The investigation into allegations of a gang rape at Cornell University moved into a new phase Friday when Gov. Kathy Hochul and state Attorney General Letitia James addressed the case for the first time since the AG was appointed as a special prosecutor.<\/p>\n
The case has sparked nationwide shock because of the allegations and lack of criminal charges. That could change, however, with the governor’s announcement.<\/p>\n
\u201cI will not allow anyone to sweep this case under the rug,\u201d Hochul said Friday, adding that a Cornell University student, known as Jane Doe, was failed by a system meant to protect her after she was allegedly gang raped by several members of Cornell\u2019s Chi Phi fraternity in 2024.\u00a0<\/p>\n
The state AG’s office will open an investigation into what happened.<\/p>\n
\u201cI stand ready to lead a process guided by the facts and the law. In the coming months, my office will dutifully carry out the responsibilities the governor has conferred upon us in this executive order,\u201d James said.<\/p>\n
In a statement, Cornell University said, \u201cWe fully support the appointment of a special prosecutor and efforts to change New York State\u2019s rape law and are committed to an independent external review of all aspects of how Cornell has handled this case.\u201d<\/p>\n
Jane Doe alleges that the alleged rape took place over a span of several hours while she was intoxicated by drugs and alcohol.<\/p>\n
The original investigation by Cornell police did not get far. After interviewing the victim, a sworn statement was sent to Tompkins County District Attorney Matthew Van Houten, who did not seek prosecution after saying there wasn\u2019t enough evidence.<\/p>\n
\u201cThat statement did not articulate a violation of the criminal law in New York,” he stated.<\/p>\n
Van Houten also released a statement, saying: “I support the appointment of Attorney General James and I trust that she will examine the facts and apply the law. It has become clear that we were not provided the full picture by the University. The focus has been and should continue to be on the victims. My office will cooperate fully with the Attorney General.”<\/p>\n
But Hochul said she has lost confidence in Van Houten.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou don’t take the time to interview this young woman and ask more questions and rely on a partial record,” she said. “This is what I’m talking about. This is exactly why we’re here today and why I took the action last night.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
Earlier this week, several documents were unsealed in a court case trying to overturn one of the disciplinary findings against one of the defendants.<\/p>\n
They include findings of a three-member hearing panel from the university, which details the extent of the Title IX investigation by the school that took place after the Cornell Police statement was given. Over the course of three months, an investigator conducted over 50 interviews with 32 witnesses and almost all the parties.\u00a0<\/p>\n
The panel found that the defendant did not commit sexual assault, but was guilty of attempted sexual exploitation, a lesser offense which is defined as \u201cintentionally observing another person when that person is nude or engaged in sexual activity, without their knowledge or consent.\u201d<\/p>\n
This investigation determined that this student walked into a room where Jane Doe was lying in the bed, under the sheets, with at least one other person, but did not participate in the alleged assault.<\/p>\n
His punishment was a non-contact order between him and Jane Doe and sexual assault prevention training.<\/p>\n
Another major point brought up in the case is consent.<\/p>\n
Hochul said an upcoming priority next legislative session will be overturning a loophole that does not categorize a sexual assault victim as incapacitated if they willingly ingest drugs or alcohol, even though they cannot consent while under the influence.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cThere’s legislation that has passed one of the houses,” Hochul said. “We can take a look at that, talk to the sponsors, but find out in light of what we’ve learned, are there any other glaring deficiencies in state law?\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The investigation into allegations of a gang rape at Cornell University moved into a new phase Friday when…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":363259,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[17905,9,11,10,49,51,50,12,112,87,308,200],"class_list":["post-363258","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-new-york","tag-john-camera","tag-new-york","tag-new-york-headlines","tag-new-york-news","tag-new-york-state","tag-new-york-state-headlines","tag-new-york-state-news","tag-news","tag-ny-state-of-politics","tag-politics","tag-public-safety","tag-vod"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/363258","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=363258"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/363258\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/363259"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=363258"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=363258"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=363258"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}