By Joseph Ax
Oct 1 (Reuters) – New York state prosecutors have reopened an investigation into the alleged 2024 gang rape of a Cornell University student, after the woman filed a civil lawsuit last month saying several members of a campus fraternity drugged and assaulted her.
The case has prompted public outcry and raised questions about how law enforcement and the university initially responded after the woman, then 20, reported the incident to police a few weeks after it occurred.
Here is what we know:
WHAT DOES THE WOMAN SAY HAPPENED?
The alleged victim, who uses the pseudonym Jane Doe in court papers, filed a lawsuit in New York in mid-September that named as defendants seven fraternity members, the Chi Phi fraternity, Cornell, a local bar and her own sorority.
According to the lawsuit, she went to meet a friend at the Chi Phi fraternity house on October 19, 2024, after drinking earlier in the evening. The friend, a member of the fraternity, and other members plied her with alcohol, marijuana and ketamine, an anesthetic that can cause hallucinogenic effects, and sexually assaulted her after she became incapacitated, the lawsuit alleges.
The complaint includes a screenshot of a group text chain among several fraternity members in which one man crudely encouraged others to join in the sexual activity.
WHAT HAVE PROSECUTORS SAID?
On Monday, the Tompkins County district attorney, Matthew Van Houten, said his office had reopened the case and would present evidence, including testimony from the woman, to a grand jury for possible indictment.
Van Houten acknowledged the public outcry following the civil lawsuit and referred to “additional evidence,” though he did not provide details.
He offered a lengthy explanation for why prosecutors did not pursue criminal charges in 2024. The woman’s sworn statement to police, he said, “described her participation in drug use and sexual conduct as voluntary, conscious, and consensual.”
Prosecutors’ decision was driven at least in part by New York’s narrowly tailored sexual assault law. Under the law, it can be harder to bring rape charges in cases in which the victim willingly consumed alcohol or drugs. Several New York lawmakers this week renewed a years-long push to rewrite state statutes to eliminate that distinction, arguing that it creates a potential loophole for rapists to avoid prosecution.
Jane Doe’s lawyer, Thomas Giuffra, has criticized prosecutors for not investigating further at the time and has told news outlets that the district attorney’s office never spoke to his client before declining to bring charges.
WHAT HAVE WE LEARNED ABOUT THE INITIAL INVESTIGATION?
In recent days, several new reports have revealed more about what law enforcement knew in 2024.
CBS New York obtained a copy of the transcript of Jane Doe’s interview with police, which included far more detail than the sworn statement police eventually provided to prosecutors.
“I can say with 100% confidence I was raped,” she told police in mid-November, several weeks after the incident.
That assertion was not included in the shorter written statement that Van Houten’s office relied upon in deciding whether to pursue charges.
The New York Times obtained more than 1,000 pages of material from Cornell’s internal investigation into the incident. The documents show that the woman’s understanding of the event shifted over time, the newspaper reported; she told police it took some time for her to fully realize that she had been gang-raped.
WHAT HAS THE UNIVERSITY SAID?
Cornell has defended its handling of the matter, saying that it launched a comprehensive investigation and barred from campus the Chi Phi chapter, which remains closed. The school imposed a range of discipline on the fraternity members, including expulsions and sanctions.
The lawsuit claimed Cornell failed to adequately punish the alleged perpetrators and offered some a chance to mitigate their penalties by writing essays.
On Wednesday, New York Governor Kathy Hochul said Cornell had agreed to hire an outside law firm to conduct a new investigation.
WHAT HAS THE FRATERNITY SAID?
The interim executive director of the national Chi Phi fraternity, Trey Robb, said in a statement on Wednesday that the Cornell chapter expelled members understood to have been involved in the incident, as did the national fraternity.
“These actions went beyond anything the law or Cornell University required of us,” Robb said.
WHAT HAVE THE ACCUSED MEMBERS SAID?
The New York Times, citing the internal Cornell documents, said the men all denied any wrongdoing and told school investigators that the sex was consensual. But in some comments, the men did express unease or concern about the interaction, the Times reported.
(Reporting by Joseph Ax; editing by Paul Thomasch and Rod Nickel)
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