A former Cornell University student alleges she was drugged and sexually assaulted by seven brothers of the Chi Phi Fraternity in 2024 in a new lawsuit, prompting the Tompkins County district attorney to reopen the investigation. Lilia Luciano reports.
Page A2From§Eachthe coffee break edition — 28 September 2026
Tompkins County DA who cleared this gang-rape case reopens it only after a lawsuit spells out the texts.
As it ran on the front
In 2024, a Cornell student says she was drugged and gang-raped by seven brothers of the Chi Phi fraternity at the fraternity house. The Tompkins County district attorney's office reviewed the case and declined to bring charges. Cornell's own disciplinary process, separately, offered the accused brothers a chance to mitigate their conduct by submitting essays. That's where the file sat: a declined criminal case and a writing assignment.
What moved it wasn't new evidence turned up by the office that closed it. It was a civil lawsuit, filed this month against Cornell and seven members of Chi Phi, alleging she was drugged and assaulted, and describing a text sent during the assault that read "Free p—y." The lawsuit is a civil complaint, not a police file, but it is dated, it is public, and it landed on the desk of the same prosecutor's office that had already passed on the case once.…
…(cont) The office intends to present it to a grand jury.
Count who had this file before the lawsuit changed the math. The DA's office, once, said no charges. Cornell, on its own clock, offered essays. Two institutions, two separate calls, and neither one needed a civil suit to act differently — the alleged assault and the university's knowledge of it both predate the complaint that finally produced a grand jury referral.
That's the plain version, flatter than the fold usually runs it: an allegation sat inside a system that had the facts and returned no charges and an essay prompt. It took a lawsuit aimed at Cornell's name and its money to get the same prosecutor's office to look again at the same year, the same house, the same seven brothers. The lawsuit did the work the original review didn't do. Whether a grand jury reaches a different conclusion than the office did two years ago is now a question for Tompkins County jurors, not a dean or a spokesman. But the sequence is on the record, in order: declined, then essays, then a lawsuit with the texts in it, then reopened. That is not a new investigation. That is the same investigation, catching up to what the civil filing already laid out.
“The DA's office looked at this exact case two years ago and said no charges — same house, same seven brothers, same year. It took a civil lawsuit aimed at Cornell's checkbook, not new police work, to get that office to try again. When the system needs a plaintiff's lawyer to do its job for it, the system already told you what the job was.”
“Look, prosecutors decline cases every day when the evidence at the time doesn't clear the bar — that's due process working, not a cover-up. And Cornell's disciplinary track runs separate from the criminal one, so the essay thing isn't really — wait, is that the line I'm running? That the school's answer to an alleged gang rape was a writing assignment? Let me circle back on that one.”
The receipts
The investigation into an alleged rape at Cornell University in 2024 will be reopened, authorities said Monday.
A New York district attorney is reopening an investigation into allegations that a Cornell University student was drugged and gang raped by seven fraternity members in 2024, nearly two years after prosecutors declined to bring criminal charges. Tompkins County District Attorney Matthew Van Houten said his office intends to present the…
A woman filed a civil lawsuit against Cornell University and seven members of the Chi Phi fraternity, among others, alleging that she was the victim of a “gang rape” at the fraternity house in 2024.
· Cornell frat bros gang-rape student, texting, ‘Free p—y’ during sick assault: shocking lawsuit from the morgue, 18 Sep 2026
This page is a back-issue: the story as it ran, receipts as they were. The current edition is at the front. The byline is a pen name for a column drafted by a machine and checked by the editor: how this is made.