Cornell rape inquiry reopens as DA corrects Snapchat evidence account

Seven fraternity members are named as defendants in a former Cornell student’s civil lawsuit alleging drugging and rape. Seven is not a criminal charge count, and it is not a conviction count. But the breadth of the allegations makes the prosecutor’s acknowledgment that investigators never interviewed the men a consequential gap in the earlier inquiry—one now reopened after prosecutors initially found insufficient evidence to charge. ^{9 10}

Tompkins County District Attorney Matthew Van Houten has also corrected his account of receiving a Snapchat screenshot. He now acknowledges that his earlier statement about not receiving it was mistaken, while maintaining that the screenshot did not change his legal analysis of consent. As of September 30, 2026, no criminal charges are reported, and no completed grand-jury presentation is established. The evidence-receipt account has changed; the criminal outcome remains unsettled. ^{6 29}

The plaintiff, using the name Jane Doe, alleges that multiple men pressured her to take drugs, drugged her and sexually assaulted or raped her at Cornell’s Chi Phi fraternity house in October 2024. No exact incident day is verified. BBC reporting dates her civil filing to September 16, 2026; Van Houten’s September 28 statement says he learned of the complaint on September 18. He says it contains allegations differing from those previously reviewed. This is renewed scrutiny of an older allegation, not a newly occurring assault. ^{1 33 24 10}

The summons names Matthew Ingalls, Johnathan Newell, Winston Lee, Gillio Lopes, Diego Sarabia, Scott Norris and Scott Kretzschmar. Alongside Cornell and Chi Phi, it also names additional fraternity and sorority entities, Zareen Enterprise LLC doing business as Moonies Bar & Nightclub, Orazio Petito and unidentified defendants. Their inclusion establishes neither wrongdoing nor an identical role in the alleged conduct. ³²

The complaint reportedly includes messages attributed to fraternity members during the alleged assault. Doe’s lawyer says messages invited others to join it. Their inclusion in a lawsuit is not judicial authentication. ABC reports that two men publicly denied the allegations and five had not responded to its requests for comment. Nonresponse is not an admission. ^{3 7 2}

Van Houten’s explanation for the earlier decision rests partly on Doe’s campus-police statement. He said it did not allege that she was drugged against her will or that she did not consent, and cited her acknowledgment of consensual participation in drug use and sexual conduct. The qualification “against her will” matters: it cannot be flattened into a claim that she mentioned no drugs. ²

ABC’s later account of the statement describes intoxication, consent to some sexual acts and repeated refusals of others. Its reporting quotes the phrase “felt like coercion.” Doe’s attorney separately alleges that she was given ketamine multiple times and was incapable of consent. These accounts do not fit a blanket description of everything as consensual. Nor does the available record supply the full investigative file needed to assess the prosecutor’s complete reasoning. ^{2 22}

Agreement to one act is not agreement to every act. Voluntary drug use does not, by itself, establish capacity to consent at every later moment. Neither observation decides this case. Both identify questions that an adequate investigation must examine rather than resolve through shorthand.

The screenshot chronology needs similar precision. ABC News reported on September 28 that Van Houten said he first saw the alleged chat when the lawsuit was filed. NBC’s September 29 broadcast, published September 30, subsequently reported Cornell’s statement that campus police sent a screenshot in 2024—and Van Houten’s acknowledgment that he had misspoken about not receiving it. The older nonreceipt account is therefore superseded, not an equally current competing version. ^{9 6}

That correction does not establish that prosecutors possessed the entire message thread in 2024, when every item was reviewed, or how it was evaluated. A screenshot and a complete group chat are different evidentiary objects.

