According to the record, a student who had been at the Chi Phi house the night of the alleged assault told a Title IX investigator she got a call the next day from one of the accused men.
Page A2From§Eachthe coffee break edition — 2 October 2026
National Review says "follow the evidence"; the evidence says "don't say anything."
As it ran on the front
My neighbor's moving out. I watched the whole thing from the porch, because the dog needed walking, and after the dog you still owe twenty minutes standing around looking useful. The movers load the truck a particular way, and it isn't the way you'd think. Heaviest stuff first — that's just physics, a couch goes on the bottom so it doesn't slide. But that's not actually what goes on first. What goes on first is everything you won't need for six weeks. The last box on, closest to the door, is the one with the can opener and the extension cords and the phone charger — the stuff somebody's going to ask for on day one.
I asked the lead guy how he decides, and he said something like this: whatever's going to get asked for first goes in last. Whatever's buried doesn't mean we don't have it. We've got everything in that truck. It's just a question of what order you make us dig. I wrote that down. I don't know why. It just seemed like a sentence I'd want later.…
…(cont) So then I'm reading — and I don't follow these things, I want to be clear, somebody left three printouts on my porch step this week, I don't know who — about the Cornell case. The one with the fraternity. And here's what I can't get past, and maybe you can help me, because I'm not a prosecutor. I'm a guy with a dog and a Buick that needs a fan belt.
In 2024, the county declined to bring criminal charges. That's the sentence — I wrote it down twice to make sure I had it right. Fine. People decline things for reasons.
Then I read — and this is from a Title IX transcript, not something I'm making up — that three weeks after the night in question, the young woman told campus police, and I'm reading this exactly as it's written: "I can say with 100% confidence I was raped." Three weeks after. On the record. With campus police. That's a sentence that existed in 2024.
And then there's a second transcript. Same investigation. A witness — somebody else who was in the house that night — told the Title IX investigator that one of the accused called her the next day and asked her not to "say anything." Not "what happened." Not "I don't remember it that way." "Don't say anything." That's also a sentence that existed back in 2024, sitting in a file somewhere, the way the can opener sits at the bottom of the truck, under everything else.
So here's my question, and I really don't know the answer — I'm asking you. If the county already had the transcript where she says she's certain, and the county already had the transcript where somebody's asked not to talk, was the file short on evidence, or was the file just packed wrong? Because now the governor's brought in the state attorney general to run it instead, and that's not a thing you do over a paperwork delay.
The movers, by the way — when they finally got to that last box, the one with the can opener — somebody'd written "OPEN ME FIRST" on it in marker. Nobody opened it first. It still got there. It was always going to get there.
Oh — before you go. There's a piece out this week arguing the case "may not be a rape," calling it instead "a disgusting spectacle of moral rot," and telling the reader to follow the evidence. I've got the transcript right here. The one where they tell her not to "say anything." That's the evidence. Which page were they reading?
“They want you to think the problem was a stack of missing evidence, but the transcripts were sitting in that file since 2024 — her saying she was sure, and someone telling a witness to keep quiet. That's not a gap, that's a cover job with a filing cabinet. The governor had to call in the state's top lawyer just to get somebody to open the box.”
“Look, until a jury says it, it's not rape, it's an "alleged" situation — that's not spin, that's due process, and anybody who conflates the two is— okay, the part where somebody tells a witness not to say anything is maybe a little — no, that's still consistent with due process, I just need a second with this. Did I say "consistent"? That's not what I meant.”
The receipts
US prosecutors reopened an investigation on Monday into an alleged 2024 gang rape at Cornell University after the woman involved accused the school of failing to punish those responsible adequately. In a lawsuit, she said seven Chi Phi fraternity members had drugged her with ketamine and assaulted her.
Experts in sexual assault cases said it may not be easy to win a conviction on the rape allegations that Jane Doe has made against fraternity members.
Hochul tapped New York Attorney General Letitia James to take over the case on Thursday, as questions swirl over how local officials handled the matter.
Documents from Cornell University's Title IX investigation are emerging, and they paint a clearer picture of what Jane Doe described about the night she spent inside the Chi Phi fraternity house, where she was allegedly sexually assaulted by several men. CBS News' Tom Hanson reports.
Gov. Kathy Hochul and New York Attorney General Letitia James delivered remarks Friday morning after Hochul announced James will serve as special prosecutor in the Cornell University alleged rape case.
The Cornell case may not be a rape. It is still a disgusting spectacle of moral rot.
New legal action in two closely watched cases: one at Cornell, the other over Renee Good's death. We take a closer look.
· Prosecutors are reexamining a Cornell fraternity rape case. Here's what we know from the morgue, 28 Sep 2026
· Video shows string of text messages connected to alleged Cornell gang rape from the morgue, 29 Sep 2026
· Woman in Cornell probe told campus police "I was raped" 3 weeks after alleged incident from the morgue, 29 Sep 2026
· District attorney reopens investigation into alleged gang rape at Cornell University from the morgue, 28 Sep 2026
· New questions emerge over 2024 investigation into alleged Cornell rape from the morgue, 29 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.