Horrifying ‘Cornell 7 Gang Rape’ Lawsuit Exposed — Everything We Know

Prosecutors in New York have decided to reopen an investigation into an alleged gang raid that reportedly happened on Cornell University's campus. The 180 comes just days after a former Cornell student filed a bombshell lawsuit against the school Greek life organizations and the college students she claims violently attacked her. We're laying out the accusations plus how the top tier Ivy League school is responding. We're on the case presented by law and crime. I'm Chris Stewart. Well, you might have seen this story. It is trending and it's about the Cornell 7. Seven young men, all members of the same fraternity at Cornell University accused of sexually assaulting a fellow student after a night of alleged partying and the allegations in this lawsuit are disturbing. Now, the identities in, in fact, the entire alleged incident didn't make many waves when it happened allegedly back in 2024, but they certainly now are grabbing headlines because the woman at the center of this apparent attack. She's identified as Jane Doe in a civil lawsuit that we have. She says she was 20 years old and a full-time student at the elite Ivy League school in October of 2024. She adjoined the Delta Delta Delta or Tridel. You may notice that a sorority and she claims that Cornell really pushed Greek life as a way to make the most of the college experience. So she joins a sorority and she says an exciting sorority hosted event allegedly turned into a nightmare and she claims that in the aftermath of this alleged horrific event, she says the authorities who were supposed to protect her and hold those responsible, accountable, dropped the ball. And as the Topkins County New York District Attorney now says in the wake of this lawsuit making headlines that he plans to present this case at an upcoming grand jury, we want to dig into the details of this lawsuit. It's more than 80 pages long and get some insight from a Title IX attorney who also is a former prosecutor about where this case could go from here. So the dozens of pages that we have gone through filed on behalf of Jane Doe and they do not hold back. It names more than a dozen defendants including Cornell, Chi Phi fraternity, Tridelt the sorority, and Mooney's Bar and Nightclub. And it also names seven specific fraternity members as well as John Doe faculty, John Doe alumni, and John Doe's on the executive board. The suit also names Arasio Petito who was reportedly the president of the fraternity Chi Phi in 2024. Now according to the filing, quote, on the evening of October 19th, 2024 into the morning of October 20th, 2024, plaintiff Doe was the victim of one or more criminal sex acts at the hands of defendants Ingalls, Newell, Lee, Lopez, Sarabia, Norris, and Kretschmark. Now those seven men were members of Chi Phi at Cornell and that fraternity was shut down in 2024 after these allegations were made. So on the night of October 19th of that year, according to this lawsuit, Jane Doe planned to attend an alpha beta event at Mooney Bar and Nightclub in Ithaca, New York, which is where Cornell is. And she says that she drank vodka to pregame at a sorority house until she was intoxicated. Now back from this lawsuit, it says, quote, there after around 830 pm, plaintiff took an Uber from alpha beta chapter sorority house on Cornell's campus to Mooney's bar and nightclub accompanied by chapter sorority house member Jade. Despite being underage, Jane Doe was reportedly served at least one alcoholic drink at Mooney's. Jane Doe and some friends left Mooney's and went to another nearby club called Lot 10. Then the lawsuit alleges that Jane Doe left the bar alone and went to the Chi Phi house to hang out with a friend. That so-called friend is now one of the defendants. His name is Matthew Ingles. When plaintiff arrived at the fraternity house, plaintiff was visibly intoxicated and she had consumed about 10 standard drinks within the past three hours. Jane Doe claims that Ingles gave her a beer and the two danced in the main room of the fraternity house. The pair then moves to a quieter area where Jane Doe says Ingles proposition her to participate in a threesome with another fraternity member. The lawsuit alleges that Jane Doe was too incapacitated to consciously agree to something like that but says Ingles left her alone with other fraternity members before reportedly offering her drugs. The filing then gets into some disturbing specifics so I will warn you about that quote. While on the couch, defendant Ingles and Newell began passing around a plastic bag containing a white powdery substance claimed to be ketamine, a dissociative, anesthetic with hallucinogenic properties. Defendants Ingles and Newell then pressured plaintiff into snorting the alleged ketamine with them a drug she had never done before. During this time, defendant Ingles and Newell also plied plaintiff with marijuana and Jamaican liquor believed to be some type of high-proof rum. Soon after a defendant Ingles and Newell began engaging in sexual acts with plaintiff, all without her consent. The lawsuit continues quote defendant Lopez and Newell then placed plaintiff on a bed and the two men began having sex with plaintiff initiating another assault all without plaintiff's consent. At approximately 142 AM defendant Newell sent a message into the chapter's member snapchat group titled Ky-Fi Actives in which the active fraternity members are present claiming there was quote free peward upstairs referring to plaintiff threat. Now an actual screenshot of that alleged snapchat conversation is included in this lawsuit we can see it. It shows supposed members from defendants Norris, Kretsmar, Ingles and Lee and the lawsuit continues to go into