New York Gov. Kathy Hochul appointed Attorney General Letitia James special prosecutor in the Cornell fraternity sexual assault case after saying she lost faith in the Tompkins County district attorney.
Hochul issued an executive order Thursday evening directing James to take over the criminal investigation into accusations that a former Cornell University student was sexually assaulted by several fraternity brothers at the Chi Phi house in October 2024. The move supersedes Tompkins County District Attorney Matthew Van Houten after Hochul said newly reported details destroyed confidence in how the case was handled.
The governor acted after reporting on a November 2024 campus police interview transcript in which the woman, identified as Jane Doe, told officers she was raped. Van Houten had declined to prosecute in 2024, saying he relied on a shorter sworn statement that did not clearly accuse the men of rape and claiming he never received the full transcript.
Reuters reported that Hochul signed the order after saying she had lost faith in the Tompkins County DA’s ability to fairly oversee the case, and that Van Houten has since reopened his probe with plans to present evidence to a grand jury.
In her Thursday statement, Hochul tied the takeover directly to questions about both campus police work and the original charging decision.
Gov. Kathy 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 continued:
"This has, in turn, undercut my faith, and the public’s faith, in the District Attorney’s ability to effectively investigate and prosecute the case at this time."
Hochul said the executive order appoints James to investigate the incident and, if warranted, prosecute any offenses and present evidence to a grand jury. She framed the step as the only way to give the young woman a full, independent review free of conflict or bias.
“The young woman at the center of this case deserves to know that every fact will be examined and justice pursued,” Hochul said, adding that the matter must be “fully and thoroughly investigated without conflict or bias, and handled independently with the rigor that this matter demands.”
James accepted the assignment the same night. Her office had already announced earlier Thursday that it was launching its own civil review of the accusations.
Attorney General Letitia James said:
"Every New Yorker deserves to know that when they report a crime, it will be investigated fully and fairly. The Governor has entrusted my office with this investigation, and we do not take that responsibility lightly."
“As our state’s Chief Law Enforcement Officer, I stand ready to lead a process New Yorkers can trust, guided by the facts and the law,” James added.
James is a high-profile statewide official whose office has drawn intense political scrutiny in other fights, including a dismissed lawsuit against the Trump administration and separate claims about how probes are run inside the AG’s shop.
Her new role here is narrower and concrete: finish a criminal investigation the local DA once closed, decide whether charges are warranted, and, if so, take the case to a grand jury.
The alleged assault is dated Oct. 19, 2024, at the Chi Phi fraternity house on Cornell’s Ithaca campus. Jane Doe, then 20, sat for a two-day interview with Cornell University Police in November 2024. CBS News later obtained that transcript; ABC News obtained a six-page written statement she signed for campus police.
In the recorded interview, Doe was direct.
“I can say with 100% confidence I was raped,” she told officers, according to the transcript material reported by the New York Post.
She described a night of drinking and drugs that began with a consensual threesome at the house and, she said, turned into other men coming and going while she was “completely and totally incapacitated.” She said men snorted ketamine off her naked body, that she pushed away a groping hand, and that she told brothers at points she was too tired or uncomfortable. She also said she did not fully remember the night “where I was raped” and did not know how many people had sex with her in that state.
“And then, of course, I was being hit at the same time,” she said. “Physically hit very, very hard.” When police pressed whether she had said “no” or something closer to “eh, I’m tired,” she answered, “I think it’s, ‘I’m tired.’” Asked about allowing sex after she was exhausted from fending men off, she replied, “Yes, it was coercion.”
Van Houten has said his 2024 decision not to charge rested on the shorter sworn written statement. That statement, as characterized in the reporting, said the night “felt like coercion” but did not clearly state she believed she had been raped. He told CBS 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 University Police told the Post that “all investigatory information” from Doe’s case had been shared with the district attorney’s office in 2024. Officers did not specify whether that package included the full interview transcript. That gap is now central to why the governor pulled the case.
On Sunday, before Hochul’s order, Van Houten announced his office would reopen the probe. The special-prosecutor appointment still places the file under James, with authority to investigate, charge if warranted, and go to a grand jury.
Taxpayers and victims both need prosecutors who actually read the complete evidence before closing a violent felony file. When a recorded statement saying “I was raped” sits outside the charging decision, public trust collapses for a reason.
Doe filed a civil lawsuit on Sept. 18 against seven fraternity brothers and the university. Reporting on the case has also described the suit as naming Chi Phi, Cornell, a bar, and her sorority. In the complaint as summarized in the coverage, she alleged she was gang-raped at the Chi Phi house and attacked Cornell’s internal Title IX process, which she said involved 12 hearings and left most of the accused with little more than a slap on the wrist, only two of the seven expelled, by her account.
Cornell has denied her claims, said it acted in accordance with police, and banned the Chi Phi chapter from campus. No criminal charges or arrests are reported as filed at this stage.
A Snapchat group chat among Chi Phi members, with more than 50 people in the thread, later surfaced in the reporting. One message referred to “free p, sy” in a room at the house. Others replied with lines characterized as “shop still open?” and “you can walk in and whip it out.”
Those messages do not decide a criminal case. They do show how quickly a campus culture story becomes a public integrity story once the charging file looks incomplete.
James now holds both a criminal special-prosecutor mandate and a parallel civil review. She remains a polarizing figure statewide, with recent coverage of whistleblower claims inside her office and a competitive re-election climate in which her lead has been tested.
None of that political weather changes the core record in Ithaca. A young woman told campus police she was raped. A local DA said he never saw that transcript and closed the case on a thinner written statement. Campus police say they turned over their investigatory material. The governor says that sequence wrecked her confidence and the public’s.
James has also been the target of aggressive opposition politics, including a Trump-endorsed challenger and separate allegations that her office mishandled politically charged work.
Those fights will continue on their own track. This appointment will be judged on whether the full file, transcript, statement, chat logs, Title IX record, and witness accounts, finally gets a straight-line review under ordinary criminal standards.
Van Houten’s office was contacted for comment in the original reporting; no substantive reply is reflected there beyond his earlier CBS remarks and the Sunday reopen announcement. The seven men have not been publicly named in the materials summarized here, and they remain entitled to the presumption of innocence unless and until a prosecutor proves charges beyond a reasonable doubt.
What cannot be papered over is the process failure already on the table: key words from the accuser’s own police interview did not drive the first charging decision, and the state’s top officials have now said they no longer trust the local office to finish the job.
James’s broader record will keep drawing fire, including claims that her office ordered staff to target political opponents and polling that shows her re-election race tightening. In this matter, the test is simpler and older, read the whole file, follow the evidence, and do not leave a rape allegation half-examined because the paperwork never lined up.
When local prosecutors miss or never receive the victim’s clearest on-tape account, governors will step in, and voters will demand to know why the first system failed.
