An attorney representing a Cornell University student has accused the institution of mishandling an alleged rape case, saying his client was incapable of consenting after arriving at a fraternity house “completely, grossly intoxicated”.
Jane Doe, who was 20 and a sophomore at the time, has sued Cornell and seven former fraternity members over the alleged events in October 2024. Her lawyer, Thomas Giuffra, said she was pressured to take ketamine and became unable to stop what was happening.
“She didn’t have consent from the time she walked in the door; she was incapable of consent,” Mr Giuffra told CBS News.
He said Ms Doe described feeling as though she was “floating above herself” and like a ragdoll. Referring to her evidence in Cornell’s Title IX investigation, he said she felt like “a sex worker just being shuffled from place to place in a bit, unable to stop it”.
Attorney alleges cover-up in Cornell rape case
Mr Giuffra said the university investigation had failed to take basic steps, including interviewing witnesses named in a fraternity group chat, questioning the men involved and securing phones and other evidence soon after the alleged incident.
“I’m more and more convinced there was a cover-up,” he said. “I mean, at first I thought it was just bumbling, but now I think there was a cover-up. I think they were worried about protecting the reputation of the university. They were protecting the big source of revenue in the county.”
Ms Doe reported the alleged rapes to Cornell University Police three weeks later. Mr Giuffra said investigators had been “in over their heads” while handling a serious crime.
Cornell said it had conducted a “thorough Title IX investigation” over several months and supported the Tompkins County district attorney’s decision to reopen the case.
Governor Kathy Hochul said she was “deeply disturbed” by the handling of the matter. She described it as a failure that police sent the district attorney Ms Doe’s six-page sworn statement but not the full transcript, and criticised the district attorney for not conducting interviews.
Ms Hochul has appointed New York Attorney General Letitia James as special prosecutor in the case.
Mr Giuffra said the civil lawsuit was filed only after Ms Doe had completed Cornell’s Title IX process and felt ready to proceed. He said it had taken time to prepare the 101-page complaint because she had previously feared she would be unable to cope with the backlash.
The lawsuit includes a screenshot that appears to show one defendant posting in a Snapchat group of dozens of fraternity members that there was a woman upstairs for “free” sex. Mr Giuffra said the group had more than 50 members and that none had intervened.
He described the person who leaked the group chat as the only individual who had done the right thing, saying that without the material there would be no “smoking gun”.
Messages exchanged between Ms Doe and one of the defendants days after the alleged assault have also come under scrutiny. In one message, she wrote that “none of the sexual stuff was illegal”. Mr Giuffra confirmed she had exchanged messages with the man but said he could not verify the specific exchanges.
He said Ms Doe had initially been in denial before, as rumours spread on campus, coming to what newly obtained Title IX records describe as the realisation that she had “been gang raped”.
Four of the seven men named in the lawsuit are specifically accused of rape. Mr Giuffra said the others were not all accused of gang rape but alleged that they had also acted inappropriately and should be held accountable.
Lawyers for two of the accused have denied the allegations, while a third man’s attorney has also publicly denied wrongdoing.
