--- title: "Prosecutors reopen Cornell rape inquiry after lawsuit and a week of public fury" description: "The Tompkins County district attorney now wants a grand jury to weigh evidence his office never gathered itself" author: "Arthur Wren" published: 2026-09-28T21:56:29.009Z modified: 2026-09-29T01:20:19Z url: https://rews.cc/a/prosecutors-reopen-cornell-gang-rape-case-after-a-lawsuit-sa-64ebce language: en tags: ["crime", "rape", "university", "law", "education", "us"] publisher: "Rews (https://rews.cc)" --- # Prosecutors reopen Cornell rape inquiry after lawsuit and a week of public fury *The Tompkins County district attorney now wants a grand jury to weigh evidence his office never gathered itself* By Arthur Wren · September 28, 2026 · https://rews.cc/a/prosecutors-reopen-cornell-gang-rape-case-after-a-lawsuit-sa-64ebce ## In brief - Tompkins County DA Matthew Van Houten is reopening the probe into an alleged October 2024 gang rape at Cornell’s Chi Phi fraternity and will present evidence to a grand jury - A Sept. 16 civil suit by “Jane Doe” alleges seven fraternity members plied her with alcohol and ketamine and assaulted her; one allegedly invited others via Snapchat - Van Houten says Doe’s 2024 statement alleged no drugging or force; her lawyer disputes that and says authorities never followed up with her - Van Houten acknowledged his office relied on Cornell police and did not independently investigate; Cornell denies claims the accused could mitigate sanctions by writing essays - The case drew outrage from Cornell’s student paper, alumni and public figures; two accused men denied wrongdoing through attorneys The district attorney of Tompkins County, New York, has reopened the investigation into what a civil lawsuit describes as the gang rape of a twenty-year-old Cornell student by seven fraternity members in October 2024. Matthew Van Houten says he will put the case before a grand jury. No one was charged the first time, and the reason now on display is worth a hard look: the first investigation was barely an investigation at all. The case returned to life because of a 101-page civil complaint filed on September 16 by the woman, named as Jane Doe, against the seven men, the Chi Phi fraternity, Cornell University, an Ithaca bar and nightclub called Moonies, and others. According to the complaint, Doe had been drinking with her sorority and at a nightclub — which served her, it says, despite marking an X on her hand for being underage — and arrived at the Chi Phi house near 11 p.m. on October 19, 2024, visibly drunk, having consumed about ten standard drinks in three hours. There, the suit alleges, members gave her more alcohol, pressed her to snort ketamine she had never used, and assaulted her while she was incapable of consent. At 1:42 a.m., one man allegedly told the fraternity’s Snapchat group that there was, in the message’s word, “free pussy” upstairs, and invited others in. The complaint says the assaults went on in two rooms until 5:45 a.m. She reported the matter to Cornell’s own police force around November 8, 2024. Van Houten’s office declined to bring charges, and the account he now gives of that decision is blunt. Doe’s sworn statement, he told ABC News, did not allege she was drugged or forced. “She does not say that she was physically helpless or unconscious or incapacitated at any point during the time at the fraternity house,” he said. Then came the admission that explains the rest. Van Houten acknowledged to ABC that his office did not “independently investigate” at all but relied on the campus police inquiry, a practice he described as common in upstate counties. He also said the office was never given the screenshot of the group chat that now sits in the complaint. In other words, prosecutors accepted the word of a university police department, never once spoke to the complainant themselves, and closed the file. Doe’s lawyer, Thomas P. Giuffra, disputes the district attorney’s version at every point. He told CNN the police report was “not materially different” from the complaint, and that the chat messages — “a critical piece of evidence” — were handed to authorities in 2024. “Other than her initial contact with Cornell Police, she was not contacted by investigators from the Tompkins County District Attorney’s Office or any investigators trained in interviewing rape survivors,” he said. “While I do not care for the attempt to blame Ms. Doe for these failures, we appreciate and support any efforts to prosecute the parties.” Van Houten, for his part, says the allegations in the lawsuit are “dramatically different” from the 2024 statement and that he wants to learn whether evidence exists now that was absent then. He told the Associated Press he had never been contacted by Doe’s attorney about reconsidering the case, and said