ABC News records describe 'damage control' inside Cornell's Chi Phi house. No one has been charged.

Records reviewed by a news outlet are not evidence tested in court. Group chats, a recorded call and a campus file can show what people said and when. They do not establish what happened in that bedroom, and nobody has been charged with a crime. What the ABC News reporting does show is how much material exists that, by ABC's account, the original prosecutors never looked at: they relied on a six-page statement to campus police and did not review the record of Cornell's internal probe. That gap is exactly what a special prosecutor is supposed to close, with subpoenas, witness interviews and, if warranted, a grand jury.

ABC News reported Monday, Oct. 5, 2026, that it reviewed text messages, recorded phone calls and records from Cornell University's internal investigation into the alleged Oct. 19, 2024 sexual assault at the Chi Phi fraternity house in Ithaca, N.Y. According to ABC News, students who later spoke to campus authorities described efforts by some fraternity members in the weeks after that night as "damage control" aimed at keeping the woman, identified in court papers as Jane Doe, "not upset about the situation." ABC News reported that the men named in her civil lawsuit have denied wrongdoing. None has been charged with a crime.

ABC News reported that in a recorded call one day before she went to Cornell police on Nov. 8, 2024, the woman told the fraternity member who had invited her to the house that she was trying to piece together what happened. In that call, as ABC News described it, he told her she had said she was sober, which she disputed, and she told him that what happened "would be classified as gang rape." ABC News reported that Snapchat messages later given to university investigators show him inviting others into the room that night in a fraternity group chat with nearly 60 members, something he did not mention on the call. During Cornell's investigation, ABC News reported, he said he was too intoxicated to consent and suggested she had assaulted him. He did not respond to ABC's requests for comment and has not been charged.

According to text messages ABC News obtained, when the chapter learned on Nov. 8, 2024, that it had been suspended, one member asked in a group chat whether he should call the woman, and the chapter president told him to wait while the executive board worked out what to do. ABC News reported that Cornell's internal investigation ran from November 2024 through May 2025 and ended with two men expelled and others suspended. Campus discipline is a school process with its own standard of proof. It is not a criminal conviction.

ABC News reported that the prosecutors who first handled the case did not seek records beyond the woman's six-page statement to campus police and did not review the internal file. Tompkins County District Attorney Matthew Van Houten has said that statement described the drug use and sexual conduct as voluntary and consensual. Gov. Kathy Hochul removed Van Houten from the case and named Attorney General Letitia James special prosecutor on Oct. 1, NBC News reported, with authority to investigate, present evidence to a grand jury and, if warranted, prosecute. Fox News reported that a lawyer for one of the men has asked James to personally step aside over comments she made before the appointment. ABC News reported that Cornell has said an outside law firm will be brought in this week to review the university's own handling of the case. Anyone later accused is presumed innocent until proven guilty in a court of law.