The attorney for a woman accusing seven Cornell fraternity members of drugging and sexually assaulting her has said she was unable to consent and is “not doing well” amid attempts to identify her online.
Thomas Giuffra said his client had been “under siege on social media” as people sought to uncover her identity. He said the situation had been made worse by what he described as “false court postings” and the misidentification of other women.
“That’s been really difficult,” Giuffra said in an interview with CNN.
Attorney disputes account of consent
Giuffra was also asked about the woman’s account to police, in which she said consensual sexual activity took place earlier in the night before becoming non-consensual.
He rejected the suggestion that she had been capable of agreeing to sexual activity at any point, saying she arrived at the Chi Phi fraternity house heavily intoxicated.
“I don’t think it was ever consensual,” Giuffra said. “She showed up at the Chi Phi heavily intoxicated. There was testimony not just from the people involved in the assault, but there was a lot of testimony from people who were around that time, saw her that day, and by all accounts, she was completely, completely intoxicated. She couldn’t consent to anything.”
He added that her intoxication, together with what he described as being “plied with drugs”, meant she was “incapable of consenting”.
The comments came after accounts from several of the accused Cornell fraternity members described the woman as consenting to sexual contact multiple times during the night. One allegedly said she told them, “we’re all consenting adults here”, while another claimed she said, “this was normal in the medieval times.”
