A Cornell University student who claims in a lawsuit that she was drugged and raped by a group of fraternity brothers in an hours-long attack is still racked with trauma and struggling to piece her life back together two years later, her attorney says.
The woman, identified only as Jane Doe, filed a lawsuit in New York last week, alleging she was plied with alcohol, pressured to take ketamine and then repeatedly sexually assaulted during a party at the Chi Phi fraternity house in October 2024.
The complaint named seven accused attackers, all then-Cornell students and Chi Phi members, and claimed that, during the alleged ordeal, one of them sent a message to the fraternity’s active-members Snapchat group saying there was ‘free p***y’ upstairs, referring to Doe.
An investigation into the accusations did not result in any criminal charges, a spokesperson for the Tompkins County District Attorney’s Office said.
Doe’s attorney Thomas Giuffre, however, questioned how thoroughly the claims were investigated in an interview with the Daily Mail, saying there was little meaningful follow-up from law enforcement after she first came forward.
An attorney representing one of the accused men separately told the Daily Mail that his client was never contacted by law enforcement.
Cornell did take disciplinary action against the accused students, Giuffre said, with some reportedly expelled and others temporarily suspended. The lawsuit claims the university allowed all seven to ‘mitigate their conduct by submitting essays.’
But while the accused have been able to move forward with their lives, some even continuing their studies, Giuffre says Doe has been rooted to the spot, struggling to overcome the alleged attack.
Doe alleged the attack took place at at the Chi Phi house (above) late on October 19, 2024. The fraternity has since been suspended from Cornell’s campus
One of the men allegedly posted to the fraternity’s active-members Snapchat group saying that there was ‘free p***y’ upstairs, referring to Doe, according to the filing, which included an image of the purported chat
‘She is basically stalled, and her life is devoted to dealing with the trauma,’ Giuffre told the Daily Mail. ‘It’s like a constant, constant reminder.’
Doe said in a sworn court statement submitted with her lawsuit that the alleged attack was ‘devastating and humiliating’ and that she stopped attending Cornell because of what happened.
She said she has since struggled with anxiety, depression and sleepless nights and fears being publicly identified could damage her relationships and career and permanently tarnish the reputation she has tried to rebuild.
Giuffre described Doe as a young woman from a small town who had achieved something unusual for where she grew up by making it to an Ivy League university, only to see that life derailed after the alleged attack.
‘She’s not some rich kid who went to private schools and all that,’ he said. ‘She was somebody who came from part of the country where not a lot of people were going to Ivy League schools, and she made that accomplishment.
‘And now she’s dropped out of Cornell. She’s dropped out of college.
‘Those boys will go on and live their lives just fine, whereas my client is not going to have that benefit.’
With no criminal charges brought over the allegations, Giuffre said the civil lawsuit is now Doe’s last remaining avenue to seek accountability.
But he stressed that even a successful outcome could never undo what she says happened or restore the life she had before it.
‘You could give her all the money in the world; nobody wants to have this as their story,’ Giuffre said. ‘Nobody wants to have this in their lives.’
An investigation by the local DA’s office led to no criminal charges being filed in the case
In her lawsuit, Doe alleged that, then 20, she arrived at the Chi Phi house late on October 19, 2024, already heavily intoxicated after a night of drinking around Ithaca, New York.
One fraternity member allegedly pulled Doe aside and asked her to have a threesome with another male student.
Doe claims in the suit that she was already too intoxicated to consent, but was nevertheless taken upstairs into a room with the two men, where she was allegedly pressured to snort ketamine, given marijuana and high-proof liquor and then sexually assaulted.
A third fraternity member then entered the room and allegedly began kissing Doe before he and one of the other two men placed her on a bed and sexually assaulted her again, the lawsuit alleges.
It was during that alleged assault, at around 1.40am, that one of the men allegedly sent a message to the fraternity’s active-members Snapchat group, named ‘Chi Phi Actives’, writing there was ‘free p***y’ upstairs, a screenshot included in the filing shows.
‘Like you can walk in and whip it out,’ another fraternity member allegedly responded in the thread.
The lawsuit accuses the sender of using the message to encourage other Chi Phi members to join what it describes as the ‘gang rape’ of Doe. The message allegedly marked the point when the circle of attackers widened.
More fraternity members entered the room soon afterwards, the lawsuit says.
