What Cornell’s Jane Doe told investigators in 2024 prompts fresh questions in newly reopened investigation

WSTM, CNN

By Danya Gainor, Jason Carroll, Gloria Pazmino, Chris Boyette, Cindy Von Quednow, Avni Trivedi, CNN

(CNN) — The former Cornell University student who says she was gang raped made an explicit accusation of sexual assault in an interview with university police in November 2024, but the district attorney said university police didn’t share that document with his office.

“I can say with 100% confidence I was raped,” Doe said, according to CNN affiliate WCBS, which said it obtained a transcript of the interview from a source.

The university agreed to an independent investigation into its handling of the case, New York Gov. Kathy Hochul and Cornell said Wednesday.

That’s after Tompkins County District Attorney Matthew Van Houten told CNN he never received the transcript and that Cornell still had not provided it as of noon Wednesday.

Cornell has not yet responded to CNN’s questions about why Doe’s explicit rape accusation was not included in the materials provided to the district attorney’s office.

Cornell, which has insisted that it turned over all investigative materials to the DA’s office, hasn’t responded to repeated requests to explain or clarify whether that turnover included the interview transcript.

Doe’s rape accusation does not appear as forcefully in a separate six-page statement she signed in November 2024. The statement, obtained by CNN’s Pamela Brown from a source familiar with the investigation and first reported by ABC News, recounts what Doe told investigators about the night of October 19, 2024, when she alleges she was assaulted for hours by multiple members of the university’s Chi Phi fraternity.

In the signed statement, Doe told police she was OK with an initial encounter, but that later in the night she did not consent to other sexual conduct, according to the statement. She also described being physically hit.

The revelations raise new questions as to why no criminal charges were filed at the time of the incident and what the district attorney’s office knew about Doe’s allegations, amid growing calls for answers following her civil lawsuit this month.

Van Houten canceled his appearance on CNN Wednesday evening, saying, “At this time I need to shift my focus to the investigation and to pursuing the additional evidence that has recently come to light. I will not be doing any more media appearances at this time.”

He said his office will keep the public informed of developments in the investigation and any action of the Tompkins County Grand Jury.

As investigators reopen the case, here are the key questions that remain:

What did Jane Doe tell Cornell police about that 2024 night?

WCBS reports it obtained a transcript of Doe’s interview with Cornell University police in November 2024, weeks after the alleged rape. Doe also signed a six-page written statement to Cornell University Police at the time.

Doe described to Cornell police that she was heavily intoxicated on the night of the alleged rape, according to her signed statement.

The statement details how she told police she was “pretty ok” with the initial sexual activity, such as a threesome, but repeatedly refused some, including a foursome allegedly proposed by one of the fraternity brothers.

She said she “finally gave in” after she was asked “to have sex so many times,” according to the statement.

“To me that felt like coercion,” she said. “Also, I felt like due to my intoxication, they should have known how intoxicated I was based on how I was slurring my words.”

Doe also described she “had become extremely uncomfortable with how this night was turning out” and thought, “if I passed out and the men had sex with me, then they could be charged with Rape.”

WCBS reports she spoke to Cornell police on November 14 and 15, more than three weeks after the alleged gang rape. A campus police investigator led the questioning, with a Title IX investigator, a victim advocate, and Doe’s adviser also reportedly in the room for the first day of the interview, WCBS reported. CNN has reached out to Doe’s attorney.

In a statement to CNN, Van Houten said his office was not given the transcript.

“I will be looking into whether this is true and the specific circumstances of this allegation. I was not provided the transcript and the specific statement that has been attributed to Doe was not included in the written statement that I received from Cornell PD,” he told CNN.

Van Houten told CNN earlier this week that Doe had not provided university police with the same information as what was alleged in the civil complaint released earlier this month.

In a statement on Monday, Van Houten declined to release the full and complete original six-page statement signed by Doe to Cornell University police, due to privacy concerns. But he and his office did release a handful of excerpts, where she described the events of that night. The DA described those excerpts as “facts from Jane Doe’s statement that were relevant.” The excerpts line up with the full statement CNN obtained Wednesday.