further more graphic detail of what Jane Do says happened to her but she claims she was raped multiple times was made to take ketamine multiple times and was allegedly subjected to having multiple men inhale drugs off her. Jane Do says she eventually lost consciousness and when she woke up she made it back to her sorority. Now according to this lawsuit later that day plaintiff became aware that what had happened to her at the house the previous night was becoming public knowledge on Cornell's campus with the encouragement of her friends on or about November 8th 2024. Plaintiff reported the incident to Cornell's private police force known as Cornell University police department. Honor about November 8th 2024 temporary suspensions were also issued for several students including defendants Ingles, New old Lee, Lopez, Sarabia, Norris and Kretsmar who were afforded the opportunity to mitigate their conduct by submitting essays to Cornell. Now you may have heard that part because it absolutely grabs your attention. I couldn't believe it when I read it for the first time but Cornell is pushing back on that allegation. The university did release a statement saying quote Cornell University supports the decision of the Tompkins County district attorney to provide an opportunity for the victim's story in the 2024 Chi-Fi fraternity sexual assault case to be heard by a criminal grand jury. Cornell also conducted a thorough title nine investigation which is separate from a criminal proceeding over the course of several months. During that investigation temporary suspensions and other restrictive measures were used after investigation and pursuant to federal law the matter was sent to a hearing where a panel of trained faculty and staff heard evidence over multiple days. The complainant and respondents had the opportunity to testify and present evidence at its conclusion the hearing panel issued a range of sanctions which included expulsions and suspensions from Cornell. None of the individuals charged were offered the opportunity to write essays as a sole consequence of their involvement. In addition the involved fraternity was closed in 2024 and remains barred from campus. Any suggestion that the university did not impose consequential punishments for those involved is false. 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 under reporting of sexual assault and quote and when it comes to questions of why the DA's office is investigating now well the district attorney says that Jane does lawsuit included a lot more allegations than what she had told police back when she first came forward. The DA for the county now investigating this in upstate New York Matthew Van Halen told ABC News quote she never says that she was drugged without her knowledge she admits to taking drugs and alcohol voluntarily and with knowledge she does not allege that she was forced to engage in any acts she does not say that she was physically helpless or unconscious or incapacitated at any point during the time at the fraternity house. DA Van Halen also says his office was never provided that Snapchat screenshot. Jane Doe's attorney though says that Cornell University police had it and there was allegedly just no follow-up. Attorneys for at least two of the defendants have put out public statements an attorney for Scott Cretzmar says, quote, "Scott never sexually assaulted or even touched the plaintiff in any way." Period. We look forward to confronting the plaintiff in a court of law for her selfishly false claims with both the evidence and her own words. And then Scott Norris said through an attorney that he did not engage in any criminal activity, quote, "I did not participate in any sexual activity or drug use. I was not found responsible by Cornell for any of the accusations involving sexual activity and drug use for which others received serious consequences. I thoughtlessly engaged in Snapchat and briefly stopped in the room where misconduct happened, but not when it happened." Now, the backlash in Ithaca is not abating. The editorial board of the Cornell Daily Sun recently published a scathing column writing in part, quote, "This is not a dark chapter in Cornell's history. It's a morbid pattern. Only rectified with thorough criminal investigations in the hands of parties independent of the university, the Ithaca Police Department, and the Tompkins County District Attorney." As for Cornell, administrators have allowed the idea that enough ambiguity, enough he said she said, "Enough familial connections, enough money will allow you to get off Scott free. We call on Cornell to publish the standard by which a suspension in a sexual assault case is lifted. We call on them to state whether an allegation of sexual assault is eligible for emergency suspension at all under the revised article eight. Finally, we expect that the university shares with the complainant the outcome of her own investigation." To Matthew Ingalls, Jonathan Newell, Winston Lee, Helio Lopez, Diego Sarabia, Scott Norris, and Scott Cretchmark, we know who you are and we refuse to let you benefit from this university's concealment. Joining us now to talk more about this is John Kloon, title 9 attorney, and a former prosecutor, so a great person to have perspective on this. What stood out to you? I mean, this lawsuit is a tough, tough read with all the details that are alleged in this. Just what was your reaction kind of going through what Jean Doe and her attorney are now alleging in this case? Yeah, I mean, the facts are the worst of the worst in terms of campus rate. Unfortunately, I wish I could say that this was anomaly, but we see these types of cases or we see these types of events where you have fraternity style kind of gang rape. It's more rare that