WASHINGTON, Oct 1 (Reuters) – New York Governor Kathy Hochul said \u2060she \u2060signed an executive order on Thursday appointing \u2060state Attorney General Letitia James as special prosecutor in the case of the\u00a0alleged 2024 gang rape \u200bof a Cornell University student.<\/p>\n
The\u00a0student filed a civil lawsuit last month saying several members of a campus fraternity drugged and assaulted her in \u200c2024. Hochul said on Thursday that newly \u200creleased information raised questions about the investigation conducted by the Cornell Police Department and the decision by Tompkins County prosecutors not to \u2060prosecute the case.<\/p>\n
“I’ve \u2060lost faith in the Tompkins County DA’s ability to fairly oversee it (the case),” Hochul \u200bsaid in a statement.<\/p>\n
James said her office would “fully and fairly” investigate the allegations.<\/p>\n
“The Governor has entrusted my office with this investigation, and we do not take that responsibility lightly,” James said in a statement.<\/p>\n
The case raised questions about how law enforcement and the university initially responded after the woman, \u200bthen 20,\u00a0made a report to police a few weeks after the alleged incident occurred.<\/p>\n
In recent days, several new reports have \u2060revealed \u2060more about what law enforcement knew \u2060in 2024.<\/p>\n
CBS New York \u200bobtained a copy of the transcript of the alleged victim’s interview with police, which included far more detail than \u200bthe sworn statement police eventually provided \u2060to prosecutors.<\/p>\n
The New York Times obtained more than 1,000 pages of material from Cornell’s internal investigation. The documents show that it took some time for the woman to determine that she had been gang-raped, the newspaper reported.<\/p>\n
The woman’s lawsuit names as defendants seven fraternity members, the Chi Phi fraternity, Cornell, a bar and her own sorority.<\/p>\n
Tompkins County District Attorney Matthew Van Houten has acknowledged the public outcry about \u2060how authorities had handled the case. He\u00a0said this week his office had reopened the case and would \u2060present evidence, including testimony from the woman, to a grand jury for possible indictment.<\/p>\n
Van Houten said his office initially declined to pursue charges against the students accused of raping the woman partly because of the constraints of state law. Experts and advocates say it can be more difficult to bring certain rape charges in New York if the plaintiff had chosen to consume intoxicants prior to the alleged assault.<\/p>\n
Some lawmakers urged a revamp of the state’s sexual assault statutes to make it easier to prosecute cases involving intoxicated victims.<\/p>\n
The New York Times, citing internal Cornell documents, reported that the men all denied any wrongdoing and told school investigators that the sex was consensual.<\/p>\n
Cornell has defended its handling \u2060of the matter, saying that it launched a comprehensive investigation and barred from campus the Chi Phi chapter, which remains closed. The school imposed a range of discipline on the fraternity members, including expulsions and sanctions.<\/p>\n
The interim executive director of the national Chi Phi fraternity, Trey Robb, said in a statement on Wednesday that the Cornell chapter \u200bexpelled members understood to have been involved in the incident, as did the national fraternity. \u00a0<\/p>\n
(Reporting by Kanishka \u200bSingh in Washington; Editing by Sergio Non and Stephen Coates)<\/p>\n
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