That 2024 statement had “described her participation in drug use and sexual conduct as voluntary, conscious, and consensual,” Van Houten said Monday, adding that her 2026 lawsuit “omits any reference that Jane Doe consented to the sexual contact.”

The district attorney says it was this statement that determined no charges should be filed, adding “Multiple prosecutors and criminal investigators reviewed Jane Doe’s statement and correctly determined the alleged facts as set forth in the statement do not constitute a crime.”

When asked about Van Houten’s response to the reports of the interview transcript, a spokesperson for Cornell said: “The Cornell University Police Department investigated the matter in 2024 and shared all investigatory information with the Tompkins County District Attorney’s Office, which is the established protocol if the department believes it is possible a crime has occurred,” repeating a statement made in an FAQs post the university released Tuesday night.

Doe’s attorney, Thomas P. Giuffra, told CNN on Monday the Cornell police report prepared after Doe gave her statement “is not materially different” from her statements in the lawsuit filed this month.

“The legal complaint is much more detailed and lengthy because I took the time to meet with Ms. Doe multiple times and learn the specific facts of what had occurred,” Giuffra said.

CNN has not seen the transcript of her interview with Cornell police. CNN has asked Doe’s attorney and Cornell University police for a copy of the transcript.

What did Cornell police share with the district attorney’s office?

Van Houten said he learned of the more detailed allegation in Doe’s interview transcript from WCBS on Tuesday evening and his office will be investigating the reported statements “fully.”

“We never received it and still don’t have it. It was not part of what Cornell provided to us. We got the six page statement and nothing more except for the Snapchat video,” Van Houten told CNN late Wednesday morning, referring to the interview transcript.

A Cornell University spokesperson did not specifically address the transcript but said it “shared all investigatory information” with the district attorney’s office.

When pressed on what documents Cornell police turned over to the district attorney’s office, the spokesperson said, “Cornell University police shared a lengthy police investigation report” with the district attorney’s office and referred any other questions about the documents to Van Houten.

Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer slammed the university for its handling of the case in a Wednesday news conference.

“Cornell didn’t do what it was supposed to do: Go find the miscreants and go after them, quickly,” Schumer said.

New York State Assembly Speaker Carl Heastie announced Wednesday he is forming a legislative working group to examine the state’s sexual assault laws.

“The allegations being reported out of Cornell University are truly horrifying. We want to do everything we can to ensure victims of sexual assault see justice served,” Heastie said in a statement.

New York state law contains a provision that makes it nearly impossible for survivors to seek justice if they voluntarily consumed alcohol or drugs before an assault. There have been numerous attempts to alter the law in recent years.

Heastie, a Democrat, has repeatedly blocked action on the bills.

His office said the working group will be tasked with “identifying issues and developing legislative recommendations to the Speaker and the Majority Conference before the end of the year.” The recommendations would be considered during the 2027 legislative session.

How extensive was the 2024 investigation by Cornell police?

Van Houten said his office will be investigating the reported statements “fully.”

Doe reported the incident to Cornell University police on November 8, 2024, about a week before she sat for police interviews and nearly three weeks after the alleged assault, according to the complaint.

She was “traumatized, numb and unable to function or accept the horror of what had happened” in the days after the October 2024 alleged assault, Giuffra told CNN. Doe reported the alleged assaults to police “once she was emotionally ready.”

It’s unclear how extensive that initial police investigation was, but Doe’s attorney says he believes it was inadequate.

“It is challenging for me to understand how a thorough criminal investigation could have been conducted when she never spoke with anyone other than the officer who took her original complaint,” Giuffra said.

“Other than her initial contact with Cornell police, she was not contacted by investigators from the Tompkins County District Attorney’s Office or any investigators trained in interviewing rape survivors,” Giuffra said in a release.

During a contentious interview Monday, CNN’s Jake Tapper pressed Van Houten on why there wasn’t a more expansive investigation from law enforcement or the DA’s office after the initial report was made in 2024.

“We can’t change what happened in the past as much as the community is outraged,” Van Houten said.

