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As a subscriber you can listen to articles at work, in the car, or while you work out. Subscribe NowNew York state prosecutors have reopened an investigation into an alleged rape at Cornell University in 2024 after a civil lawsuit filed earlier this month drew national attention.
Tompkins County District Attorney Matthew Van Houten confirmed Monday that he had begun the process of pursuing criminal charges against seven alleged perpetrators and would present the case to a grand jury.
In a lengthy statement that in part sought to explain why his office had not pursued charges earlier, Van Houten noted that the accuser — identified in the civil lawsuit only as “Jane Doe” — described in her sworn statement to police in 2024 that her participation in the alleged sexual conduct was “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,” Van Houten said. “… At the same time, I recognize 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.”
Earlier this month, Doe filed a civil lawsuit against Cornell University and seven members of the Chi Phi fraternity, among others, alleging that she was the victim of a gang rape at the Chi Phi fraternity house when she was incapable of consent.
The complaint contends that Doe, a 20-year-old student at Cornell, “was plied with alcohol and drugs to the point of intoxication” at the fraternity house, then sexually assaulted and raped by members of the fraternity.
It also alleges that the “house mother” employed by the sorority where Doe lived observed her in an intoxicated state and nevertheless took her to a bar in downtown Ithaca.
Doe’s lawyer did not immediately respond to a request for comment Monday.
On Monday, Cornell University said in a statement that it supports the district attorney’s decision to provide an opportunity for Doe’s allegations to be heard by a criminal grand jury.
Cornell has faced widespread outrage over the allegations.
The university said in its statement that it conducted a thorough Title IX investigation over several months and issued a range of sanctions including suspensions and expulsions. “None of the individuals charged were offered the opportunity to write essays as a sole consequence of their involvement,” university spokesman Kyle Kimball wrote.
The fraternity chapter was closed and barred from campus.
“Any suggestion that the university did not impose consequential punishments for those involved is false,” Kimball said. “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.”
In a statement last week, Kimball noted that a presidential task force on campus sexual assault launched shortly after the incident issued a report in March of this year, and the university has implemented several of the recommendations. “We take sexual violence extremely seriously,” he said.
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