Cornell DA Says He Never Saw Transcript Where Accuser Said 'I Was Raped,' Hochul Calls for Independent Probe

Since Tompkins County District Attorney Matthew Van Houten announced Monday, September 28, that he's reopening the criminal investigation into the alleged 2024 Cornell fraternity gang rape, the case has taken a sharper turn. CBS News published excerpts from the accuser's original police interview, and the DA now says he never saw the full document before deciding not to prosecute.

According to CBS New York, excerpts from a November 14, 2024, interview between the woman identified as Jane Doe and campus police quote her saying, "I can say with 100% confidence I was raped." ABC News separately reported that in a sworn statement dated November 15, 2024, she said the encounter "felt like coercion," that she told one fraternity brother "no to the foursome" he proposed, and that she "felt like I was unable to make any decision because of how intoxicated I was."

That directly conflicts with the explanation Van Houten gave Monday for why his office never brought charges. He had told ABC News that Jane Doe's original statement described her drug use and sexual conduct as "voluntary, conscious, and consensual," and that she never alleged being drugged without her knowledge, forced, or incapacitated.

Asked about the newly surfaced transcript, Van Houten told CBS News he had never seen it. "I'm going to follow up on this because this is news to me," he said. "If she had said those words, we certainly would want to have explored that more. Like I said, that wasn't provided to me."

That raises an unresolved question at the center of the case: who had the full transcript, who decided what got passed to prosecutors, and why a document containing the phrase "I was raped" apparently never reached the DA's desk before he closed the case in 2024. Van Houten has said his office relied on the Cornell University Police Department's investigation rather than conducting its own independent one at the time.

Governor calls for independent review

New York Gov. Kathy Hochul weighed in Tuesday, calling for an independent investigation into how the case was originally handled, according to Yahoo News. Her office has not detailed what form that review would take or who would conduct it.

Jane Doe's attorney, Thomas Giuffra, has argued that investigators never adequately followed up on his client's allegations and that she was not contacted by anyone trained in interviewing sexual assault survivors after her initial report to campus police. Cornell has said the complainant and respondents both had the chance to testify and present evidence during a multi-day disciplinary hearing, and that the panel issued sanctions including expulsions and suspensions, not just essay-writing, as her attorney had characterized it.

The counter-narrative

Not everyone accepts the gang-rape framing circulating on social media. The Daily Wire published a piece arguing the public has been misled about what it called the "Cornell 7" case, noting the accused students have been doxxed and labeled rapists online based on an unproven civil lawsuit rather than any criminal finding. As of today, no one has been charged with a crime, and a civil complaint's allegations are just that, allegations a defendant has not had the chance to contest in court.

Van Houten's own explanation for the 2024 non-prosecution decision, that Jane Doe's sworn statement described the encounter as voluntary and did not allege force, incapacitation, or drugging, supports the idea that the original case against the fraternity members was weaker than the civil complaint now suggests. A civil lawsuit needs only a preponderance of the evidence, while a criminal case requires proof beyond a reasonable doubt.

But the newly surfaced transcript lines, if accurate and complete, complicate that defense. A woman telling campus police in November 2024 that she felt coerced, said no to a proposed sex act, and couldn't make decisions due to intoxication is not the same as a purely voluntary account, regardless of how the DA summarized her statement on Monday.

What happens next

Van Houten has said he intends to present the case to a Tompkins County grand jury with Jane Doe's cooperation. It remains unclear when that presentation will happen, what additional evidence his office has gathered since Monday, or whether the transcript discrepancy will factor into the grand jury proceedings. Cornell has declined to release the number of students expelled versus suspended in its internal Title IX process, information that would let the public independently assess whether the university's account of its discipline matches its public statements.