New York Governor Kathy Hochul stripped the local district attorney of authority over an alleged Cornell gang rape case and handed it to state Attorney General Letitia James after discovering the accuser’s explicit rape claim never reached prosecutors.
Hochul, 66, announced the executive order during a blistering Manhattan press conference last Friday, revealing that Jane Doe had told Cornell campus police and Title IX investigators she was “100%” certain she had been raped by multiple fraternity members in October 2024. Those exact words, however, were omitted from the police summary forwarded to the Tompkins County District Attorney’s office, which then declined to prosecute.
“In what world would the police learn from a victim that she’d been literally gang raped while intoxicated by five men in a fraternity house and not elevate those allegations to the district attorney?” Hochul asked reporters.
The governor’s fury intensified as she detailed how District Attorney Matthew Van Houten never interviewed Doe, never spoke to others involved, and never requested the complete transcript of her police interview. “In what world does the district not even interview her or anyone else involved, or even request a full transcript?” she said with visible contempt.
Hochul framed the failures as systemic betrayal. “This young woman had already endured something that is utterly unspeakable. And then at every turn she was failed by people and institutions with an obligation to protect her.”
The case exploded into national view last month when Doe, identified only by pseudonym, filed a 101-page lawsuit in Manhattan Supreme Court against seven members of Cornell’s Phi Chi fraternity. The suit alleges the men drugged her with alcohol and ketamine, then subjected her to hours of sexual assault while one messaged a 50-person Snapchat group called “Chi Phi Actives” that there was “free p–sy” in the house.
James assumed control of what she designated an “active criminal investigation” with a direct promise to survivors. “We will review the facts, gather evidence, interview witnesses, and if warranted pursue prosecutions,” she stated. “I know that you want answers. I do, too.”
Van Houten had defended his 2024 declination by claiming Doe’s sworn statement to Cornell police, while disturbing, did not actually accuse the male students of rape. He maintained he received only a six-page summary from police, not the full transcript that surfaced this week containing Doe’s unambiguous declaration: “I can say with 100% confidence I was raped.”
Hochul seized on this discrepancy as evidence of institutional breakdown. “Yet shockingly. Those words never made it into the account; those words never made it to the account that the Cornell police set to prosecutors,” she said.
The governor’s executive order reflected a broader warning to institutions she accused of self-protection. “No institution gets to protect its reputation at the expense of a young person seeking justice. No public official gets to look the other way when the system breaks down and fails our young people. And as governor, I will not allow anyone to sweep this case under the rug,” she declared.
Cornell University Police had previously told The Post that “all investigatory information” from Doe’s case was shared with the DA’s office in 2024, though the department did not clarify whether that specifically included the transcript.
Doe’s lawsuit also savaged Cornell’s internal Title IX process, which spanned 12 hearings and resulted in what she called inadequate punishment: only two of the seven accused students were expelled, according to the filing. The Ivy League institution has denied her claims and asserted it acted in coordination with police, adding that it banned the Chi Phi chapter from campus.
The October 2024 incident at the Phi Chi fraternity house allegedly involved multiple assailants and extended over several hours, with the Snapchat message suggesting active coordination among fraternity members during the assault itself.
Hochul’s intervention represents a rare state-level takeover of a local prosecution, triggered by what she called “serious questions about the information [Van Houten’s] office relied upon when it made that decision.”
James’s office will now determine whether criminal charges can proceed against the seven fraternity brothers more than a year after the original incident.