NY governor slams response to Cornell gang rape report

Filed 2h ago · Via Courthouse News · The Buffoon Desk

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Kevin MacLeod · incompetech.com · CC BY 4.0

Photo: Ktkvtsh · CC BY 4.0 · via Wikimedia Commons

New York Governor Kathy Hochul announced Attorney General Letitia James will serve as independent special prosecutor investigating a reported 2024 gang rape at Cornell's Chi Phi fraternity, after criticizing both campus police and the Tompkins County DA's office for failing to properly investigate. The woman's lawsuit describes being pressured into drugs and assaulted by multiple members while incapacitated, including a Snapchat message referencing her condition.

Hochul said the DA's office relied on an incomplete account from university police and never interviewed the woman or witnesses itself. DA Matthew Van Houten countered that she described the encounter as voluntary and consensual at the time, disputing the gang rape characterization.

Only two of seven men involved were expelled by Cornell, which suspended the fraternity but says its process is separate from criminal law. Hochul is also pushing legislation to close what she calls a gap around consent and voluntary intoxication.

The full dispatch is available from the source below.

✒ FROM THE EDITORIAL DESK

Two years is a long time for a case to sit untouched while the people responsible for looking into it apparently didn't look very hard. A governor announcing a special prosecutor after the fact is a fix, not a save, the window for real evidence closed a long time ago. Whatever the legislature does next won't give anybody back the two years nobody bothered to use.

Source: Read the original at Courthouse News → Scored: Myst · Kevin MacLeod · CC BY 4.0

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