The Cornell fraternity rape case produced a national outrage campaign two years ago, after a student claimed she was raped at a fraternity house. Her allegations surfaced two weeks ago after the woman, known as Jane Doe in the lawsuit, sued seven men, the university, her sorority and the fraternity.
People walk on the campus of Cornell University in Ithaca, New York, in February 2024. AP Photo/Seth WenigExcept, now we find out that the accuser's original sworn statement described the encounter as consensual. Tompkins County District Attorney Matthew Van Houten is reopening the investigation into allegations that seven former members of Cornell’s Chi Phi fraternity sexually assaulted a student in October 2024. And shall we take a guess as to why there were no charges filed?
According to CBS News, Van Houten said the woman’s November 2024 statement "did not allege that she was drugged against her will or gang raped" by multiple men.
"On the contrary, Jane Doe’s statement described her participation in drug use and sexual conduct as voluntary, conscious, and consensual."
That's the prosecutor’s characterization of her earlier account. It conflicts sharply with the civil lawsuit filed this month - and creates an obvious question for the reopened investigation: how should those accounts be reconciled?
The woman, identified as Jane Doe, was 20 at the time. Her lawsuit alleges that she arrived at the fraternity house already intoxicated, was pressured into taking what she was told was ketamine, and was sexually assaulted by multiple men over several hours.
She reported the incident to campus police approximately three weeks afterward. The nearly two-year gap concerns the civil lawsuit; it does not mean she waited two years to contact police.
Then there are the texts.
CBS News New York obtained screenshots that a source described as an exchange between Doe and one defendant two days after the alleged assault.
In that exchange, the woman wrote that "non(e) of the sexual stuff was illegal," said she liked being with him and another man, and suggested they smoke together again - "but like leave out the extra 5 billion men and ketamine."
The man replied by apologizing for "how things went down." He described his memory as “kinda fuzzy” and said he and another man felt bad about being too intoxicated to stop the situation and remove others before it got out of hand. The woman described her own memory as “super clouded too.”
So she may or may not have willingly let a group of frat boys bust a train on her, and now she's suing.
Doe’s attorney, Thomas Giuffra, confirmed that she exchanged texts with the defendant, but could not confirm that these were the specific messages. He told CBS she was traumatized and in denial, had been intoxicated to the point of incapacity, and was trying to obtain information without alienating someone who could explain what happened.
Then there's the fraternity's group chat. CBS reported a message advertising the woman’s availability for sex, followed later by “Shop still open?” and the reply “Yea.”
Van Houten called the exchange “disgusting, vulgar” and said it would be presented to the grand jury. His position is that the messages do not resolve the question of consent.
The InvestigationThe university says it conducted a months-long Title IX investigation followed by a hearing at which both sides could testify and present evidence. Sanctions included expulsions and suspensions. The Chi Phi chapter closed in 2024 and remains barred from campus.
“None of the individuals charged were offered the opportunity to write essays as a sole consequence of their involvement,” Cornell said.
That, of course, is open to scrutiny. Claims that the university imposed no meaningful consequences do not comport with the expulsions, suspensions and shutting down the fraternity's chapter. Meanwhile, the political verdict has been considerably less tentative.
At a Sunday event near Cornell, Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez condemned a “culture of rape” protected by elite institutions and treated the group chat as evidence that the conduct had become normalized, according to the Associated Press. The prosecutor said his office had received a flood of messages, including insults and threats.
Public pressure can expose institutional failures. It can also reward certainty long before the underlying facts justify it.
There are substantial questions for investigators, too. Van Houten told CBS his office did not have Cornell’s Title IX records and was seeking them. He also said there was no indication that police had interviewed the seven accused men at the time.
Giuffra says his client received no investigative follow-up after her initial campus-police report. Van Houten defends the officer who took that statement as experienced and trained in trauma-informed sexual-assault investigations. He also says Doe’s lawyers never approached his office to correct the original account or request reconsideration before he contacted them following the lawsuit.
Van Houten says he hopes to present the case to a grand jury within 45 days. Cornell supports reopening the investigation, and Doe’s attorney has welcomed it while pressing for a thorough review.
For now, the public record contains a serious allegation, a sharply different earlier account as described by the prosecutor, reported text messages, competing explanations and unanswered questions about the original investigation.
Tyler Durden Tue, 09/29/2026 - 18:00Authored by Tom Gantert via The Epoch Times,
A federal judge has struck down New York's Climate Change Superfund Act, blocking the state from collecting $75 billion from fossil fuel companies to pay for projects addressing concerns the state attributed to climate change.
The Justice Department on Sept. 28 hailed the ruling as a "significant step in ... protecting American energy from state overreach." U.S. District Judge P. Kevin Castel issued a judgment against the law on Sept. 25 after stating two days earlier that it intruded on federal authority in multiple ways, including by regulating greenhouse gas emissions that cross state lines.
The law would have required large companies involved in fossil fuel extraction or crude oil refining to pay into a state fund over 25 years. Each company's share would have been based on greenhouse gas emissions attributed to its products from 2000 through 2024. New York intended to use the money for infrastructure and other projects to help communities address issues the state blames on climate change.
The Justice Department and Environmental Protection Agency sued to block the law. They argued that New York's law ran afoul of the legal doctrine of preemption, which says that federal law takes precedence if there is a conflict with state law.
The federal government said the Clean Air Act gives the EPA authority to decide whether and how to regulate greenhouse gas emissions. It said New York's law would impose its own liability on fossil fuel producers based on emissions attributed to their products worldwide.
New York argued that its law did not regulate emissions. It said the payments would compensate the state for harm from past emissions and fund projects to protect New Yorkers from problems it attributed to climate change. Castel rejected the state's argument, saying the charges effectively regulated interstate emissions.
Castel found that the law reached beyond New York's authority even though the state planned to spend the money on local projects.
Castel also said the law infringed on foreign affairs by seeking payments from fossil fuel companies for activity outside the United States. Citing an earlier appeals court ruling, he said holding oil companies accountable for what they did outside U.S. territory would bypass diplomatic channels and "needlessly complicate the nation's foreign policy."
Two federal judges have now ruled on New York's Climate Change Superfund Act because different plaintiffs brought separate lawsuits. There were 22 states and business groups that challenged the law in the Northern District of New York, where U.S. District Judge Brenda Sannes blocked it on Aug. 31.
The DOJ and EPA filed their own case in the Southern District, where Castel issued a second ruling.
"New York's woke climate change law is not only unconstitutional, it is harmful, jeopardizing every American's access to affordable and reliable energy," said Associate Attorney General Stanley E. Woodward, Jr., in a statement on Monday.
"We are pleased with the district courts' decisions finding New York's law unlawful and recognizing that the Federal Sovereign, not the States, regulates our Nation's energy market."
Advocates such as the Fiscal Policy Institute had supported the Climate Change Superfund Act. The Fiscal Policy Institute had said that the $75 billion was needed to "adapt to rising sea levels and the increasing frequency of extreme weather events - measures that wouldn't be needed but for the high emissions caused by these companies' business activities."
New York had said the federal government didn't have standing in the case because it hadn't shown how the state's law would stop it from enforcing federal law or interfere with compliance with international agreements. The state also argued its law didn't seek to regulate emissions, just compensation for harm it attributed to climate change.
The office of New York Attorney General Letitia James did not respond to an emailed request for comment. James was named as a defendant in the lawsuit in her official capacity.
Tyler Durden Tue, 09/29/2026 - 17:20