Editor’s Note: The following article contains detailed descriptions of rape, gang rape, and extreme drug usage. Reader discretion is advised.
On Sept. 16, a civil lawsuit was filed against Cornell University and seven men who belonged to their Chi Phi fraternity. The Plaintiff is legally against Cornell University INC, Chi Phi Fraternity Association, Chi Phi Fraternity INC, Chi Phi Educational Trust, Alpha Beta House Corporation of Delta Delta Delta, Moonie’s Bar and Nightclub, Matthew Ingalls, Jonathan Newell, Winston Lee, Gillio Lopes, Diego Sarabia, Scott Norris, Scott Kretzschmar, an anonymous faculty member, an anonymous alum, the anonymous executive board, and Orazio Petito. All the claims made in this case are currently alleged.
One of the biggest claims against Cornell is claim 330. The claim alleges that Cornell failed to protect the Plaintiff, the anonymous Jane Doe, from known dangers by not having proper procedures in place to prevent sexual abuse and assault committed by students. In other words, the institution did not place or enforce rules and regulations to prevent the assault from occurring.
If this claim is found to be true in a court of law, this means Cornell broke their contractual obligation to protect the victim and can be held liable.
At Cornell, just a week before the assault took place, the police responded to a drug-related incident at the XI fraternity chapter house. This is the location where the victim was allegedly assaulted. In fall 2022, the year Jane Doe was a freshman at Cornell, there were five drug-related reports and two sexual assault reports. All of these occurred on campus, and all of these occurred at fraternity addresses. These are all claims made in the official lawsuit, claims that highlight a bigger issue with the institution itself. Their negligence is expected to be further dissected in court.
The night of the incident in question occurred Oct. 19, 2024, into the early morning of Oct. 20. The 20-year-old victim, Jane Doe, started the night at her sorority, drinking with other sorority members. They decided to go to an event happening at Moonies, a local bar and club. Upon entering, she had an X written on both hands to indicate that she was under the legal drinking age. The lawsuit states in claim 138, the “Plaintiff was served and consumed at least one alcoholic beverage at Moonies.”
Within the establishment that night there were “sober monitors,” which were girls from the sorority, tasked with assuring the safety and security of their fellow members. The idea is that these sober monitors would look after the girls, and handle the situation accordingly if anyone got too drunk. After Moonies, they all went to another bar for about an hour, before Jane Doe departed from this group.
She walked a mile, alone, to the fraternity house where she was going to meet up with her friend, Matthew Ingalls. At this point, Jane Doe had already had around 10 drinks in the last three hours.
When she arrived, Ingalls answered the door of the fraternity house, and welcomed her with a beer. Ingalls danced with her, then led her upstairs.
Matthew Ingalls proposed to Jane Doe that they have a threesome. In her drunken state, she was incapable of giving consent (per claim 149). Another frat member, Alex, who is not a defendant in this lawsuit, was in the room talking to Jane Doe until Ingalls led her to another room. Alex did not follow. In the second room was Jonathan Newell, also one of the defendants.
Ingalls and Newell pulled out what they claimed to be ketamine. The lawsuit claims that the two members pressured Jane Doe to do ketamine with them, then plied her with marijuana and what they called “Jamaican liquor” (possibly rum). Soon after all of these substances entered her system, the two men raped her. Newell allegedly slapped the victim repeatedly so hard that it left visible bruising. Later in the night, at 1:42 a.m., Jonathan Newell texted a group chat labeled “Chi Phi Actives.” The text states “free pussy,” referring to Jane Doe in one of the upstairs rooms. Some of the responses to this horrifying message were: “Free…,” “I fucking love Chi Phi,” and “Like you can walk in and whip it out” (shown in photograph from page 27 of lawsuit).
After this message, more men came into the room where Jane Doe was hiding. Seven men, all around the bed, looked down at her while she was trying to cover herself. One of the men, Diego Sarabia, kissed her, but she tried to push him away.
They did drugs off her body, and made her take ketamine again. Then Ingalls, Newell, Lee, Lopes, Sarabia, Norris, and Kretzschmar, took turns raping her. The seven male Cornell students gang-raped her until around 5:45 a.m. When the hours of assault were done, she passed out.
On Nov. 8, 2024, Jane Doe filed a report to the Cornell police force. The seven students were issued temporary suspensions, and the lawsuit claims that Cornell offered the students the chance to lessen their punishment if they submitted essays to the school. There are no details of what these essays would contain. Then, after Jane Doe had waited three months, on Jan. 14, 2025, a Title IX investigation started. From May 2 to May 29, 2025, Cornell “conducted numerous (at least twelve) hearings regarding Plaintiff’s allegations,” as alleged by claim 184 of lawsuit. Some time after that, the Title IX investigation ended. This is the timeline displayed in the lawsuit. Two members were expelled, and the others were suspended.
After the lawsuit for this case was officially filed on Sept. 16, 2026, the District Attorney of Ithaca, New York, Matthew Van Houten, came out with a statement. He and his office stated that in 2024, they only assisted the school in their investigation. They “do not conduct parallel independent investigations of cases alongside police investigations.”
Days after this statement was released, investigative journalists from CBS got the full transcript from 2024 containing the interview between Jane Doe and investigators. Only snippets have been released to the public. Included in one of these clips is Jane Doe stating to campus police, “I can say with 100% confidence I was raped.”
Houten tells CBS that he never received that transcript from Cornell. All the information they had, he claimed in his official statement, “did not allege that she was drugged against her will or gang raped.” In an interview, he admitted to CBS that if he had this transcript in 2024, they “would want to have explored that more”.
Jane Doe was interviewed by Cornell’s student newspaper, the Cornell Daily Sun. “Almost two years later, I still carry the weight of its impact every day and night,” she said, referring to the alleged assault. Now, according to the lawsuit, she and her attorney demand a trial by jury, deemable punishments to the defendants, and rightful compensation.
Featured image: cornellseven.com
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