The woman who accused seven members of a now-defunct Cornell University fraternity of gang rape said her car had been broken into earlier that same night.
The accuser, identified only as Jane Doe in court documents, alleged that she was pressured into taking drugs and sexually assaulted by seven members of the Chi Phi fraternity during a Hawaiian-themed party on October 19, 2024.
Several hours before the party, someone broke into her vehicle and stole her wallet, Doe told campus police in a statement obtained by NBC News.
Doe said she returned to her sorority house after reporting the break-in and found that her Tri Delta sisters had already begun drinking.
She had initially been expected to serve as the party’s “sober monitor,” Doe later told police, but other sorority members assigned the role to someone else. She then began drinking vodka shots to catch up with her already intoxicated friends, she said.
Doe said she and her friends left for a bar near campus at about 9 p.m.
When she arrived at Moonies Bar and Nightclub in downtown Ithaca, New York, she estimated that her intoxication level was “about a six out of 10,” according to her six-page written statement.
Bar employees marked her hand to indicate that she was under 21, but Doe alleged that she was nevertheless able to order a mixed drink containing roughly two shots of alcohol. The bar has since denied wrongdoing.
She told police that she made a brief stop at another bar with a friend before going to the Chi Phi house at approximately 10:30 p.m. By then, she said, her intoxication level was “about a five out of 10.”
A woman who alleged she was gang raped at the Chi Phi house at Cornell University (pictured) told police she was “about a five out of 10 level of intoxication” when she arrived
At the fraternity house, Doe said she began dancing with Matthew Ingalls, one of the men she now accuses of rape, sometime after 11 p.m. She alleged that Ingalls then suggested they have a threesome.
Doe said she agreed because she was attracted to him.
She alleged that Ingalls took her to a room where another defendant, Jonathan Newell, was sitting. Doe said the three of them took ketamine, smoked marijuana and drank liquor before having intercourse.
According to her account, the situation escalated when five more fraternity members named in her civil complaint entered the room.
At 1:42 a.m., Newell allegedly posted a message in a fraternity Snapchat group saying there was “free p***y” upstairs.
Doe recalled that two additional men later came into the room, grabbed her and kissed her. She alleged that one of them then took part in another threesome with her and another man.
In her written statement to police, Doe said she felt “super isolated” and believed she “didn’t matter as a person to these men.”
She eventually told Ingalls, “I don’t know who any of these people are.” Doe alleged that he laughed off her concerns and instead asked whether she wanted to take more ketamine.
Jane Doe said in a written statement to police that she was served alcohol at Moonies Bar and Nightclub in downtown Ithaca, New York. The bar has since denied wrongdoing
“I had become extremely uncomfortable with how this night was turning out and so my thought was, ‘If I do ketamine again, maybe I will pass out,’” Doe wrote in her statement, according to NBC News.
‘My thought was that if I passed out and these men had sex with me, then they could be charged with rape.’
Meanwhile, at around 2.30am, more members of the fraternity’s group chat started to ask about what was happening in the room – to which Ingalls reportedly replied: ‘Boys, come whip it out.’
Back inside the bedroom, Doe said men started snorting drugs off of her body while she was ‘feeling extremely tired’ and covering her face with her hands.
Later, she said, one man who lived in the bedroom with another man entered and said ‘something like “OK we’re shutting down whatever the f**k this is”‘ after which ‘the group of men all began to scatter.’
Still, she said, two of the men ushered Doe upstairs to what she said she thought was the fraternity president’s office and the three took ketamine and Doe said she felt ‘extremely high’ as the two men ‘were asking me to have sex so many times that I finally gave in.’
‘To me, that felt like coercion,’ she told police. ‘Also, I felt like due to my intoxication, they should have known how intoxicated I was based on how I was slurring my words.’
