An Ithaca, New York, district attorney has reopened a 2024 investigation into the so-called “Cornell Seven” involving an alleged gang rape at a Cornell University fraternity house. The decision follows a civil lawsuit filed this month by a former student, identified as Jane Doe, who was 20-years-old at the time of the alleged incident.
The Civil Suit
As reported on Tuesday’s AM Update, Doe filed the suit in New York County Supreme Court in Manhattan suing Cornell, seven members of its Chi Phi fraternity, the fraternity and sorority organizations, and other parties over what she alleges happened to her in October 2024. She is seeking unspecified compensatory and punitive damages.
Doe alleges she went to the Chi Phi house to see a friend after drinking at two bars. She claims she was already visibly intoxicated when she arrived and that two fraternity members then pressured her to use a substance they described as ketamine.
According to her lawsuit, the pair also gave her marijuana and more alcohol before several men repeatedly had sex with her, she says, without her consent over the course of the night. The lawsuit includes a screenshot of a message allegedly sent by Chi Phi member Jonathan Newell to the fraternity’s Snapchat group at 1:42am telling members there was “free pussy” upstairs.
Doe alleges two members took her to another room later that night where they gave her more ketamine and sexually assaulted her while she was incapacitated.
She reported the alleged assault to campus police three weeks later but no charges were filed. Her lawyer says the alleged incident led her to leave Cornell.
The D.A. Responds
In a written statement Monday, Tompkins County District Attorney Matthew Van Houten pointed to a six-page statement Doe signed in November 2024 in which, he claimed, she recounted events substantially differently at the time than she did in her current lawsuit.
According to the D.A.’s summary of the earlier account, Doe described agreeing to sexual activity and knowingly taking drugs. She also apparently described refusing some sexual contact, and Van Houten wrote that the men stopped when she asked them to. He argued prosecutors could not bring charges based on the facts they were given at the time.
“This decision was not because the case would have been difficult to prove in court,” he wrote, before adding: “To be clear, the credibility of the woman, who described the facts in excruciating detail, was never in question.”
Van Houten has not publicly released Doe’s signed statement, but he acknowledged to ABC News that his office relied on Cornell University Police and did not independently investigate the claims. He also said prosecutors were never given the Snapchat screenshot now included in the lawsuit.
Jane Doe’s attorney, Thomas Giuffra, disputed the district attorney’s description of the original account. In a written statement to CNN, he maintained Doe’s police report was “not materially different” from the allegations in her lawsuit.
According to Giuffra, Doe spoke to the officer who took her initial report, but no one from the D.A.’s office or anyone trained to interview sexual assault survivors ever contacted her. Meanwhile, he told ABC News that his client gave campus police the Snapchat messages in 2024.
In a written response reported by CBS News New York, Giuffra described Doe as traumatized and struggling to process what had happened when she first spoke to law enforcement. “It is challenging for me to understand how a thorough criminal investigation could have been conducted,” he wrote.
The Purported Discipline
The lawsuit also alleges the accused students were offered an opportunity to submit essays to reduce their discipline. According to the court filing, Cornell temporarily suspended the seven students and the Chi Phi chapter when Doe reported the incident on November 8, 2024.
Cornell began its Title IX investigation around January 2025 and held at least 12 hearings that May, according to the court filing. The university responded in a statement that its Title IX investigation involved multiple days of hearings and resulted in sanctions including suspensions and expulsions. “None of the individuals charged were offered the opportunity to write essays as a sole consequence of their involvement,” the school claimed.
Additionally, Cornell noted that it closed the Chi Phi chapter in 2024 and continues to bar it from campus. The national fraternity told CBS it condemns sexual violence but cannot discuss the specific allegations during litigation.
An attorney for a former student disputed allegations against his client. Jeremy Saland, who is representing Scott Kretzschmar, said Kretzschmar never sexually assaulted or even touched Doe, though he acknowledged his client made a separate “immature comment” on Snapchat. Saland accused Doe of “intentionally victimizing an innocent person for a money grab.”
What Comes Next
District Attorney Van Houten plans to present Doe’s testimony and any new evidence to a grand jury, but he gave no timeline for when that will happen. Doe’s attorney said his client will cooperate with the reopened investigation.
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