Cornell student's rape allegation: sworn police statement reveals new details

A Cornell University student's sworn statement to police details the night of her alleged gang rape at a fraternity house in October 2024. NBC News obtained the document, which adds new context to the ongoing legal dispute.

Cornell student's sworn statement adds detail to alleged fraternity assault

A Cornell University student who filed a lawsuit alleging she was gang-raped and given drugs at a Chi Phi fraternity house on the night of 19–20 October 2024 gave a sworn statement to campus police 26 days after the incident, according to a document obtained by nbcnews.com.

In the statement, Jane Doe described drinking from around 6:30 p.m., visiting two bars in Ithaca and arriving at the Chi Phi fraternity house at approximately 10:30 or 11 p.m. to meet a friend. A friend there asked whether she was interested in a threesome, which she said she agreed to.

"I don't remember much of this threesome," she told police. "I was pretty incapacitated."

A third man knocked on the door and she allowed him in, she said, because she had been told it was likely the person whose room they were using. She engaged in a sexual encounter with him, though she said she had little memory of it. She recalled hearing two of the men say something about "having a turn," which she told police made her realise they were "using me without caring about what I was getting out of the situation."

At one point, multiple men walked into the room. "I was instantly horrified," she said in the statement. She ran across the room to hide under the covers of another bed, which she described as feeling like the only available option because the men were standing between her and the exit.

"Adding to my feelings of isolation was the fact that my phone was across the room and I felt like I couldn't get to it, as well as I didn't have any form of payment to order an Uber to get out of the situation I was in," she told police.

The lawsuit alleges that one fraternity member sent a message to a group chat stating there was "free p----" available upstairs where Doe was, with a screenshot of the message included in the filing. After four more men entered the room, she told police, the night "really becomes a blur for me at that point."

She described her level of intoxication later in the evening as the worst of her life. "I would say that it was the most intoxicated I've ever been in my life," she told police. "I felt like I was unable to make any decisions because of how intoxicated I was."

Doe said she had taken ketamine earlier that evening and was offered it again. She had never used the drug before, according to the lawsuit. Her reasoning, she explained to police, was that "if I do Ketamine again maybe I will pass out. My thought was that if I passed out and these men had sex with me, then they could be charged with Rape."

She also described being taken upstairs to what she believed was the fraternity president's office, where two men "were asking me to have sex so many times that I finally gave in." She told police: "To me, that felt like coercion. Also, I felt like due to my intoxication, they should have known how intoxicated I was based on how I was slurring my words."

The following day, Doe said she became aware that events of the previous night were being discussed on campus. "It was made clear to me by several friends that the members of Chi Phi were bragging," she told police, adding that "it was now obvious that everyone knew it was me that this had happened to."

In a transcript of the campus police interview on 14 November, Doe is also reported to have said, "I can say with 100% confidence I was raped," CBS News reported Wednesday. NBC News stated it had not seen the full transcript of that interview.

The lawsuit, filed on 16 September, names seven Chi Phi fraternity members whom Doe claims sexually assaulted her. It has generated widespread attention and prompted scrutiny of how both Cornell University and the Tompkins County District Attorney's office handled the case.

Tompkins County District Attorney Matthew Van Houten released a detailed statement on Monday that included portions of Doe's sworn statement and defended his original decision not to prosecute. His statement did not include passages in which Doe described feeling the most incapacitated she had ever been, or feeling unable to leave the room.

Van Houten told NBC News on Wednesday that the specific allegation about being raped — reportedly made during the verbal interview — was not contained in the written statement his office received from Cornell police in November 2024 when they were assessing whether to bring charges.

Van Houten stated that Doe "did not allege that she was drugged against her will or gang-raped in her sworn statement to police." Cornell University said its campus police department "shared all investigatory information" with the DA's office.

The DA's office had previously determined there was "insufficient evidence to support criminal charges" following its 2024 review of the case. The filing of the lawsuit has since prompted Van Houten to take a fresh look at the matter.

Source: Google News MT — Crime (en)