A sexually charged case that roiled Cornell University two years ago has exploded onto the national stage, fueling a fierce debate over sex, consent and criminality in college hookup culture.
Seven former Chi Phi fraternity brothers are accused in a lawsuit of drugging and raping a female Cornell student during a night of drinking, drugs and group sex at their fraternity house in October 2024.
The accuser, identified in court papers by the pseudonym Jane Doe, alleges the men sexually assaulted her after she arrived intoxicated and was pressured into taking ketamine and other substances. The men have denied wrongdoing, with some maintaining the sexual activity was consensual and others denying they participated in it. No criminal charges have been filed against the seven men.
The case has now erupted into a political and legal firestorm, with New York Attorney General Letitia James announcing Friday that her office is conducting an “active criminal investigation” after Gov. Kathy Hochul appointed the Office of the Attorney General as special prosecutor. Cornell has separately agreed to retain outside counsel to conduct an independent review of the university’s handling of the allegations.
At the center of the controversy are sharply conflicting accounts of what happened that night, including differences between what Doe said in the weeks afterward, what prosecutors say they received from Cornell police and the explosive allegations contained in a lawsuit filed nearly two years later.
Tompkins County District Attorney Matthew Van Houten, who initially declined to pursue charges, has said Doe’s November 2024 sworn statement did not allege that she was drugged against her will or gang raped and instead described her participation in drug use and sexual conduct as “voluntary, conscious, and consensual.”
Doe was 20 years old and a Cornell undergraduate when the events at the center of the case unfolded on the night of Oct. 19, 2024.
According to her lawsuit, Doe began the evening drinking vodka at her Tri Delta sorority house before attending a sorority social event at a downtown Ithaca bar. She later went to a second bar before leaving alone around 11 p.m. and walking to the Chi Phi fraternity house to meet a friend who was a member.
By the time she arrived at Chi Phi, Doe was visibly intoxicated and had consumed roughly 10 standard drinks over three hours, according to her own complaint.
Once inside, Doe alleges, a fraternity member gave her another beer before proposing a threesome with another fraternity brother. The lawsuit maintains that Doe was already too intoxicated to consent.
Doe alleges she was then taken upstairs, where two fraternity members pressured her into snorting what they said was ketamine, a drug she says she had never previously taken. She alleges they also gave her marijuana and high-proof liquor before engaging in sexual acts with her, without her consent.
The lawsuit alleges other fraternity members entered the room as the night progressed. At 1:42 a.m., according to a screenshot reproduced in the complaint, one member posted “free p—-” in a Snapchat group for active Chi Phi members. The complaint alleges the message encouraged other members to go upstairs.
CBS News reported Friday that it had obtained additional Snapchat messages from the fraternity group, including a photograph of Doe with another man that was shared with dozens of Chi Phi members that night. Just before the photo was posted, one participant wrote, “Like you can walk in and whip it out,” while another subsequently asked, “Shop still open?” and received the reply, “Yeah.”
Attorneys for several of the accused men have denied criminal wrongdoing by their clients. An attorney for one of the men told NBC News the lawsuit was “intentionally dishonest” and maintained his client had engaged in immature and inappropriate Snapchat messages but committed no crime. An attorney for another said the public narrative was “incomplete” and inconsistent with evidence developed during Cornell’s investigation, including Doe’s own statements.
Doe alleges she became increasingly impaired and eventually “completely incapacitated” as the encounters continued. The complaint says the final alleged assault ended around 5:45 a.m., when Doe lost consciousness.
Contemporaneous texts, interviews and university records show Doe described different portions of the encounter differently in the days and weeks that followed, while also expressing distress about what had happened.
When she returned to her sorority house around 11:15 a.m. on Oct. 20, Doe told her roommates she had taken ketamine and had sex with multiple men, according to records from Cornell’s Title IX proceedings obtained by The New York Times. One roommate said Doe did not initially describe what happened as rape or sexual assault, while another recalled that she appeared to be “in shock” and did not seem to understand the gravity of what she was recounting.
The following day, one of the men Doe would later accuse apologized to her for how the night unfolded, saying he felt terrible that he and another fraternity member had been too intoxicated to stop things before they got “way out of hand,” according to text messages reviewed by the Times.
Doe responded that “none of the sexual stuff was illegal” and said she had enjoyed being with the two men.
Other contemporaneous evidence suggests Doe was already struggling with the encounter. On Oct. 22, she visited Cornell Health seeking treatment for a urinary tract infection and testing for sexually transmitted diseases, telling a doctor she had contracted the infection “in a traumatic way,” according to university records.
Doe also became increasingly distressed as word of the encounter spread around campus. A roommate told Cornell investigators that Doe initially described it as a “crazy thing that she had done,” but that her understanding shifted over the following days. The roommate said she discussed portions of the encounter with Doe and told her that some of what she described could constitute rape.
About a week after the encounter, Doe discovered an anonymous online post claiming Chi Phi members had been “gang banging” and that a sophomore had been gang raped. Doe later told Cornell investigators that seeing the post marked a turning point in how she viewed the night.
