New details emerge in the Cornell University Title IX investigation where a former student, only identified as Jane Doe, was 20 at the time she claims she was drugged and gang-raped by fraternity brothers in a Chi Pi house in October 2024.
Lawsuit Reopens Cornell Investigation
CBS News obtained 565 pages of transcripts, which it examined thoroughly and reported on the new details it uncovered. A Cornell police investigator and a Title IX investigator interviewed Jane Doe over two days beginning on November 14, 2024, about three weeks after the alleged incident, with a victim advocate and personal adviser alongside her.
Investigators then used that interview to write a six-page statement to provide to Tompkins County District Attorney Matthew Van Houten, who says he was never given the full transcripts. A Title XI investigation was also conducted in 2025 by Cornell, where they interviewed 32 witnesses.
Jane Doe filed a lawsuit against Cornell last month and the seven members of the Chi Pi fraternity that she alleges were involved in the incident. Since the lawsuit, Van Houten vowed to reopen the investigation, and New York Attorney General Letitia James was assigned as a special prosecutor in the case.
Before The Alleged Assault
Jane Doe told Cornell police investigators that the night of October 19, 2024, was her sorority house’s “Date night,” according to the transcripts. At such an event, sisters bring friends or plus-ones for a night out, and she said they all began drinking before arriving at a bar downtown. They proceeded to drink, and Doe admitted to barely eating anything that day.
She said she was excited to meet up with ‘Male 1’, as the suspects will be referred to throughout, after he invited her to the Chi Pi fraternity house. After her arrival, she said she had a consensual sexual encounter in one of the rooms of the house with Male 1 and another person, Male 2. Investigators asked whether she was fine with the encounter, and she responded uncertainly.
“As much as I can be because, again, I was super drunk when I got there,” according to the transcript. She added she felt “really off-guard the entire night. The whole night, I was just completely caught off-guard.”
Campus police investigators questioned Male 2, who said that they found ketamine in the room the three of them were in during the sexual encounter. He and Male 1 ingested ketamine, but Jane Doe declined.
Chi Pi Snapchat Group Chat
The most damning and disturbing evidence in this case is the messages sent in a Chi Pi Snapchat group chat with over 50 brothers. After the two males ingested Ketamine, that is when the night began to go dangerously south.
According to Jane Doe’s lawsuit, at 1:42 a.m. on October 20, 2024, a brother sent in the group chat that a woman was at their house available for sex. “Shop still open?” one asked in reply, and received an affirmative response.
Investigators interviewed Male 6, who said he was part of the Snapchat group and that, when he received the initial message, he was in a different part of the house but recalled being “befuddled” by it. Another person, Male 7, said Male 1 sent the initial message in the chain. “We saw the text and were somewhat concerned but thought it could be just crude humor,” Male 7 said.
The Alleged Sexual Assault Happens
Jane Doe told investigators that she felt “cornered” after several other men entered the room and the alleged sexual assault began. “I was like literally cornered,” she said. “… I’m a naked woman, and they are getting in bed with me.”
“I was a sex doll for all intents and purposes, which is sad but, unfortunately, something I’m not used to, or something that I haven’t experienced before,” she explained. She went on to say that at a different point in the night she was escorted out of the room, put in a closet, and given ketamine.
“I didn’t remember the very end of the event where I was raped,” Jane Doe said, adding that the sexual assaults continued for hours until she lost consciousness around 5:45 a.m. “I can say with 100% confidence I was raped,” she told campus investigators, according to the transcripts.
Van Houten says he was not provided the full transcripts from Jane Doe’s interview with Cornell campus investigators and, referring to when she claims she was raped, he said, “That wasn’t information that I had, first of all. Second of all, that is a legal conclusion.”
“If she had said those words, we certainly would want to have explored that more,” Van Houten continued. “Like I said, that wasn’t provided to me.”
Processing The Aftermath
On October 22, 2024, Jane Doe went to an appointment at Cornell Health and told the doctor she contracted a urinary tract infection in a “traumatic way,” in which the professional advised her to “speak with somebody.”
“I know that certain drugs … with the hair test … only live three weeks, so I was like I need to really rush to get this done,” Jane Doe said in her interview with campus investigators. “I still have the dress from the night. I have not washed it — not in a gross way, just in an evidence way.”
She also said she visited a website called GreekRank, which ranks fraternities and sororities on campuses. She saw under Chi Pi’s listing at Cornell that others had alleged sexual assault by those brothers. “And that’s kind of when I came to the realization that I had been gang-raped,” she said.
The Current Reality
Jane Doe did not graduate from Cornell, but left due to the traumatizing reality that she had to face her rapists on a daily basis on campus. The university’s president said that two of the students were expelled, two were suspended for a year, one had graduated before punishment could be given, and two were found not guilty of sexual misconduct.
Cornell University also shut down the Chi Pi fraternity and has permanently barred it from campus. Unfortunately, the pain and suffering brought to Jane Doe by those brothers can never be removed from her memory, and she deserves more justice than expulsion and removal of the chapter.