Cornell says its campus police investigated and consulted the district attorney under established protocol. Ithaca police say they were not involved and learned of the allegations recently through the media; NPR reports that local police said they were never notified. These are different agencies. Ithaca’s noninvolvement does not mean no police investigation occurred, while Cornell’s account does not demonstrate that municipal police received notice. ^{5 1}

Van Houten has announced an intention to present the case to a Tompkins County grand jury, in some accounts with Doe’s cooperation. Reporting varies in certainty: India Today’s September 28 account says presentation is set, while Hindustan Times’s same-day account describes consideration conditional on further evidence supporting charges. CTV’s September 30 report gives fall timing. No exact date, completed presentation or outcome is established. ^{21 15 16 3}

Hochul’s September 29 intervention asks a separate question: how Cornell handled the complaint. “No student should ever be left wondering whether the institutions meant to protect them will listen and act,” she said. Cornell expressed a shared commitment to addressing campus culture and working with state officials, but did not commit in those responses to the independent outside review she requested. Cooperation is not the same as submitting institutional decisions to outside examination. ^{55 4 8}

CNN reporting describes a prospective attorney-general review, but its commencement, mandate and timetable are not established. Cornell also released an FAQ in an email signed by President Michael Kotlikoff, Provost Kavita Bala and trustees chair Anne Meinig Smalling. That is an institutional response, not confirmation of an independent inquiry. ^{34 23}

Cornell says it conducted a months-long Title IX investigation and adjudicated the allegations under university policies. Chi Phi remains barred from campus. NBC and CTV report some students were suspended or expelled, but individual sanction records and their timing remain unresolved. Campus discipline is not a criminal conviction; the absence of charges does not establish that campus adjudication found no violation. ^{1 20 6 3}

Doe’s lawyer alleges that she wanted to leave Cornell but the university would not refund her parents for the school year, and that she regularly encountered the men she accused. Cornell’s specific response to those claims is not provided. They put a practical question alongside the legal ones: what protection and options did she have while the institutions considered her complaint? ⁴

The wider safety concern cannot prove this case. Survey coverage reports more than one in three undergraduate women respondents describing sexual assault or nonconsensual sexual contact during their time at Cornell; the exact percentage and equivalence of those definitions remain unresolved. ABC also reports more than 40 sexual-misconduct responses to a student-newspaper hotline in one week, including accounts from 2016 and the 1990s—not 40 adjudicated assaults occurring that week. ^{71 7}

NPR ¹; ABC roundup ²; CTV ³; ABC interview ⁴; NBC Nightly News ⁵; NBC Top Story ⁶; ABC World News Tonight ⁷; ABC review report ⁸; ABC reopening report ⁹; ABC article ¹⁰; WRVO ¹¹; Cornell Daily Sun ¹²; Newser ¹³; CRBC ¹⁴; India Today ¹⁵; Hindustan Times ¹⁶; ABC video ¹⁷; Independent ¹⁸; New York Post ¹⁹; ABC September 27 broadcast ²⁰; ABC lawsuit report ²¹.

ABC statement reporting ²²; Daily Sun FAQ reporting ²³; prosecutor statement ²⁴; BBC reopening report ²⁵; Economic Times ²⁶; DNYUZ ²⁷; NBC charging-decision report ²⁸; Irish Times ²⁹; CNY Central grand-jury report ³⁰; ABC charging-decision report ³¹; summons ³²; BBC explainer ³³; CNN/KEYT ³⁴; lawsuit transcript reproduction ³⁵; ABC article copy ³⁶; GPB ³⁷; CNY Central review report ³⁸.

Cornell survey documents: 2025 tables ³⁹, overview ⁴⁰, 2023 overview ⁴¹, 2017 questionnaire ⁴², 2017 overview ⁴³, 2021 tables ⁴⁴, 2019 tables ⁴⁵, 2021 overview ⁴⁶. Daily Sun review report ⁴⁷; prosecutor PDF reproduction ⁴⁸; IBTimes UK ⁴⁹; KBAR ⁵⁰; 607 News Now ⁵¹; Us Magazine ⁵²; CNN interview ⁵³; WAOW interview ⁵⁴.

Governor statement ⁵⁵; ABC review article ⁵⁶; CNN/Local 3 ⁵⁷; 607 News Now review report ⁵⁸; Good Morning America ⁵⁹; CBS New York ⁶⁰; ABC interview pages ^{61 62}; interview reproduction ⁶³; NOW officers ⁶⁴; Villanueva profile ⁶⁵; Ms. Magazine ⁶⁶; ABC review videos ^{67 68}; ABC statement video ⁶⁹; Cornell survey announcement ⁷⁰; CNY Central survey reporting ⁷¹; 2025 questionnaire ⁷²; survey summary ⁷³; Cornell support statement ⁷⁴; Daily Sun survey reporting ⁷⁵.