we see them come forward. A lot of times these victims don't ever come forward, and so I think that stood out as much as the more horrific case here at the details. And you read through it, and you just, you know, the first reaction I think so many people have is like, how is this not a criminal case? Like, how is there a lack of evidence? And I know the district attorney has said that the story that we're now reading in the 80 plus pages in the lawsuit, that it's different than what he says they looked at in 2024 when they made the decision not to go forward. You know, as someone who's been, you know, on the prosecutor's side of some of these cases, I'm sure, and then now working kind of in the title 9 space, like, how does that, like, what does that process actually look like? And how common is it to see kind of a discrepancy here that he's alleging between this lawsuit years later, and then the decision that was made a couple years ago in 2024? Yeah, you know, one thing to keep in mind is it's a, it's a higher burden proof to bring a criminal case. So they have to prove a case beyond a reasonable doubt, which is different than all of us just reading horrible facts and making our own decision about it. So that's part of the process. But a lot of times, depending on how far the investigation got a couple of years ago, you can get a lot more information that comes out through the title 9 process. And it sounds like there was a pretty lengthy title 9 process. There was, like, the hearings that issue, there could be additional statements that were made. I would bet this Snapchat, that's one of the key pieces of evidence in the case, was not something that the prosecution had. So it's not terribly uncommon to see those, that evidence, evolve over a period of time, especially when you have kind of a parallel process, like the title 9 process of Cornell. Because, like, looking at that, the screen grab, and it's terrible when you read it. And when you look at a lawsuit that is so long, and obviously there's lawsuits that are far more than just 80 pages, but I mean, there's a lot of details here that are being alleged. Like, what goes into putting together a lawsuit like this? Like, how is it that this attorney is able to get this screen grab in 2026 to include in this lawsuit that maybe, you know, the police at Cornell or maybe the school or whoever else was investigating this back in 2024, weren't able to do. Yeah, and again, it depends on how much cooperation the police were getting back in 2024, but a lot of times in these fraternity sorority cases, you know, something like this happens, and a lot of these kids know each other, the, you know, fraternity brothers, the sorories sisters, they know each other, certain people are friends, certain people are dating. A lot of times, everybody knows about what's going on very quickly, they start sharing information, and the idea that maybe one of these fraternity brothers, who was a part of this SNAP, you know, may have come forward and helped with or shared that screen grab with one of the, you know, maybe a sorority sister of the Jane Doe's, that's not uncommon at all because there's so many, you know, relationships between the two three cousins. Well, and, you know, clearly a lot of scrutiny right now on Cornell, the institution, as this has come up, and they have released a statement saying that they take cases of sexual assault very seriously, but at the same time, I mean, this is a private institution, you know, what type of access maybe compared to a public school, what type, what does access look like trying to get information from Cornell about what this investigation was like? Well, I mean, they'll get it in discovery in the civil case, but getting information in advance of that is very limited. It's not so much of whether it's public or private, they're all governed, all these institutions are governed by the FERPA protections, the federal education rights and privacy act, and so that's really the prohibition, does limited information that the school can give out, a lot of times the information you do get, goes back to this idea that all these kids have mutual friends, and so a lot of times like this this topic spreads like wildfire throughout the Greek system, and if I'm this attorney that's filed this case, I'm probably getting a lot of my information from some of the other friends of Jane Doe's because there's so much communication that happens in the aftermath of significant event like this. Well, and I know I'm asking questions that like we don't really know the answers to as of yet, but like I also think of there's so there's seven students and they're known now as the Cornell seven, but two of them were expelled from Cornell allegedly related to this case, and yet you know kind of circling back to the fact that there were no charges like how does like in investigations you've done, like is there kind of the disciplinary side of it for the schools? And then you have like the criminal side of it, and like how often do you see that there is a difference where like maybe it didn't reach the burden for there to be charges at the time, but clearly there was enough of something that happened for a student to get tossed from Cornell. Yeah, and again, we have different burdens of proof, but with a lot of times you'll see students that will cooperate with a student investigation more so than they might cooperate with a law enforcement investigation. And like you said, we are kind of speculating, so we don't know exactly what went down, but it's not terribly uncommon to see a prosecutor decide that it couldn't prove a case beyond a reasonable doubt at the time, but a school was able to have some significant sanctions again using the lower bar