At one point, seven men allegedly poured ketamine over Doe’s body and snorted it as she lay on her back. One allegedly poured ketamine onto his genitals and ordered Doe to snort it, according to the lawsuit.
Eventually, five of the men left the room, while two allegedly took Doe into a smaller room – believed to be the fraternity president’s office – where she claimed in the complaint that she was pressured to snort more ketamine.
By then, the complaint says, she was ‘completely incapacitated’ before the two men sexually assaulted her again.
The alleged assault ended at around 5.45am, when Doe says she lost consciousness, according to the lawsuit.
Doe said the fear and humiliation the alleged attack caused led to her dropping out of Cornell
Nearly three weeks after the alleged attack, Doe filed a report with Cornell University Police on November 8, 2024, after friends encouraged her to come forward, according to the lawsuit.
Cornell temporarily suspended Chi Phi and the seven accused students that same day, and the university says the Xi chapter remains barred from campus.
The university later launched a Title IX investigation, which included at least 12 hearings in May 2025 and has since concluded, though the lawsuit does not disclose its findings.
That criminal investigation ultimately produced no charges against any of the seven men.
Jeremy Saland, an attorney for one of the defendants, denied Doe’s allegations in their entirety and said law enforcement never even contacted his client.
‘Our legal system allows anyone to make a complaint, criminal or otherwise, even a wrongful one. However, it is lost on no one that the District Attorney’s Office, led by a chief prosecutor with the duty to pursue justice and uphold the rule of law without bias or favor, filed no charges against [my client],’ Saland told the Daily Mail.
‘Simply, the evidence against him, or, more accurately, lack thereof, didn’t even muster up to the nominal standard of probable cause to arrest because the allegations against him as described did not happen. Simply, there was absolutely no criminality…He is completely innocent. Period.’
But Giuffre said that revelation one of the accused allegedly wasn’t spoken to by police has only deepened his concerns about how extensively the case was investigated.
He said he does not believe Doe was interviewed again by police after reporting the allegations and questioned whether outside investigators even knew about the Snapchat message shared in her lawsuit.
The university later launched a Title IX investigation, which included at least 12 hearings in May 2025 and has since concluded, though the lawsuit does not disclose its findings
Giuffre said his legal team later obtained the message and believes Cornell was aware of it, but said he does not know if the university ever turned it over to local law enforcement.
‘The message for ‘free p***y’ should have totally triggered something to say this isn’t right…We need to look closely at this, but they did nothing about that,’ Giuffre said.
‘Then again, if you don’t go looking, you’re not going to find anything, are you?’
Ithaca PD and Cornell’s campus police did not return repeated requests for comment.
Cornell initially declined to comment on the pending litigation but later posted a lengthy statement to its website.
The school said the allegations were investigated and adjudicated by its civil rights and student conduct offices, and that the Xi chapter of Chi Phi remains barred from campus. The university said federal privacy law prevents it from disclosing any disciplinary action taken against individual students.
‘Violations of university policies could lead to sanctions up to and including suspension or expulsion,’ the school said. ‘We will respond in detail through the legal process.’
Cornell added that it takes sexual violence ‘extremely seriously’ and pointed to a presidential task force launched after the incident, whose recommendations are now being implemented.
Chi Phi’s national office also released a statement, calling the allegations ‘deeply concerning’ and insisting that anyone who ‘reports sexual violence deserves to be heard and treated with compassion, dignity and respect.’
‘Personal Integrity, and our mission of Building Better Men, call on every brother to demonstrate character through his actions and respect for the dignity and safety of others. Sexual violence is fundamentally incompatible with those expectations.
We are aware of the lawsuit concerning an alleged incident in 2024. While we cannot discuss the specific allegations during pending litigation, we take this matter seriously. Our responsibility is to approach this with care for those affected and respect for a fair legal process,’ the statement read.
Giuffre said Doe’s allegations were among the most disturbing he has encountered in his career and that he found it particularly jarring that the alleged conduct took place at an Ivy League university associated with some of the country’s highest-achieving students.
‘You think this is an Ivy League school. It’s one of the best and brightest of the American educational system, and they would act like just animals, for lack of a better word,’ Giuffre said.
He added: ‘It’s a difficult complaint to read and, frankly, it was a difficult complaint to write.
‘It’s been very hard for her. It’s been very triggering. She’s tried to make a go of it, but there’s still a lot to overcome.’
