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Newly reviewed records provide a closer look at how members of a Cornell University fraternity responded after a student reported being raped, including discussions about contacting her and efforts to challenge her account.
According to ABC News, text messages, recorded phone calls, and records from Cornell’s internal investigation document conversations among members of the Chi Phi fraternity following the October 2024 allegations.
ABC News described the communications as suggesting some fraternity members engaged in “damage control” in the aftermath of the allegations.
A friend of Jane Doe told investigators that fraternity members “tried to contact [Jane] almost every day” to keep her “on their good side” and prevent her from becoming upset about what happened.
After Doe reported the incident to Cornell police on November 8, 2024, fraternity members discussed how to respond in a group chat.
“F—-,” one member wrote. “Should I call [Jane]?”
The chapter president responded, “Wait a bit for me and [Executive Board] to figure out what we’re doing cuz there are a couple of other things going on,” before asking when the member last spoke with Doe.
Doe also recorded calls with three men she accused of sexually assaulting her as she tried to understand what happened. “The only way for me to heal is to know what happened,” she told Matthew Ingalls, according to ABC News.
During one call, Doe told Ingalls, “What y’all did would be classified as gang rape.”
“It’s possible that both of us, like, remember this and it’s not true,” Ingalls responded.
Doe replied, “I don’t think that that’s true. No, no, because I remember looking up and being like, that is too many people.”
In another message reviewed by ABC News, Ingalls asked one of Doe’s friends to submit evidence he believed could get him dismissed from Cornell’s investigation, writing, “If the evidence is convincing enough to let us go then it’s proof she lied.”
Doe later described the alleged efforts as “the coverups these boys attempted.”
The seven men named in Doe’s civil lawsuit have not been criminally charged and have denied wrongdoing.
The records were released after Governor Kathy Hochul appointed New York Attorney General Letitia James on Thursday (October 1) to lead the investigation as special prosecutor.
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