Cornell gang rape investigation reopened
The Cornell gang rape investigation reopened on Sunday as Tompkins County District Attorney Matthew Van Houten told ABC News that his office will take a fresh look at the alleged October 2024 gang rape of a 20-year-old Cornell student at the university's Chi Phi fraternity house in Ithaca, New York — and that it is his “intention to present the case to the Tompkins County grand jury with Jane Doe's cooperation.”
The announcement, first reported by the New York Post, came less than two weeks after the woman, identified in court papers only as Jane Doe, filed a 101-page civil lawsuit alleging she was drugged with ketamine and sexually assaulted over several hours by seven members of the fraternity. No criminal charges resulted from the original 2024 review, a decision the DA's office now says it wants to reexamine in light of evidence that may not have been available in November 2024.
What the lawsuit alleges
The complaint, filed September 14 in New York County Supreme Court in Manhattan, names seven current or former Cornell students as defendants: Matthew Ingalls, Johnathan Newell, Winston Lee, Gillio Lopes, Diego Sarabia, Scott Norris and Scott Kretzschmar. It also names Cornell University, local and national Chi Phi organizations, and other parties.
According to the filing, Jane Doe, then 20, went to the Chi Phi house at 107 Edgemoor Lane on the night of October 19, 2024, where she alleges two fraternity members pressured her into snorting a white powder they described as ketamine, along with marijuana and additional alcohol, before sexually assaulting her while she was severely impaired. The suit alleges that at about 1:42 a.m., one member sent a sexually explicit message to a Snapchat group called “Chi Phi Actives” inviting other members to join, and that the assault continued until about 5:45 a.m., when she lost consciousness.
She reported the incident to Cornell University Police and Ithaca Police on November 8, 2024, and later withdrew from Cornell. The complaint seeks compensatory and punitive damages and a jury trial.
Why the DA is reopening the case now
Van Houten drew a sharp distinction between the civil complaint and the account investigators heard in 2024, telling ABC News the lawsuit's allegations are “dramatically different” from the woman's statement after the alleged assault. Her attorney has said she was never interviewed by a specially trained detective or prosecutor during the original investigation — a claim that, if borne out, could help explain the gap between the two accounts.
“We want to reexamine whether there's additional evidence that we were not aware of in November of 2024, that exists now that would change our assessment of the case and would result in the grand jury finding that there was criminal conduct,” Van Houten said. The original review concluded there was insufficient evidence to support criminal charges, and no arrests were made.
The Title IX process that ignited the outrage
After the November 2024 report, Cornell temporarily suspended the Chi Phi chapter and the seven accused students, then opened a Title IX investigation that, according to the lawsuit, involved at least twelve hearings in May 2025. The university's Xi chapter of Chi Phi was ultimately barred from campus.
According to the plaintiff's attorney, two of the seven students were expelled — but the lawsuit alleges the others were offered the chance to “mitigate their conduct by submitting essays,” alongside suspensions and workshops. That single phrase detonated online: petitions demanding criminal charges gathered tens of thousands of signatures within days, and commentators contrasted the alleged hours-long assault with what they characterized as homework-style sanctions. Cornell has declined to confirm or deny the essay claim, citing federal student-privacy law.
Cornell responds
In a September 21 statement, Kyle Kimball, Cornell's vice president for university relations, confirmed the university's investigation “has concluded” and that the Xi chapter of Chi Phi “remains barred from our campus.”
“Federal privacy law prohibits Cornell from disclosing specific information regarding individual students and we therefore are unable to make a public statement on any other disciplinary response,” the statement read, adding that violations of university policy “could lead to sanctions up to and including suspension or expulsion” and that the university “will respond in detail through the legal process.” Cornell also said it launched a Presidential Task Force on Campus Sexual Assault following the incident.
The denials
Jeremy Saland, an attorney for defendant Scott Kretzschmar, has publicly disputed the allegations against his client, and the defense maintains it holds evidence contradicting the plaintiff's account. All seven men are entitled to the presumption of innocence; none has been criminally charged, and the civil allegations remain unproven in court.
What a grand jury presentation would mean
A grand jury does not determine guilt. In New York, prosecutors present evidence and witnesses behind closed doors, and grand jurors decide whether there is legally sufficient evidence and reasonable cause to believe a crime was committed — the standard for an indictment. The complainant's cooperation matters: Van Houten explicitly tied his plan to Jane Doe's participation.
A presentation could end in indictments, in a no-bill declining charges, or in further investigation. It is a procedural step, not a finding.
Why this matters
The case sits at the intersection of two justice systems that rarely agree: criminal courts, which demand proof beyond a reasonable doubt, and campus Title IX processes, which use a lower preponderance-of-the-evidence standard yet can only impose academic sanctions. When a university's harshest penalty for some accused students appears to be an essay, while prosecutors once found insufficient evidence for any charge at all, public confidence in both systems erodes at once.
The lawsuit also spotlights how digital evidence — the alleged Snapchat messages, now exhibits in a court filing — is reshaping campus assault cases: contemporaneous messages can corroborate or complicate accounts in ways testimony alone cannot. And the DA's “dramatically different” remark raises an uncomfortable question about the original investigation itself: whether the first review ever captured the full account, and what else might surface now.
What happens next
No timetable has been announced for the grand jury presentation. The civil lawsuit proceeds independently in Manhattan, where Cornell has promised a detailed legal response. For now, the Xi chapter remains barred, the seven named defendants remain uncharged, and a case many thought was closed in 2024 is open again — this time with a prosecutor publicly committed to testing it before a grand jury.