Prosecutors in upstate New York are defending their decision not to bring charges in 2024 following an alleged gang rape at a Cornell University fraternity. Tompkins County District Attorney Matthew Van Houten described the allegations as “morally disturbing” but argued that the facts known at the time did not support a prosecution.

Van Houten stated that the alleged victim’s account suggested she consented to the sexual activity and did not withdraw that consent. He explained that fraternity members reportedly stopped their actions when she raised concerns, and he asserted that this sequence of events did not constitute a crime under the law.

“If at any point Jane Doe had said, ‘I don’t consent to this anymore,’ or in those words, or in any form of communication. If there had been continued sexual activity, contact by these individuals, that would be a crime. But that's not what was alleged in her statement,” Van Houten told ABC News, highlighting a perceived disconnect between community understanding and the legal assessment of consent.

The district attorney’s comments come a day after his office announced it would be reopening the 2024 case. This decision follows a civil lawsuit filed by the woman, identified as Jane Doe, who alleges she was drugged and gang-raped by seven former and current members of the Chi Phi fraternity at Cornell.

Cornell's Chi Phi chapter was barred from campus after the alleged incident on October 19, 2024. However, according to the DA, none of the individuals allegedly involved faced criminal charges at that time. Van Houten acknowledged that his office did not examine a Snapchat group associated with the fraternity, deeming its messages “disgusting and vulgar and immoral,” but argued they were not critical to the analysis of consent.

An attorney for Jane Doe, Thomas P. Giuffra, responded to Van Houten's statement, alleging that his client's claims were not thoroughly investigated. Giuffra noted that the victim was only spoken to by the officer who took her initial complaint and expressed concern that the two-year delay in investigating the case may have led to the loss of critical evidence.

Giuffra stated, “It is challenging for me to understand how a thorough criminal investigation could have been conducted when she was never spoke with anyone other than the officer who took her original complaint.” He added, “I believe that opportunities to fully investigate these crimes were lost. We will never fully know what occurred or the identi” (source material truncated).

The reopening of the case and the DA's subsequent defense raise questions about the initial investigation's thoroughness and the handling of sexual assault allegations on college campuses, particularly when consent is a central issue in legal proceedings. The civil lawsuit is expected to bring further scrutiny to the events of October 2024.