Cornell Student Said, "I Was Raped". Cops Left It Out Of Her Statement

A Cornell University student spent hours telling a campus police officer what she says happened to her. By the next day, her account had been cut to six pages, and the words she used to say she had been raped were no longer in it. According to a report by The New York Times, that omission may have ended the case for a while, but it now appears to have only delayed it.

According to The New York Times, the sophomore, who was 20 at the time, first went to Cornell campus police on November 14, 2024. She told the officer she had found herself naked in a fraternity house nearly a month earlier, with a "ring of men" around her. She was drunk and had been given ketamine, she said, and her phone was across the room.

She described how a consensual sexual encounter with a man she liked had turned into a long, drug-fuelled attack by several men inside the Chi Phi fraternity house. "I don't remember the very end of the event where I was raped," she told him. "I can say with 100 per cent confidence I was raped."

According to documents obtained by The Times, the officer condensed the interview into a six-page "voluntary statement" written from her point of view. The student left about 20 handwritten corrections on a draft and signed a final version the next day.

The shorter statement said she felt some of that night's events were a crime. But The Times reported that it left out some of the more forceful and definitive language she had used, including her clear statement that she had been raped.

The statement was shared with District Attorney Matthew Van Houten, who decided there was not enough evidence to bring criminal charges against the seven men. In the documents The Times reviewed, Cornell police did not tell his office that the woman had said she was raped.

In a nine-page public statement on Monday, Van Houten defended his office's decision. He said the statement she gave at the time did not "allege she was drugged against her will or gang raped."

READ | 'She Said It Was Consensual': US District Attorney's Shocker In Cornell Case

"On the contrary, Jane Doe's statement described her participation in drug and sexual conduct as voluntary, conscious, and consensual," he wrote. He has also said he wants to meet her this week as he considers taking new evidence to a grand jury.

The woman, who is identified only as Jane Doe, filed a civil lawsuit on 16 September. It names Cornell, the seven men, the fraternity and her sorority. The lawsuit alleges she was pressured into snorting ketamine, smoking marijuana and drinking alcohol, and that she became completely incapacitated while fraternity members sexually assaulted her.

The lawsuit spread widely online and plunged the university into crisis. The men have not been charged. During the university's investigation, they almost universally denied the accusations and said any sex was consensual.