Kathy Hochul, the New York governor, said on Thursday she is appointing Letitia James, the state’s attorney general, as special prosecutor to investigate the alleged gang-rape at Cornell University.
“The young woman at the center of this case deserves to know that every fact will be examined and justice pursued,” Hochul said in a statement. “This action will ensure that the matter is fully and thoroughly investigated without conflict or bias, and handled independently with the rigor that this matter demands.”
In her statement, Hochul said the decision by Matthew Van Houten, the Tompkins county district attorney, not to prosecute the 2024 case, and the questions raised in recent days over the Cornell police department’s investigation of the allegations, have “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 James would oversee the investigation and, if warranted, present evidence to a grand jury.
The former Cornell University student who alleges she was gang-raped at a fraternity in 2024 filed a lawsuit in September, in a case that has sparked national outrage, roiled the Ivy League campus and raised questions about why no criminal case was brought.
Van Houten declined at the time of the alleged assault to bring criminal charges, but this week said he would reopen the investigation based on new information in the woman’s lawsuit, which identifies her only by the pseudonym Jane Doe.
He has maintained that the woman’s first account to police did not include allegations that she was drugged, incapacitated beyond the ability to consent or forced into sex. After CBS News this week revealed details from the police interview transcript, he told the network he’d never seen her detailed account and had relied instead on a statement written by a campus police officer and signed by the accuser.
She is suing seven men whom she said perpetrated the assault, as well as the university, the fraternity and others.
Lawyers for two of the men she is suing have denied they perpetrated a sexual assault. One said his client had not touched the woman or engaged in any drug use.
Cornell has said it suspended the Chi Phi fraternity indefinitely and disciplined or expelled some students, but the university has declined to provide specifics, citing student privacy rules.
Under pressure from the public and politicians, including Hochul, Cornell, a private university, agreed on Wednesday to bring in outside lawyers to independently investigate how it handled the woman’s allegations.