his office had been flooded with calls, emails, insults and threats driven by what he called incomplete coverage. “Once we determine the appropriate charges, the case will be prosecuted in the most objective and impartial means available — by testimony to the Tompkins County grand jury,” he told CBC News. Cornell’s own conduct is the second subject of the suit. The complaint alleged the seven accused men received temporary suspensions and, in its words, “were afforded the opportunity to mitigate their conduct by submitting essays.” Giuffra says two of the seven were ultimately expelled and the rest drew lesser punishments — suspensions, workshops, written assignments. Cornell denies the essay claim flatly: it says a months-long Title IX investigation ended in a hearing before trained faculty and staff, with both sides testifying over multiple days, and sanctions ranging to expulsion. “None of the individuals charged were offered the opportunity to write essays as a sole consequence of their involvement,” the university said, adding that talk of minimal consequences “will make survivors feel less safe and supported.” It barred the Chi Phi chapter from campus in 2024 and says it set up a sexual assault task force. Citing federal privacy law, it will not say who received what. ## The fury that forced the file open What moved the prosecutor was not new evidence but new attention. On September 21 the Cornell Daily Sun’s editorial board named the seven accused men under the heading “Cornell won’t, we will,” and later wrote that the university had bred a place where “enough ambiguity, enough he-said-she-said, enough familial connections, enough money will allow you to get off scot-free.” The men — the suit names them as Matthew Ingalls, Johnathan Newell, Winston Lee, Gillio Lopes, Diego Sarabia, Scott Norris and Scott Kretzschmar — are now called “the Cornell 7” online. Alumni have threatened to stop giving money; a former South Park writer built a website about the accused; the actors Josh Gad and Florence Pugh posted condemnations, and Meta confirmed to Mother Jones that it had first placed, then removed, a sensitive-content label on Pugh’s post. At a town hall in Ithaca, Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez called it a “culture of rape” at elite institutions: “What we must do is understand that we cannot protect those spaces anymore.” The accused deny the charges. Jeremy Saland, a lawyer for Kretzschmar, said his client “never sexually assaulted or even touched the plaintiff in any way. Period,” and called her claims “selfishly false.” Norris, through his attorney, said he took part in no sexual activity or drug use and was found responsible by Cornell for none of it, though he allowed that he “thoughtlessly engaged in Snapchat and briefly stopped in the room where misconduct happened but not when it happened.” > “What I experienced from those who raped me in the fraternity was the worst experience of my life. I was brutalized and it injured me physically but perhaps more importantly, emotionally ... It will haunt me and be part of me the rest of my life.” Those were Doe’s words, given to CNN. The suit seeks damages for negligence, assault and battery and breaches of New York’s Human Rights Law; according to CBC, Giuffra says his client’s “dreams” have been destroyed and that she has been “gratified by the outpouring of support.” One more fact belongs on the record. The same day Van Houten announced the grand jury, Mother Jones noted, the Trump administration finalised its repeal of the Biden-era Title IX rule that had required schools to run a formal process for sexual misconduct claims — the very kind of proceeding Cornell now cites as proof of its diligence. The grand jury will decide what was crime. The public has already seen what counted for a first investigation: a campus police report, an unread group chat, and a closed file. It took a lawsuit and a week’s anger to open it again. ## Sources - [New York prosecutors reopen Cornell gang rape investigation after student sues](https://cnn.com/2026/09/28/us/cornell-university-sexual-assault-lawsuit-hnk) — cnn.com - [Prosecutor reopens probe into Cornell gang rape allegations after accuser files lawsuit](https://yahoo.com/news/us/articles/prosecutor-reopens-probe-cornell-gang-155247092.html) — yahoo.com - [District attorney reopens case of alleged Cornell University 'gang rape'](https://yahoo.com/news/us/articles/district-attorney-reopens-case-alleged-000801445.html) — yahoo.com - [New York reopens Cornell gang-rape investigation after lawsuit](https://cbc.ca/news/world/cornell-sexual-assault-case-9.7360733) — cbc.ca - [Prosecutors are revisiting allegations of gang rape at Cornell](https://motherjones.com/politics/2026/09/cornell-seven-rape-chi-phi-fraternity-allegations/) — motherjones.com