that they use at the school level and expel a couple of the students. It's good to see now that the prosecution is, you know, going to look at this again, there could be additional new information that they didn't have at the time. I'm a little concerned about kind of the defensive posture that the prosecution seems to be putting himself in in terms of, you know, maybe feeling some of the criticism of not filing, but this is a normal process, but, you know, the DA's office needs to give it a really, you know, thorough and fair review the second time around with the grand jury. The fact that it's the second time around and, you know, they may put some more, you know, evidence to a grand jury and see if there are charges in this case, but it's also it's been a couple years. And I know that victims can come forward years later, and you can't imagine what what victims of like just like the allegations that Jane Doe here is bringing forward, like you can't imagine what they've gone through. What are some of the challenges, though, that a prosecutor can face when you're dealing with stories like this that happened so long ago? Yeah, so obviously memories can fade over time for a couple of years. Also, fiscal evidence can fade, like a lot of times things like, you know, one of the most significant areas of evidence that we get in these campus cases are like text messages or social media messages, and if those things work captured at the outset, quite often, they're not available, you know, currently. But other than that, it's not that old. I mean, two years is like you said, we get cases that are, I mean, cases that are 30, 40 years old, those are hard. Two years is not that long, repeated time, people genuinely will be able to remember things that happened, and hopefully there's some preservation of evidence. I don't know the passage of two years should be that much of an obstacle, but it's not. And I know that, you know, wherever this civil case goes, you know, it could be years until there's, you know, potentially a settlement or some other or judgment like down the road. But it's like you look at this fraternity, Chi-Fi that was on campus there are indefinitely suspended from Cornell. Like as we said, there's two students who are expelled. There are these reports that they had to write essays to maybe some of the students to limit their disciplinary, however they were going to be disciplined if they're still on campus. Like the fact that those, like there was clearly some sort of discipline that was done to these students. And the fraternity has been kicked off of campus at Cornell. How does that impact the arguments that are being made in court that, like clearly, this is not something that just came out of thin air? - Yeah, I mean, I think in court, it may not come up so much, 'cause I think that if this actually gets prosecuted, the likelihood that the outcome of the Cornell process is actually admissible is probably fairly low. But I think from an object standpoint, it definitely puts a little bit of pressure on the DA's office to at least make sure he's giving it an exhaustive review. Because right now, the general public is, you know, they kind of have the same outrage that you kind of described. There's a little bit of pressure on the DA's office. Doesn't mean it's gonna pressure him into filing charges or being more persuasive with the grand jury than he otherwise would. But there's definitely pressure on him to take it very seriously. So maybe not so much in the courtroom is gonna have a big impact, but it's definitely underscoring the need to have a real serious second look at this. - Well, and if there are, let's just say, there's no charges that are filed. But again, we still have, like, you know, something happened to the point where there was discipline that was involved at the school. Like, how would that impact the civil case? - Well, in the civil case, again, that may not be admissible in the civil case. The fact that these guys were actually found and are responsible. That'll be up for a judge decide, but there's a good argument why the school's decision on that shouldn't replace what ultimately a jury might decide on the underlying civil case. But the fact that they went through that entire process, the fact that there was, you know, there was testimony that was given, these essays that are kind of debated on whether they actually happened or not. If there are essays from individuals who are apologizing for their part of what happened as a way to get favor with Cornell to not exclude them, that kind of evidence could be significant going forward. - The issue of sexual assault on campuses, it's been a problem for a long time. I mean, I graduated school in 2010 and I remember there were conversations about that issue where I went to school. How has, like, just from what you've seen? 'Cause, you know, there's clearly now a ton of pressure on Cornell and a lot of scrutiny until, like, how did you handle this? When this information, like, came to your desk as, like, an administration, like, how have you seen schools over time? Like, the way, the awareness maybe they have about this problem and typically how they handle these things? - Yeah, so I've seen significant progress in how schools handle things and you see a case like this and you feel like there hasn't been any progress at all. The reality is there has been, like, when I started doing Title IX cases, campus rape cases, most schools didn't have a Title IX coordinator, they didn't have a Title IX policy, they didn't know that it was their job to actually respond and investigate or take any sort of display, there was nothing, and this wasn't 40 years ago, this was, like, you know, not even 20 years ago. Most schools had that