Gov. Kathy Hochul has appointed Attorney General Letitia James special prosecutor in the Cornell fraternity sexual assault case after saying she lost faith in the local district attorney’s investigation.
Hochul issued an executive order Thursday evening directing James to take over the criminal probe into accusations that a former Cornell University student was sexually assaulted by several Chi Phi fraternity brothers on campus in October 2024. The order authorizes James to investigate, and if warranted prosecute, any offenses and present evidence to a grand jury, superseding Tompkins County District Attorney Matthew Van Houten.
The governor said newly released information raised serious questions about both Cornell Police and the DA’s earlier decision not to bring charges. That decision left the young woman without a criminal case until public pressure and fresh reporting forced a second look. Hochul’s move to sideline the local DA puts one of New York’s most politically visible attorneys general in charge of a high-stakes campus case.
James accepted the role the same night and framed it as a duty to every New Yorker who reports a crime. Her office had already launched a civil review of the accusations earlier Thursday.
The alleged assault took place at the Chi Phi fraternity house on Cornell’s Ithaca campus on Oct. 19, 2024. The woman, identified in court papers as Jane Doe and then 20 years old, later described a night of drinking and drugs that left her “completely and totally incapacitated.”
She told Cornell campus police in a two-day November 2024 interview that a consensual encounter turned into a revolving series of men having sex with her while she was too exhausted and impaired to stop it. She recalled men snorting ketamine off her body, being hit “very, very hard,” and saying she was too tired or uncomfortable.
CBS News obtained the interview transcript. In it, Doe stated she was raped and that the conduct was coercion.
Doe told police:
“I can say with 100% confidence I was raped.”
She also said:
“And then, of course, I was being hit at the same time... Physically hit very, very hard.”
And when asked about consent, she answered:
“Yes, it was coercion.”
Van Houten had declined to prosecute in 2024. He told CBS his decision rested on a six-page sworn written statement Doe signed for campus police, material obtained by ABC News, that described the night as feeling “like coercion” but did not clearly accuse the men of rape in the form he said he needed. He claimed he never received the interview transcript.
“If she had said those words, we certainly would want to have explored that more,” Van Houten said. “Like I said, that wasn’t provided to me.”
Cornell Police told the New York Post that all investigatory information was shared with the DA’s office in 2024, though the department did not specify whether that package included the full transcript. The gap between what Doe said on tape and what the DA said he saw is exactly what undercut public confidence.
In her Thursday statement, Hochul did not speak evasively about the local handling of the case.
Hochul said:
“Newly released information continues to raise serious questions about the investigation conducted by the Cornell Police Department and the decision by the Tompkins County District Attorney not to prosecute an alleged sexual assault on Cornell University’s campus in October 2024.”
She added that the revelations “undercut my faith, and the public’s faith, in the District Attorney’s ability to effectively investigate and prosecute the case at this time.” That is why she appointed James special prosecutor, to examine every fact “without conflict or bias.”
Just the News reported that Hochul acted after concluding new information raised serious questions about how the case was handled and that she had lost confidence in the DA’s ability to prosecute it. The governor also said the young woman at the center of the case “deserves to know that every fact will be examined and justice pursued.”
James answered the same night. Fox News reported that she declared an active criminal investigation led by the attorney general’s office and pledged that people who report crimes will be “seen and heard.” James said every New Yorker deserves a full and fair investigation guided by the facts and the law.
Van Houten had announced only days earlier, on Sunday, that his office would reopen the probe. Hochul’s executive order overtook that pledge. The Washington Examiner noted that the appointment signaled the governor’s view that the local DA was not up to the task.
Jane Doe filed a civil lawsuit on Sept. 18 against the seven fraternity brothers and Cornell University. The suit alleges she was gang-raped at the Chi Phi house and criticizes the school’s internal Title IX process. That process, the filing claims, involved 12 hearings and ended with only two of the seven men expelled, what the suit calls a slap on the wrist.
Cornell has denied the plaintiff’s claims, said it acted in accordance with police, and banned the Chi Phi chapter from campus. No criminal charges or arrests were filed under the original DA review.
A Snapchat group chat with more than 50 Chi Phi members later surfaced in reporting. One message read “free p, sy.” Replies included “shop still open?” and “you can walk in and whip it out.” The messages, captured in a screenshot, added to the public disgust even as the criminal case sat dormant.
James now holds both the civil review her office started and the criminal special-prosecutor authority Hochul just conferred. Her record in other high-profile matters, including the fraud case Trump’s lawyers have called politically driven, ensures every step of this probe will face intense scrutiny from all sides.
The timeline is straightforward and damning. October 2024: alleged assault. November 2024: detailed police interview in which the accuser used the word rape and described coercion and violence. 2024: DA declines charges based on a written statement he says lacked that language, while insisting he never saw the transcript. September: civil suit. Sunday: DA reopens under pressure. Thursday: Hochul removes him and installs James.
Cornell’s Title IX machine ran a dozen hearings and still left five of the seven men on campus by the plaintiff’s account. The university banned the chapter only after the scandal widened. Local prosecutors passed. The governor waited until the transcript and the lawsuit made inaction politically untenable.
James has built a brand as New York’s aggressive chief law-enforcement officer. Supporters will call this accountability. Critics will watch whether the same office that has pursued headline defendants with maximum energy applies equal rigor when the defendants are college students and the political winds are different. Past questions about targeting decisions inside her office make that test unavoidable.
Voters already see James through an electoral lens. Her lead in the attorney general race has narrowed, and every major case now doubles as a campaign artifact. That does not decide guilt or innocence in Ithaca. It does mean the public will judge both the evidence and the institution presenting it.
The young woman who sat for two days of police interviews and then sued her university deserves a clean investigation that follows the facts wherever they lead. So do the seven men named in the civil papers, who remain uncharged criminally and are entitled to the presumption of innocence. So do parents who send children to elite campuses expecting basic safety and honest process.
Hochul’s order correctly recognizes that the first investigation failed the confidence test. Handing the file to a statewide political figure does not automatically restore that confidence. Only transparent work, full evidence, and equal application of the law will.
New York’s leaders had the transcript language, the civil filing, and the chat messages in front of them. They moved only after the public did. Justice delayed by institutional hesitation is still a failure, whether the next prosecutor fixes it is the only question left.