“That’s the first time I had ever heard the narrative change that I wasn’t a whore and that I was assaulted,” she said, according to the university records obtained by the Times.
Doe nevertheless remained in contact with fraternity members and planned to attend Chi Phi’s Halloween party, according to the records. After initially being told she was welcome, the fraternity’s president uninvited her, prompting Doe to accuse the men of “covering your asses.”
By Nov. 3, however, Doe was explicitly describing most of the encounter as nonconsensual. In a text reviewed by the Times, she wrote that “90% of what happened that night was not consensual,” adding that she had been given more ketamine than she could remember and had felt uncomfortable around people she did not know. Four days later, she went to an Ithaca emergency room and requested a rape kit.
Doe was interviewed by Cornell University Police on Nov. 14 and Nov. 15. A transcript obtained by CBS New York shows that she distinguished the initial sexual encounter, which she said she had been “pretty OK with,” from what she said happened later in the night.
“I can say with 100% confidence I was raped,” Doe told investigators, according to the transcript. She also described later sexual activity as coercive and said she had been “completely and totally incapacitated.”
During those interviews, the campus police investigator prepared a six-page written statement that Doe reviewed and signed. That document — rather than the complete interview transcript — was what Van Houten says his office received before deciding not to pursue charges.
According to Van Houten’s account of the signed statement, Doe said she agreed to the initial threesome out of attraction and “drunken curiousness,” was “pretty ok” with it and voluntarily took ketamine later in the night.
The district attorney said multiple prosecutors and investigators reviewed the statement, assumed Doe’s account was true and concluded that the facts contained in it did not establish a crime under New York law. Van Houten said her credibility was “never in question.”
When CBS presented the full transcript to Van Houten this week, he said it had never been provided to him.
“That wasn’t information that I had,” he said, later adding that its existence “changes the landscape for me.”
For nearly two years after the alleged encounter, no criminal charges were filed against any of the men.
The case burst into the national spotlight Sept. 16, when Doe filed a sweeping 101-page lawsuit in New York Supreme Court laying out in graphic detail her allegations about what happened inside the Chi Phi house.
The lawsuit accuses the seven former fraternity members of sexual assault and rape and seeks compensatory and punitive damages. But it casts a far wider net than the seven men.
Doe also sued Cornell University, Chi Phi and affiliated entities, her own Tri Delta sorority and Moonies Bar & Nightclub, among others, alleging that institutions around her failed to protect her before, during and after the events of that night.
The complaint alleges Doe had already become intoxicated while drinking at the Tri Delta house before a sorority housemother accompanied her to Moonies. There, according to the lawsuit, a bouncer marked both of the then-20-year-old’s hands with an “X” signifying she was under 21, but she was nevertheless served alcohol.
The graphic allegations prompted immediate questions about why no one had been prosecuted in 2024. Van Houten said he first learned of the lawsuit on Sept. 18, two days after it was filed, and that his office was subsequently inundated with calls and emails, including threats, demanding answers.
Van Houten publicly defended his original decision. He also reopened the investigation, met with Doe and her attorneys and announced plans to put the matter before a Tompkins County grand jury so it could consider her testimony and any new evidence raised by the lawsuit.
The controversy intensified after CBS reported that Van Houten had never received the full transcript of Doe’s November 2024 interview with Cornell University Police. Van Houten said that if relevant information had been omitted from the signed statement provided to prosecutors, the circumstances should be investigated by someone outside Cornell.
Cornell has separately agreed to retain outside counsel to conduct an independent investigation into the university’s handling of the allegations, according to Hochul. That review is distinct from the criminal investigation now being led by James’ office.
Cornell, meanwhile, reached its own conclusions through the university’s disciplinary process. University President Michael Kotlikoff said two of the accused students were expelled, two were suspended for at least two semesters, one had graduated before discipline could be imposed and two were found not responsible for sexual misconduct.
Those university findings were reached through Cornell’s disciplinary process, which is separate from the criminal justice system and applies different standards and procedures.
Cornell has rejected allegations that it imposed only minor consequences, saying its Title IX process resulted in expulsions and suspensions. The university said no student was offered the opportunity to write essays as the sole consequence for their involvement and called suggestions that it failed to impose consequential punishment “false.”
Cornell said in a statement to Fox News it “fully support[s] the appointment of a special prosecutor” and is committed to “an independent external review of all aspects of how Cornell has handled this case.”
The case has also drawn renewed attention to Cornell’s campus climate after more than 35% of female undergraduates responding to a 2025 university survey reported experiencing nonconsensual sexual contact involving force, threats or incapacitation, up from 23% in 2023. Although Cornell said 926 of 6,000 students invited to take the survey responded, a participation rate of about 15%.
Gov. Kathy Hochul intervened Thursday, signing an executive order appointing the Office of the Attorney General as special prosecutor in the case.
James said her office would lead an investigation guided by “the facts and the law.”
