certainly” would have considered charges had he received the full transcript. Cornell Campus Police told The Post that “all investigatory information” had been provided to the DA’s office at the time.
The alleged assault occurred Oct. 19-20, 2024, at the Chi Phi fraternity house, where Doe, then a 20-year-old junior, arrived for a night of partying. According to her September 16 lawsuit, a brother she had been interested in propositioned her for a threesome, then led her upstairs despite her being too drunk to consent. The suit alleges he and another brother pressured her into snorting ketamine for the first time, then plied her with marijuana and high-proof rum before sexual acts began. More fraternity members allegedly entered the room over the following hours, snorting ketamine off her body and having sex with her. The ordeal lasted from approximately 1:40 a.m. Until nearly 6 a.m., the suit states.
Unbeknownst to Doe, messages allegedly flew through a Snapchat group called “Chi Phi Actives.” One declared there was “free p–sy” in the house. “Like you can walk in and whip it out,” a brother replied, while others wrote “I f–king love chi phi” and “CHI PHIII,” according to a screenshot in the lawsuit.
Doe’s path to reporting was fractured and delayed. She initially continued communicating with the brother she had liked, texting him after he apologized that “at the end of the day non of the sexual stuff was illegal and honestly i really liked being w u.” But as campus rumors swirled about her supposed “eightsome,” she encountered online comments describing how brothers “gang r*ped a sophomore.” “That’s the first time I had ever heard the narrative change that I wasn’t a whore and that I was assaulted,” she told investigators. “I was a sex doll for all intents and purposes, which is sad.” She confronted the brother on Nov. 3: “let’s be clear that 90% of what happened that night was not consensual. I was given more [ketamine] than i can remember.” Within four days she sought a rape kit at a local hospital and began reporting to authorities.
The Title IX investigation that followed compiled more than 1,000 documents, the Times reported Thursday, including interviews with Doe’s friends, roommates, the accused brothers, and extensive text messages. A sorority sister whom Doe confided in told investigators she recognized the delayed trauma response from personal experience. “I could tell that — just from personal experiences — that what she was going through is that she had not yet processed what had happened,” the friend said.
Cornell’s handling of the case has drawn fierce criticism. At least two brothers were expelled, while others were allowed to complete their studies, and the Chi Phi chapter was disbanded in 2024. But Doe’s lawsuit claims her attackers were merely suspended before being allowed to “mitigate their conduct by submitting essays.” The university called her characterization “irresponsible” and denied its response was inadequate. Student protests are expected to spread across campus this weekend and into next week. “This is obviously a horrible look for the university,” said Alex Walters, 20, a junior and two-year member of the Cornell Student Assembly as VP of communications. “I think they’ve not done much to respond well, or they’ve not improved the university’s image throughout the duration of this nationally-watched crisis,” He added: “It is purely evil the way that Jane Doe was treated. It is not a way that I’ve ever imagined anyone I’ve interacted on this campus treating another person.”
Prominent civil attorney Sarah Klein, who specializes in representing survivors of sexual abuse, said the case raises questions extending far beyond the alleged assault itself. Attorney Julie Rendelman, a former Brooklyn sex-crimes prosecutor, agreed that “Civil litigation can expose institutional failures that a criminal prosecution may never address.” Van Houten has now convened a grand jury to potentially bring criminal charges.