kind of approach to getting information about sexual assault. Since then, everybody has a decent Title IX policy, everybody has trained Title IX employees, there's a process, there's an expectation from all students that they're going to take it seriously. Whether it shakes out that way, that could be a case-by-case determination, but we now have an infrastructure set at every single school that never existed when I started doing these cases just 20 years ago. - Yeah, question I probably should have had earlier, because we often hear about Title IX, and, like, in sports, you hear about Title IX, but in, you know, the context of, like, what we're talking about, like, for people who may have heard Title IX, but they don't know exactly what it is, like, what is Title IX? - Yeah, so Title IX is a, it's 37 words is the whole statute. It basically says, you can't discriminate against somebody on the basis of sex. As it pertains to athletics, we see it in the context of not giving enough money or not giving up athletic opportunities to women in a context of sexual harassment or rape. The idea is, you know, and you have to keep in mind that, back when Title IX was passed, there were schools that just didn't allow women in, there were graduate programs that discriminated against women, and once they started letting women into these programs, the case law developed, like, well, if you're letting them in, and then they're raped, and then they drop out, or the education suffers, that's just as bad as not letting them in in the first place. So that's considered to be discrimination if you ignore reports of sexual harassment or don't respond in a way that, you know, the female student suffers, it's usually her, but his or her education. - Yeah, and it's just, you know, the allegations here are just so terrible to read through. Typically, in a case like this, what is the timeline? From, you know, and I know like a settlement could come at any point in time, but what happens next? - So from, in the civil lawsuit, you know, the universal have to respond, they can either file a motion to dismiss, or they can just answer to nine the allegations against them, as well as all, actually, there's a number of defendants, if they get, they really have gone off here, everybody in this case, which is a very aggressive, not inappropriate, very aggressive tactic. So the young men are being sued, the fraternity, sorority, the bar, university, they all have the opportunity to file a motion to dismiss, or answer, once that process works through, you're probably looking at at least another year or a year and a half of litigation before, you get a trial date, absent any appeals, you're probably looking within two years before, you have a trial in this case, and like you said, it could resolve at any point with any number of those defendants wrong way. - You know, and one last thing I think about because, you know, fraternities, I wasn't in one in college, but like Greek life was a big thing, you know, at my school, I remember, and like we hear often about stories of hazing, maybe, you know, some, you know, there are cases where people have passed away from like the amount of alcohol that they had to drink in hazing situations, and then sadly, they'll have cases like this, where sex assault is alleged to have happened at a fraternity house, like beyond, you know, what are the challenges, kind of in some of these cases, with dealing with these, you know, fraternity, which are like national organizations, you know, it's not just the house that might be on or off campus associated with the school, but like what is it like to kind of investigate these things and go through, you know, having to deal with a fraternity? And people who I'm sure are very close with each other and trust each other. - Yeah, well, you, I mean, that's the last point is great because it's one of the things that we see consistently through these, whether it's on the fraternity side, the sorority side, you know, they tend to band together and support their, their, you know, whether it's their paternity brother or sorority sister, and that's just human nature. It's completely understandable. But that can be a challenge. I mean, you're looking at, you know, young woman who by the allegations was gang raped by a number of fraternity brothers in the fraternity, as it sound like there was, you know, anybody else, you know, outside of fraternity observing. So like the witnesses are going to be, the actual eyewitnesses are going to be the participants and maybe one or two people that happened to see what was going on or was on that snap and heard about what was going on. So it can be difficult to prove the case because you have this very insular band of witnesses. That can be a real, a real challenge. But it does seem, speculating a little bit, but it does seem like there has been some cooperation from somebody within the fraternity, even to have this, you know, significant, you know, Snapchat, you know, screenshot. So maybe there's been a little bit of, I don't want to say taking the armor 'cause that makes the fraternity sound bad. I'm sure there's some good guys that are at that fraternity, but at least, you know, somebody is disclosing some information that hopefully is helpful to change those attorneys. - And we'll see what happens next, just a horrific case there. And we'll see about these allegations, both on the civil side and the criminal side, now that the investigation is reopened. John Kloon, title nine attorney, former prosecutor, great to have you on Longcrime. Thanks for being with us. - Good to meet you, Chris. Thank you. - That will do it for on the case. Presented by Longcrime, I'm Chris Stewart. We'll see you next time. (upbeat music) [BLANK_AUDIO]