‘Under Siege’: Cornell Gang Rape Accuser Attacked by Online Sleuths

Oct. 3 (UPI) — The young woman who alleges she was gang raped in a Cornell University fraternity party is “under siege” as people online seek to reveal her identity, her lawyer said Friday.

The lawyer, Thomas Giuffra, said the woman identified in court papers as Jane Doe is “not doing well.”

“She’s under siege on social media where people are trying to identify her,” he told CNN’s Pamela Brown in The Situation Room. “Some false court postings attempting to identify her and other women were posted.”

“Various women have been identified as Jane Doe incorrectly,” Giuffra added. “That’s been really difficult, and she’s gone through a lot.

“And I’ve been very disappointed about how I see people, some people, a minority clearly, to identify her, shame her, and things like that.”

The woman, who was 20 at the time, told police she was assaulted in 2024 by seven men in a fraternity on the Cornell campus in Ithaca, New York.

Giuffra said she was pressured into taking the drug ketamine and was incapable of providing consent because she was “completely intoxicated.”

No charges were filed despite the woman submitting a police report. Her lawyers filed a civil lawsuit in the case, drawing public scrutiny and renewing calls for criminal charges.

The Tompkins County District Attorney’s Office on Monday said it is reopening its investigation and will present its case to a grand jury.

But New York Gov. Kathy Hochul on Friday said police and prosecutors failed to protect the woman.

“She spoke to the police — she sat for hours and told them exactly what happened to her,” Hochul said. “And according to new reports, she could not have been clearer that she was 100% confident that she had been raped.

“Yet, shockingly, those words never made it into the account that the Cornell police sent to prosecutors.”

Hochul called for a review of the investigation and appointed New York Attorney General Letitia James as special prosecutor to handle the case.

“A comprehensive investigation of this nature takes time but my office is committed to seeing it through,” James said on Friday. “This is now an active criminal investigation led by the office of the attorney general. Although we are limited in what we can share, we will provide updates as they become available.”