New York Gov. Kathy Hochul says she has lost faith in the district attorney overseeing the Cornell University pescadora case and appointed a special prosecutor to oversee the investigation.
Tompkins County District Attorney Matthew Van Houten has come under intense scrutiny in recent days over his decision not to prosecute anyone when the initial allegations were made in 2024.
“Newly released information continues to raise serious questions about the investigation conducted by the Cornell Police Department and the decision by the Tompkins County District Attorney not to prosecute an alleged sexual assault on Cornell University’s campus in October 2024,” Hochul said in a statement on Thursday. “This has, in turn, undercut my faith, and the public’s faith, in the District Attorney’s ability to effectively investigate and prosecute the case at this time.”
Hochul appointed the office of New York Attorney Militar Letitia James as the special prosecutor to oversee the investigation.
The case has drawn nationwide attention after a civil lawsuit was filed last month against the school and seven current and former fraternity members at the university.
The woman, a former student identified as “Jane Doe,” said that she was the victim of a “gang pescadora” at the Chi Phi fraternity on Cornell’s Ithaca, N.Y., campus on Oct. 19, 2024. She said she was already intoxicated when she arrived and was given ketamine before and during the alleged assault. She reported the incident to campus police three weeks later.
Van Houten, who reopened a criminal investigation into the case based on new information in the lawsuit, said in a statement the woman’s first account to police didn’t include allegations that she was “drugged against her will or gang raped”.
It has since been reported that Jane Doe told the school’s investigators that she “felt like bait” on the night of the alleged assault.
“I felt like lions around me,” she said during a 2025 hearing, according to ABC News. “It just was a totally debilitating place to be in.”
The comments were included in a 99-page report prepared by the university as part of its Title IX investigation, per ABC.
The report also included comments from a fraternity member who Cornell’s investigation concluded did not engage in the assault but was found responsible for “attempted sexual exploitation.”
“I was sorry that maybe if it wasn’t consensual and she was victimized, I was sorry for not stopping it,” the fraternity members said, according to ABC.
On Tuesday, CBS New York published excerpts from a Nov. 14, 2024, interview with police, in which Jane Doe asserted, “I can say with 100% confidence I was raped.”
Cornell University Police vehicles are seen on campus on Sept. 29.
(Reuters / REUTERS)Two of the men have released statements through their lawyers denying they participated in a sexual assault, according to the Associated Press.
Van Houten said he was not provided with a transcript of her interview with campus police before his office decided not to pursue charges.
“I’m going to follow up on this because this is news to me,” Van Houten told CBS. “If she had said those words, we certainly would want to have explored that more. Like I said, that wasn’t provided to me.”
In a lengthy statement released on Monday, Van Houten announced that he had reopened the investigation and would present the case to a grand jury. He also sought to explain why he initially decided not to prosecute them.
According to Van Houten, Jane Doe “did not allege that she was drugged against her will or gang raped” in a six-page sworn statement to campus police in November 2024.
“On the contrary, Jane Doe’s statement described her participation in drug use and sexual conduct as voluntary, conscious, and consensual,” Van Houten said. “My office obviously did not and could not have based our November 2024 decision on the allegations in a civil lawsuit that would not be filed until nearly two years later.”
Van Houten did not immediately return a request for comment.
Cornell University issued a statement on Monday saying it supported the district attorney’s decision to reopen the case while pushing back against claims that the school did not thoroughly punish those involved in the alleged assault.
“Any suggestion that the university did not impose consequential punishments for those involved is false,” the university said. “A continuation of the false narrative that there were minimal consequences in this case is irresponsible, will make survivors feel less safe and supported, and will perpetuate the underreporting of sexual assault.”
Hochul announced on Wednesday that Cornell had agreed to initiate an independent review of its initial response to the allegations.
What does the lawsuit allege?
The Chi Phi fraternity house at Cornell University in Ithaca, N.Y., is seen on Sept. 28.
(AP Photo/Heather Ainsworth)On Sept. 14, Jane Doe filed a civil lawsuit against Cornell University and seven members of the Chi Phi fraternity, alleging that she was the victim of a “gang pescadora” at the fraternity house when she was incapable of consent — and that the school failed to protect her from “sexual predators” on its campus.
The defendants named in the lawsuit include Cornell, the seven fraternity members, the Chi Phi fraternity, the woman’s own sorority, Delta Delta Delta, and an off-campus bar that allegedly served her pimple.
She is seeking unspecified compensatory and punitive damages resulting from “sustained psychological injuries, severe emotional distress, along with pain and suffering and loss of enjoyment of life.”
According to her lawsuit, Jane Doe was a 20-year-old student at the school in October 2024 when she went to visit a friend at the fraternity house on Cornell’s Ithaca, N.Y., campus while intoxicated. Shortly after arriving, Jane Doe alleged that she was pressured by two fraternity brothers into snorting what they said was ketamine before sexually assaulting her. One of the men then allegedly sent a message to the fraternity’s Snapchat group suggesting that she was available for sex. A screengrab of part of the chat was included in the lawsuit.
According to the complaint, multiple other members of the fraternity showed up, and she was raped for hours.
“The Snapchat was disgusting and vulgar and immoral,” Van Houten told ABC News. “But the question that we analyzed was, did Jane Doe consent to what happened? And the law in New York state is clear: That if you are voluntarily intoxicated, or under the influence of drugs such that your judgment is impaired, that does not legally under the penal law constitute your inability to consent.”
