+34New York Governor Kathy Hochul has appointed Attorney General Letitia James as special prosecutor to investigate an alleged gang rape at Cornell University, saying she lost faith in local authorities after campus police failed to elevate the allegations to prosecutors.
New York Governor Kathy Hochul has appointed state Attorney General Letitia James as special prosecutor to investigate an alleged gang rape at Cornell University, saying she is deeply disturbed by how campus police handled the case.
Hochul said the woman who accused a group of Cornell students of rape had been failed at every turn after going to campus police in 2024. James confirmed the case is once again the subject of an active criminal investigation. Hochul announced the appointment a day after local District Attorney Matthew Van Houten said he would reopen the investigation.
Governor Questions Local Prosecution Ability
She said newly released information raised questions about the investigation conducted by Cornell police and the decision by Tompkins County prosecutors not to file charges. The governor said she no longer has faith in the district attorney's ability to effectively investigate and prosecute the case.
A woman known as Jane Doe in court documents filed a civil lawsuit last month alleging she was drugged with ketamine and raped by a group of men at the Chi Phi fraternity house near Cornell's campus in October 2024. The lawsuit said she was pressured into snorting ketamine, smoking marijuana and drinking alcohol to the point of incapacitation before the assault. She reported the incident to Cornell University police several weeks later, but no criminal charges were filed.
The case attracted global attention after the civil lawsuit was filed. Van Houten declined at the time of the alleged assault to file charges, saying his office chose not to prosecute because the victim's testimony did not establish a lack of consent. After renewed attention and mounting public pressure, he said his office would reopen the investigation and that it had become clear his office was not provided the full picture by the university.
He said the focus has been and should continue to be on the victims. Hochul said she was deeply disturbed by Cornell University's police and how they handled the matter, noting the woman had told police she was gang-raped while intoxicated by five men at a fraternity house. She asked how police could learn of such allegations and not elevate them to the district attorney.
Hochul Seeks to Close Consent Loophole
The governor said the young woman had already endured something utterly unspeakable and that at every turn she was failed by people and institutions with an obligation to protect her. Hochul also said she was committed to closing a legal loophole that makes it difficult to prosecute rape cases when an alleged victim was voluntarily intoxicated. She said if someone is too intoxicated to consent, it should not matter whether they chose to use drugs or alcohol.
The statement about the woman's level of intoxication was left out of an official police report sent to prosecutors, who ultimately dropped the case. Cornell University, an Ivy League school in Ithaca in the Finger Lakes region of New York state, has defended its handling of the allegations. The university said it conducted its own thorough investigation, which led to expulsions and suspensions.
After Hochul's intervention, Cornell said it was committed to an independent external review of all aspects of how it has handled the case. James, a Democrat like Hochul, was elected as New York's attorney general in 2018. She has been a frequent target of Donald Trump and Republicans, and she is among Trump critics charged with criminal offences by the Department of Justice since his return to the presidency. In her case, she was accused of mortgage fraud.
Attorney General Letitia James Biography
Raised in Brooklyn with seven siblings, James attended public schools before earning her law degree at Howard University in Washington DC. James rose through the ranks as a public defender before entering New York politics as a councilmember and then as public advocate, the first Black woman to hold the watchdog role. In that role she filed a record number of suits on behalf of people with disabilities, seniors and tenants.
When she won the attorney general's office, another first for a Black woman, James vowed to take that power back from corporations and corrupt politicians. The law is the great equalizer and the biggest pillar of our democracy, she said in her inaugural speech in 2019. She added that she would shine a light into the murkiest of swamps and act as a steward of justice.
James Trump Fraud Case Background
James has also pursued a civil fraud action against Donald Trump and the Trump Organization after finding he fraudulently overstated his net worth to dupe lenders. A five-judge panel tossed the financial penalty last year, but James's office has appealed to reinstate it. The case has restarted a national conversation about sexual assault on college campuses. Both Hochul and James are due to speak today about the investigation.
The appointment of a special prosecutor gives the state attorney general's office responsibility for a case that local authorities had previously declined to prosecute.
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abcnews:This story was compiled and edited by the HeadTopics newsroom and HT AI from the reports above.
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