The night began with Jane Doe dancing with Matthew Ingalls (left) and then having a threesome with him and Jonathan Newell (right)
She claimed the night took a turn when Newell allegedly posted in a fraternity Snapchat group that there was ‘free p***y’ upstairs
The sexual encounter was said to have lasted until roughly 5.45am, when Doe went to sleep in one of the rooms at the fraternity house.
When she woke up the next morning, she said she found Ingalls hovering over her, saying he wanted her to give him oral sex.
Doe said she refused him, at which point Ingalls moved away from her.
The alleged victim then returned to her sorority house to find her sorority sisters asking what happened to her at the party, to which Doe said she simply replied ‘ketamine.’
But later that day, Doe said in her statement, she learned that what had happened to her the night before was common knowledge as members of Chi Phi bragged about having an ‘eightsome’ with her.
‘It was now obvious that everyone knew it was me that this had happened to,’ Doe recounted in her written statement.
In the aftermath, she said she went to Cornell Health to be tested for sexually transmitted diseases.
At that appointment, she told her doctor she contracted a UTI in a ‘traumatic fashion.’
The accuser, only identified in court documents as Jane Doe, spoke with campus police about the ordeal on November 14. Students are pictured walking past Cornell Police headquarters
Meanwhile, Doe apparently downplayed the interaction in text messages to Newell and Ingalls.
‘At the end of the day none of the sexual stuff was illegal, and honestly i really liked being w u and matt,’ she wrote in one message to Newell.
‘I don’t think we should feel any shame for the part. our body our choice asf,’ she wrote.
In a separate message to Ingalls, she suggested that people were speaking out about the incident because they were jealous.
‘But also like everyone needs to grow up cause sexuality and sex and s**t is changing and stuff like this is going to become more common,’ she wrote, before telling Ingalls: ‘I luv u king.’
Her attorney, Thomas Giuffra, however, told Our News Outlet that the messages do not suggest that the sexual intercourse was consensual.
He instead argued that Jane Doe was showing ‘classic symptoms of delayed recognition’ about the gravity of the incident, meaning it took some time for her to realize that she had been the victim of an alleged crime.
‘This is a well-known phenomenon which is widely reported in medical and psychological literature,’ the attorney said. ‘Most rape survivors do not immediately identify what happened to them as rape.’
Cornell officials wound up launching a monthslong probe into Jane Doe’s allegations. At least 12 formal hearings were held from January to May 2025 and saw faculty and staff review the evidence.
In the end, Tompkins County District Attorney Matthew Van Houten decided not to file charges against any of the seven men.
Instead, Ingalls and his frat brother Jonathan Newell were both expelled from campus, Jane Doe’s legal filing stated.
Two others were suspended and placed on disciplinary probation, while a third who had graduated from the school by the time punishments were handed out was barred from campus.
The final two men were ordered to take sexual harassment, social media use and bystander intervention courses. They were also told to write ‘reflection papers,’ according to the lawsuit.
Both of them said they were only in the room with Jane Doe for five minutes, but the alleged victim said that they snorted ketamine off her body, per the suit.
Since Jane Doe filed a civil lawsuit over the case last month, uproar over the case has erupted across campus and the country. Cornell students are pictured holding signs after a seven-hour long sit-in protest
On Friday, the Cornell Concert Commission, a student-run organization, announced that it has canceled its annual homecoming concert amid the controversy
Although the case was closed over a year ago, it has since been reopened after Jane Doe took legal action against the school, Chi Phi, the seven men, and others in September.
The Tompkins County District Attorney’s office announced that it is looking into the case again, and New York Governor Kathy Hochul has tapped Attorney General Letitia James as special prosecutor in it.
Since the lawsuit, uproar over the case has erupted across campus and the country.
Several protesters who support Jane Doe have demanded change as they walk around campus, in Washington, DC, New York City, and other places nationwide.
Students have become outraged over the details of the alleged assault and have demanded that the prestigious school reexamine its previous decision.
On Friday, the Cornell Concert Commission, a student-run organization, announced that it has canceled its annual homecoming concert amid the controversy.
