Why has a Cornell rape investigation been reopened?

SaveSharefacebookxwhatsapp-strokecopylinkA Cornell University building is pictured in Ithaca, New York [File: Mary Chao/USA Today Network via Reuters]By Edna MohamedPublished On 29 Sep 202629 Sep 2026New York state prosecutors have reopened a case involving an alleged gang rape at Cornell University after a woman filed a civil lawsuit accusing the school and law enforcement officials of not doing enough.According to court documents filed in the lawsuit on September 16, which include screenshots of a group chat purportedly between members of the university fraternity at the centre of the allegations, the woman, referred to as Jane Doe, alleged she was drugged and raped at the fraternity house in 2024.The case has sparked anger on social media directed at Cornell and the District Attorney’s Office in Tompkins County, New York, over their handling of the allegations.On Monday, District Attorney Matthew Van Houten said in a statement that while at the time of the assault his office had found that evidence from the complainant’s initial statement did not meet the legal threshold to bring charges, he would now let a grand jury decide.“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,” Van Houten said.Here’s what we know about the case:What’s the case about?According to the 101-page lawsuit, the complainant visited a friend at the Chi Phi fraternity house at Cornell University in Ithaca, New York, on October 19, 2024, while she was already intoxicated after drinking at a local, off-campus bar.She stated that two members of the house propositioned her to sleep with both of them and later pressured her into taking ketamine and smoking marijuana.Doe, 20 at the time, alleged she was then raped by seven men at the Chi Phi fraternity house over the course of seven hours before blacking out about 5:45am.She said in the lawsuit that because she was under the influence, there was no way she was able to provide consent.Doe added that although she reported the incident to the university’s police department on November 8, 2024, prosecutors filed no criminal charges.In a statement to US broadcaster CBS News on Monday, Doe’s lawyer, Thomas Giuffra, said she went to the police because she believed she was the “victim of a crime”.“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,” Giuffra said.He added that Cornell expelled two fraternity members after an internal review of the allegations, but five others received lesser repercussions, including suspensions, workshops and essay assignments.“Not one of these guys was arrested. Not one. That I can tell you for a fact,” Giuffra told CBS New York, adding that Doe dropped out of school after her ordeal.The lawsuit names Matthew Ingalls, Johnathan Newell, Winston Lee, Gillio Lopes, Diego Sarabia, Scott Norris and Scott Kretzschmar as the men in question.It also names Cornell; the Chi Phi fraternity; Doe’s sorority, Delta Delta Delta; the off-campus bar; and the seven men as defendants and accuses them of breach of contract, negligence and violations of state law.Doe is seeking monetary damages, including compensatory and punitive damages. The lawsuit did not specify how much Doe was asking for.What was the group chat about?The lawsuit includes images of a group chat on Snapchat among members of the fraternity in which one person alerted others crudely that they could sleep with the victim for “free”.An image of the group chat shows a message from one person who wrote: “I f****** love Chi Phi.”Kretzschmar, a then-fraternity member, allegedly sent two responses in the Snapchat group but has denied involvement.Have any of the defendants responded?Yes. Kretzschmar’s attorney, Jeremy Saland, told CBS News that the messages were inappropriate but were not evidence of sexual assault.“This is a situation where there was an ugly Snapchat – ugly, period. … But that doesn’t make my client a rapist, and it certainly doesn’t make anyone a sex offender,” Saland said.He added that his client had briefly entered the room where Doe was but did not touch her “in any way, shape or form” and left quickly afterwards.Regarding the accusation of ketamine use, Saland said Kretzschmar took a hair follicle test that found he did not have the drug in his system, adding that no one has contacted him about a renewed investigation.“We are available to present exonerating evidence. I just hope the right thing is eventually done, this case is closed and my client can live his life and not be subject to this selfish, repugnant, vile claim by this woman about him,” he added.Meanwhile, Andrew Miltenberg, an attorney representing Lopes, also told CBS New York that his client “unequivocally denies the allegations against him”.What has the university said?In a statement published on Monday, Cornell said it supports the district attorney’s decision to have Doe’s story heard by a grand jury.It explained that the university initially conducted its own investigation into the allegations over several months and sent the matter to a hearing in which a panel of trained faculty and staff heard evidence from Doe and the defendants.“At its conclusion, the hearing panel 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,” the statement read, adding that Chi Phi fraternity was closed in 2024 and remains barred from campus.“Any suggestion that the university did not impose consequential punishments for those involved is false. A continuation of the false narrative that there were minimal consequences in this case is irresponsible, will make survivors feel less safe and supported, and will perpetuate the underreporting of sexual assault,” it added.What has the district attorney said?According to Van Houten’s statement on Monday, in Doe’s initial statement in November 2024, she did not allege that she was drugged against her will or gang-raped.“On the contrary, Jane Doe’s statement described her participation in drug use and sexual conduct as voluntary, conscious and consensual. My office obviously did not and could not have based our November 2024 decision on the allegations in a civil lawsuit that would not be filed until nearly two years later,” he said.“I recognise 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. Seeking justice sometimes requires us to reconsider or reopen cases when we are provided with additional evidence,” the statement added.Van Houten said a female senior prosecutor from his office who has significant experience in prosecuting sex crimes and has been involved in conducting jury trials in college sexual assault cases will prepare the case for the grand jury.How common is sexual assault on university campuses in the US?According to the Association of American Universities Campus Climate Survey in 2019, the overall rate of nonconsensual sexual contact by physical force or an inability to consent among women attending universities in the United States was 13 percent.Among undergraduate women, the rate was 26.4 percent, or roughly one in four students. For undergraduate men, it was 6.9 percent.Among postgraduate female students, 10.8 percent reported sexual contact by physical force or an inability to consent.