Texts on alleged Cornell gang rape released after investigation reopens | new York

Excerpts of text messages allegedly exchanged by a defendant in the Cornell University gang rape case and the woman who claims she was assaulted were released Tuesday by CBS News, a day after New York prosecutors announced the reopening of a criminal investigation.

The texts were allegedly sent days after the alleged October 2024 assault at a campus fraternity house, in which a female student said she was drugged and repeatedly raped over seven hours by several men alerted to her presence on the social media platform Snapchat.

Taken together, these texts appear to highlight the complications that have often arisen in investigations centered on rape on college campuses in the United States.

In one of the messages, screenshots of which were obtained by CBS New York, the anonymous defendant appears to apologize to the woman for “the way things happened” – and said his memory of the events of two nights prior was “pretty fuzzy.”

He said he and another man present regretted being too drunk to “stop it and kick people out before it got out of control.”

In response, the woman, who was 20 at the time of the alleged assault and has since left Cornell, said her memory was “also very cloudy” and that they were all drunk.

According to CBS, she also wrote, “no sexual activity was illegal” and said she enjoyed being with him and another man. Later, she suggested they smoke together again, “but leaving aside the 5 billion extra men and the ketamine.”

A civil suit filed by the woman earlier in September alleges that seven men, named Matthew Ingalls, Johnathan Newell, Winston Lee, Gillio Lopes, Diego Sarabia, Scott Norris and Scott Kretzschmar, assaulted her at Cornell’s Chi Phi fraternity house after she went there intoxicated looking for a friend.

Two of the alleged perpetrators were later expelled after an internal investigation by Cornell, while the other five were allowed to return to their studies at the Ivy League institution after writing an essay, attending a workshop or serving a short suspension.

None were ever arrested or charged, and outrage over the treatment of the alleged attackers grew when the woman’s trial was made public.

On Monday, Tompkins County, New York, District Attorney Matthew Van Houten — whose office includes Cornell — said he had reopened the dormant investigation into the case. He said his office did so in light of allegations that he said were “drastically different” from those initially made by the alleged victim.

He also released a statement defending his initial decision not to press charges.

“Jane Doe’s November 2024 affidavit does not allege that she was drugged against her will or gang raped,” Van Houten said.

“To the contrary, (his) statement described his participation in drug use and sexual behavior as voluntary, knowing, and consensual. My office obviously did not and could not have based our November 2024 decision on the allegations in a civil lawsuit that would not be filed until nearly two years later.”

CBS, meanwhile, also claimed to have video of Snapchat messages exchanged the night of the alleged assault by numerous members of a group called Chi Phi Actives. One of the messages, sent while the woman was in the since-closed fraternity house, reportedly said there was “a loose pussy upstairs.”

According to CBS, a subsequent message sent by a member of the group asked, “Is the store still open?” The answer was “Yes”.

Attorney Thomas Giuffra, who represents the woman, confirmed to CBS that his client — named Jane Doe in court documents — exchanged text messages with a defendant after the alleged assault. But Giuffra said he couldn’t be certain that the screenshots seen by CBS News were authentic.

Giuffra, according to CBS, said Doe was in denial and traumatized afterward, had been drunk to the point of incapacity that night and was trying to find out what happened.

He said she felt like she wouldn’t take an aggressive tone toward this particular defendant if she wanted answers.

Other details released Monday by Van Houten included a summary of a “six-page, single-spaced, typed statement” that the woman gave to Cornell University police after reporting the assault three weeks after it allegedly occurred.

In it, she admits that she was initially willing to have sex with two of the Chi Phi members – before the others showed up and joined in. She said she was doused with alcohol, marijuana and ketamine, that she was “slapped” multiple times and that her “phone was across the room and she felt like there was no way for her to escape from this room full of predatory fraternity men.”

Two of the defendants, Kretzschmar and Norris, have denied their involvement in the statements made to ABC News, either directly or through attorneys.

TMZ reported Tuesday that a third defendant, Sarabia, was fired from his job at Wells Fargo. The bank did not return a request for comment.