Crime · updated 16m ago · 3 min read
Cornell Student Who Gave Police Leads Says Authorities Betrayed Jane Doe In 2024 Case
New York prosecutors reopen investigation into Cornell fraternity gang-rape after civil lawsuit. Governor Hochul appoints Letitia James as special prosecutor to oversee the probe.
Why prosecutors declined charges in 2024.
2 of 3 outlets skipped it: cornell agreed to an outside independent investigation after Hochul called for it.
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Al Jazeera
“‘the Tompkins County district attorney declined to prosecute the case in November 2024 without speaking to Jane Doe and relied, at least in part, on information from a Cornell police statement that omitted her assertion that she had been sexually assaulted.”Read the original ↗
Al Jazeera attributes the failure to omitted police evidence and lack of contact. ABC News stresses the statement lacked specific legal elements.
Cornell student feels betrayed
A Cornell University student who gave campus police leads in the alleged rape of Jane Doe in 2024 said she feels “betrayed” over how authorities handled the case.
The student said she first heard about allegations that Doe was raped as a rumor on campus about 24 to 48 hours after the incident and recalled being “really horrified by it.”
The student said she and a friend initially gave a tip to authorities after the school issued a crime safety alert about a report of a sexual assault at a fraternity, and she later told police about screenshots of a Chi Phi Snapchat group message that said there was “free p----” in a room in the frat house where Doe alleges she was assaulted.
The student said she decided to go to police after she saw screenshots of a Chi Phi group message on Snapchat and because “it felt like the right thing to do if we could help this girl,” and she described sitting with one or two officers for about half an hour during her interview.
Cornell President Michael I. Kotlikoff called the allegations “deeply disturbing” and said they raise questions about the investigations that were conducted, while he welcomed an independent review by an outside law firm.
Prosecutors declined full review
Tompkins County District Attorney Matthew Van Houten told NBC News that the interviews flagged “were each of the frat members declining to speak on the advice of their attorney,” and he said he ultimately determined the allegations did not warrant charges because of a lack of criminality.
ABC News reported that the Tompkins County DA's office declined to review additional material gathered by university police other than a six-page summary of the woman's statements, and documents reviewed by ABC News showed prosecutors did not plan to pursue criminal charges.A
ABC News said Cornell University Police Department investigator Jeffrey Northrup contacted an investigator at the Tompkins County DA's office on Nov. A25, 2024, and Northrup wrote that the DA's investigator “stated that they all agreed that, based on [her] statement, criminal charges would not be pursued in this case.”
New York Gov. Kathy Hochul accused the district attorney Friday of not doing the “bare minimum,” removed him from the case, and named New York Attorney General Letitia James special prosecutor.
Cornell released a videotaped message from Kotlikoff in which he said, “must do better,” and he added that “What happened to Jane Doe in 2024 is deeply disturbing and will weigh heavily on our community for years to come.”
Independent review and next steps
Cornell University said it fully supports the appointment of the special prosecutor and efforts to change New York State's rape law, and it said it is committed to an independent external review of all aspects of how Cornell has handled this case. In an eight-minute video message to the Cornell community, Kotlikoff said, “My heart aches when I think of what she experienced,” and he characterized the past week as one of the most difficult in the New York-based university’s history. Kotlikoff also pledged that Cornell’s Board of Trustees would announce details next week, and he said the university would continue to take “every step necessary to make Cornell an institution that leads not just in what we say about these issues.”
The case has also renewed scrutiny of the “voluntary intoxication loophole” in New York law, and Al Jazeera said Hochul pledged to push for changes to it. AAl Jazeera reported that James’s appointment placed the case under a prosecutor whose office has repeatedly clashed with President Donald Trump, and it said James has separately described the case as “an active criminal investigation.”A