Texts between defendant and accuser surface in alleged Cornell gang-rape case

District attorney reopens dormant case after new allegations emerge

CBS News on Tuesday published text messages and Snapchat screenshots it said were exchanged around the time of an alleged gang-rape at Cornell University’s Chi Phi fraternity in October 2024. The materials appeared a day after Tompkins County District Attorney Matthew Van Houten announced he was reopening the dormant criminal investigation into the case.

The texts were reportedly sent within days of the alleged assault, in which a female student — then 20 years old and now no longer enrolled at Cornell — alleges she was drugged and repeatedly raped over the course of seven hours by multiple men who were alerted to her presence on the social media platform Snapchat. The lawsuit identifies the location as Cornell’s Chi Phi fraternity house, which has since closed.

In one of the messages, screenshots of which were obtained by CBS New York, the unnamed male defendant appears to apologize for “how things went down” and said his memory of events two nights earlier was “kinda fuzzy.” He said he and another male who was present regretted they were too intoxicated to “shut it down and kick people out before it got way out of hand.”

In reply, the woman said her memory was “super clouded too” and that they were all intoxicated. According to CBS, she also wrote: “non[e] of the sexual stuff was illegal,” and said she liked being with him and another man. She later suggested they smoke together again, “but like leave out the extra 5 billion men and ketamine.”

Her attorney, Thomas Giuffra, confirmed to CBS that his client — identified as Jane Doe in court documents — exchanged text messages with one defendant after the alleged assault, but said he could not be certain the screenshots CBS News reviewed were authentic. He told the network Doe had been in denial and traumatized afterward, had been intoxicated to the point of incapacity the night of the alleged assault, and was trying to find out what happened.

“She felt as if she would not take an aggressive tone with this particular defendant if she wanted answers,” Giuffra said, according to CBS.

Prosecutors defend initial decision, cite new allegations

Van Houten, whose jurisdiction includes Cornell, said Monday he had reopened the case in light of allegations he described as “dramatically different” from those the alleged victim originally made. He also defended his office’s November 2024 decision not to seek charges.

“Jane Doe’s sworn statement in November of 2024 did not allege that she was drugged against her will or gang raped,” Van Houten said. “On the contrary, [her] statement described her participation in drug use and sexual conduct as voluntary, conscious, 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.”

Van Houten on Monday also released further details from a “six-page, single-spaced, typewritten statement” the woman gave to Cornell University police three weeks after she reported the alleged assault. In it, she admitted she was initially willing to have sex with two of the Chi Phi members before others showed up and joined in. She said she was plied with alcohol, marijuana and ketamine, was “slapped” multiple times, and said her “phone was on the other side of the room and she felt as if there was no way for her to escape this room full of predatory, fraternity men.”

Group Snapchat messages referenced

CBS also said it obtained video of Snapchat messages exchanged on the night of the alleged assault by members of a group called “Chi Phi Actives.” One of the messages, sent while the woman was in the since-closed fraternity house, allegedly stated there was “free pussy upstairs.” According to CBS, a later message sent by a group member asked: “Shop still open?” The response was, “Yea.”

Named defendants and Cornell’s response

A civil lawsuit filed by the woman earlier in September names seven men as alleged perpetrators: Matthew Ingalls, Johnathan Newell, Winston Lee, Gillio Lopes, Diego Sarabia, Scott Norris, and Scott Kretzschmar. According to the suit, she went to the Chi Phi fraternity house in an intoxicated state looking for a friend and was assaulted there. Two of the men were expelled after an internal Cornell investigation; the other five were allowed to resume their studies at the Ivy League institution after writing an essay, attending a workshop, or serving a short suspension. None was ever arrested or charged.

Two of the defendants, Kretzschmar and Norris, denied their involvement in statements to ABC News, either directly or through lawyers. TMZ reported on Tuesday that a third defendant, Sarabia, had been fired from his job with Wells Fargo; the bank did not return a request for comment.