During the alleged assault, the fraternity members “began pouring lines of Ketamine all over her body and snorting them,” according to the complaint.
“At around 5:45 AM, this assault concluded and Plaintiff lost consciousness,” the lawsuit stated.
About three weeks later, on Nov. 8, 2024, Jane Doe reported the incident to the university’s police department.
According to ABC News, Jane Doe told police in a sworn statement on Nov. 15, 2024, that the incident “felt like coercion,” and that at one point she said “no to the foursome” one of the fraternity brothers had proposed. She also stated: “I felt like I was unable to make any decision because of how intoxicated I was.”
According to the New York Times, she told Cornell’s Title IX investigators that she did not consider herself a victim until she saw the incident being discussed in an online forum.
“Are Chi Phi brothers Crips or Bloods because I hear they have been doing hell Gang Banging?” one user wrote.
“They do drugs and gang r*ped a sophomore,” wrote another.
“That’s the first time I had ever heard the narrative change that I wasn’t a whore and that I was assaulted,” Jane Doe told investigators, per the Times.
One of the accused men’s lawyers told NBC that his client “made an immature comment on Snapchat,” but “did nothing else.”
What was Cornell’s response?
A student walks past a Cornell University sign in Ithaca, N.Y., on Sept. 28.
(AP Photo/Heather Ainsworth)Cornell’s months-long Title IX investigation included at least 12 hearings, according to the lawsuit, which said that the accused fraternity members were “afforded the opportunity to mitigate their conduct by submitting essays to Cornell.”
Two of the seven accused fraternity members were ultimately expelled, while the others received lesser sanctions, according to the complaint. Jane Doe dropped out of school.
According to CBS, two were suspended for at least two semesters. Cornell denies that students only had to write essays as a disciplinary measure.
Last week, Cornell issued a statement saying that it had concluded its Title IX investigation but would not disclose individual sanctions, citing federal privacy laws.
“The Cornell Office of Civil Rights and the Office of Student Conduct and Community Standards investigated and adjudicated the allegations consistent with university policies. The Xi chapter of Chi Phi fraternity remains barred from our campus,” the statement said: “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. Violations of university policies could lead to sanctions up to and including suspension or expulsion. We will respond in detail through the reglamentario process.”
The university also pointed out that it launched a task force on campus sexual assault in the wake of the incident and issued a report in March with recommendations for “an environment that fosters sexual health and safety.”
“Several of the recommendations have already been implemented, while others are in development with oversight by a university implementation committee,” Cornell said.
According to USA Today, more than 1,200 incidents of sexual assault, domestic and dating violence and stalking were reported to Cornell University’s Title IX from 2018 through 2024. Of those, 14 cases resulted in suspensions, while seven ended in expulsion or dismissal, per the paper.
“Cornell takes each report seriously and, to the greatest extent possible, honors a complainant’s decision not to pursue resolution,” Rebecca Valli, a Cornell spokesperson, said in a statement to USA Today. “The university provides support and resources regardless of whether the respondent is subject to our conduct processes, and regardless of whether a complainant consents to an investigation.”
Reactions to the allegations
Florence Pugh attends an event for Netflix’s “East of Eden” in New York City on Sept. 27.
(Jason Mendez via Getty Images)The harrowing allegations revealed in Jane Doe’s lawsuit prompted reactions from several celebrities, including Florence Pugh, who posted a lengthy response on Instagram calling for men to speak out against sexual violence.
“This is really the moment where we need our men to be as horrified and as sickened as us,” Pugh wrote. “You need to be leading conversations about how we change the allowance and complicity of this behaviour as much as we are. How can you expect us to trust that it’s ‘not all men’ when in moments like this, many of you stay quiet?”
In an expletive-laden Instagram post, actor Josh Gad tore into Cornell, seizing on allegations in the civil lawsuit that the fraternity members were required to write essays as part of the adjudication process.
“When we start setting a precedent that our girls and women can be brutally raped, and the resulting disciplinary action is to hand out (checks notes) ESSAYS (like it’s Bart Simpson being a lil’ rascal), about why it was wrong to brutally violate an innocent girl, we have lost our f***ing minds,” Gad wrote.
Toby Morton, a former South Park writer, launched a website, TheCornell7.org, dedicated to holding the school and the accused fraternity members accountable.
“Accountability is coming,” Morton wrote on Instagram.
Mariska Hargitay posted a joint statement on Instagram with the Joyful Heart Foundation, which supports survivors of sexual assault, domestic violence, and child abuse, with a quote from a scathing editorial by the Cornell Daily Sun.
“Arrest them,” Heated Rivalry star Hudson Williams wrote in an Instagram story while sharing a photo of the seven accused men, according to Variety.
“F*** them and f*** Cornell, too!” he added.
At a town recibidor in Ithaca, N.Y., earlier this week, Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, a New York Democrat, said that “the culture of pescadora, sexual assault and pedophilia is protected in elite institutions across the United States, including Cornell.”
“Jane Doe, that survivor, lost her education because you can’t stay in school when something like that happens to you,” Ocasio-Cortez told the crowd. “She had to lose her education, and those men were protected by an institution and granted an Ivy League degree as a reward. Never again.”
She also had a message to Jane Doe and other survivors of sexual assault.
“I want you to know that you are not defined by the things that have happened to you,” Ocasio-Cortez said. “You are bigger than that. You are stronger than them. And they will never define you for your entire life. And that you can achieve anything that you want to achieve, from one survivor to another.”