The district attorney also told Tapper that his team did not initially see the screenshots of a Snapchat group chat among Chi Phi members, which Van Houten said were “completely vulgar and disgusting, but they had nothing to do with her consent.”

The screenshot included a message where one of the men wrote that there was “free p*ssy” and others responded gleefully, with comments like “CHI PHIII.”

“Shop still open?” one fraternity brother wrote during the alleged hourslong assault, according to additional video of the Snapchat conversation obtained by WCBS.

“Yeah,” another responded.

“They were not part of our initial analysis, but I understand that Cornell had them, and they sent them to our team,” he said.

The university said Tuesday that Cornell police gave the DA the Snapchat screenshots in November 2024, along with the rest of the evidence it gathered.

Giuffra’s characterization also raised questions as to why the nearby Ithaca Police Department was not involved in the investigation.

IPD said Monday that it was “disturbed” to hear about the 2024 allegations, but noted it was not reported to the agency. The department said it only learned about the alleged incident recently through the media.

The October 2024 incident occurred in Cornell police’s jurisdiction, according to the school, saying “the Cornell University Police Department is a sworn law enforcement agency and performs the same functions as municipal police, but on Cornell property.”

What happened to the accused fraternity members?

Doe’s attorney has said Cornell expelled two of the seven accused students while the others received lesser punishments, including suspensions, workshops or written assignments.

But Cornell has countered that claim, saying there was a range of sanctions for the accused students. “None of the individuals charged were offered the opportunity to write essays as a sole consequence of their involvement,” the university said.

The university has declined to confirm the individual disciplinary outcomes, citing federal student privacy law. The school said violations of university policy “could lead to sanctions up to and including suspension or expulsion,” adding, “We will respond in detail through the legal process.”

Those sanctions came after the university conducted a monthslong formal Title IX investigation, separate from the criminal investigation by law enforcement, and a panel of trained faculty and staff heard evidence over multiple days, the school said.

The Chi Phi national fraternity condemned the alleged assault in a statement on Wednesday, writing they took actions in 2024 that “went beyond anything the law or Cornell University required of us.”

Trey Robb, interim executive director of the national Chi Phi fraternity said Cornell’s Xi chapter “voted unanimously to remove the accused members from its rolls,” three days after Doe filed her statement with police.

Robb also mentioned the fraternity is a long-time partner with RAINN, an anti-sexual violence organization, and “has given our members extensive education on drug and alcohol abuse prevention and intervention.”

The school also said it had closed the chapter of the Chi Phi fraternity in 2024, and that the chapter remains barred from campus.

It is unclear if any of the accused men are still Cornell students.

Doe’s lawsuit faults Cornell for failing to properly discipline them after the alleged assault, “all the while sheltering them from speaking to law enforcement, and silencing victims.”

Cornell pointed to university resources available to survivors, adding, “individuals found responsible (for sexual misconduct) through our processes are held accountable.”

“Any suggestion that the university did not impose consequential punishments for those involved is false,” Cornell said in an earlier release. “A continuation of the false narrative that there were minimal consequences in this case is irresponsible, will make survivors feel less safe and supported, and will perpetuate the underreporting of sexual assault.”

But the lawsuit claims Cornell’s “conduct was so outrageous, shocking, despicable, and contemptible that it exceeds the reasonable bounds of decency as measured by what the average member of the community would tolerate and demonstrates an utter disregard for the consequences that would follow.”

The complaint is seeking a jury trial to determine monetary damages.

Who is Jane Doe?

Doe has not been identified. It is common for New York courts to permit alleged sexual assault survivors to use pseudonyms when their privacy interests and risk of further harm outweigh the presumption of an open proceeding.

Doe was 20 years old on October 19, 2024, the day of the incident, according to the complaint. Her attorney has said she is from a small town, and it was her dream to go to Cornell – which she no longer attends.

Help is available: For help in the US, call the National Sexual Assault Hotline at 1-800-656-4673 or chat 24/7 on online.rainn.org.

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CNN’s Hanna Park, Holly Yan, Linh Tran, Jeff Winter and Shoshana Dubnow contributed to this report.