WASHINGTON — A woman identified in court papers as Jane Doe alleges she was gang-raped at Cornell University’s Chi Phi fraternity house in October 2024 after being given ketamine, marijuana and alcohol. Her lawsuit, filed last month against Cornell and seven former students, seeks unspecified damages. The allegations surfaced in heavily redacted disciplinary records made public this week as New York Governor Kathy Hochul appointed Attorney General Letitia James to lead a renewed criminal investigation.
Hochul said she had lost confidence in Tompkins County District Attorney Matthew Van Houten, who declined to file charges or seek further investigation after reviewing a campus police summary. The woman reported the encounter to police three weeks later and provided a detailed account.
Records reviewed by The Associated Press include excerpts of Title IX interviews with the woman and the accused men. They show Cornell conducted 50 interviews with 32 witnesses and 12 days of hearings, although the disclosed material represents only a fraction of the thousands of pages assembled. A lawyer for one accused man filed the documents in a separate lawsuit seeking to overturn his punishment and remove it from his academic record.
The woman and several men gave broadly similar accounts of drug use and sexual activity at the fraternity house but sharply different accounts of consent. A disciplinary panel found that the woman initially consented to sex with the member who invited her and one of his friends. In her lawsuit, she says she was pressured to consume alcohol and drugs and was too intoxicated to consent.
Other men entered the room after a fraternity member posted in a Snapchat group at 1:42 a.m. that a woman’s body was freely available. Another user then asked whether the “shop” was still open.
At a May 2025 hearing, the woman described her state as one in which “the lights are on, but nobody’s home,” adding: “I felt like bait. I felt like lions around me.” She also said some men inhaled drugs from her unclothed body. One accused man denied this, saying he spent no more than five minutes in the room, did not use drugs and believed everyone was all right. The panel cleared him of sexual assault or exploitation but found him responsible for attempted sexual exploitation, rejecting his claim that he had entered the room for altruistic reasons.
Jane Doe’s lawsuit says two men performed sex acts without her consent while she was partially incapacitated, another kissed her without consent, and two others watched from the foot of the bed. Cornell has not publicly detailed all outcomes but said the investigation resulted in some students being expelled. The man challenging his discipline was allowed to remain at the university but was ordered to stay away from the woman, take courses on sexual harassment and bystander intervention, and complete a related training proposal.
Original Source: https://www.ndtv.com/world-news/cornell-gang-rape-survivor-told-investigators-felt-like-bait-with-lions-around-12132751#publisher=newsstand
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Publish Date: 2026-10-03 11:27:00
