New texts from Cornell frat house members shed more light on alleged attack

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Newly uncovered messages sent on the night a former Cornell University student says she was drugged and sexually assaulted show fraternity members discussing her presence in the house and later apologizing for how the evening unfolded.

At 1:42 a.m. on the date of the alleged assault, a message was sent to the group chat suggesting a woman was available for sex. “Shop still open?” one fraternity brother wrote later, to which two others responded, “Yeah,” as reported by CBS News New York.

Two days after the incident, an unidentified fraternity member accused in the case texted the woman to apologize for “how things went down,” in messages cited by CBS News, acknowledging he should have “shut it down and kick[ed] people out before it got way out of hand.”

In response, the woman allegedly wrote that “non[e] of the sexual stuff was illegal,” adding that her memory was “super clouded too.” Her attorney, Thomas Giuffra, told the outlet he was aware of messages between the pair but could not verify their contents.

The revelation of the messages comes as Tompkins County District Attorney Matthew Van Houten announced his office was reopening the criminal investigation and referring the matter to a grand jury, despite maintaining that the student’s initial sworn statement to police did not detail a crime under New York State penal law.

Speaking to CNN’s Pamela Brown on Tuesday, Van Houten defended his office’s original decision not to press charges, while acknowledging that the behavior of the men involved was “morally disgusting.”

“We knew everything that happened, and we knew it, and we believed it because Jane Doe told us through her six-page written statement what happened,” Van Houten told CNN. “When you know that that very detailed, comprehensive account does not establish a crime, it’s not ethical for a prosecutor or for the police to go out and look for or cross-examine her to find evidence of a crime. We don't have an agenda to make a criminal prosecution. Our agenda is the truth.”

Van Houten insisted that the Snapchat messages were not central to determining whether a criminal offense took place under the law.

“That’s a red herring in the sense of the legal analysis because we received it,” he said. “But it was not relevant to the assessment of whether Jane Doe consented or whether there was any evidence of lack of consent on her part, as defined by the penal law. … It’s repulsive, but it is not evidence as it relates to the penal law assessment of whether there was a crime.”

The prosecutor also disputed characterizations that Doe had reported a gang rape in her original police statement.

“Jane Doe’s sworn statement in November of 2024 did not allege that she was drugged against her will or gang raped,” Van Houten said, telling CNN that “Jane Doe never alleged that she was ‘quote unquote’ gang raped, and that’s from social media.”

The September 16 civil complaint, however, explicitly accuses the defendants of organizing and participating in a “gang rape” inside the fraternity house.

When challenged by Brown on the wording of the civil lawsuit, Van Houten reiterated that police evaluated her initial account as voluntary.

“She went to the police because she knew it wasn’t right, and the police investigated it,” Van Houten said during the interview. “That does not mean, if it’s morally wrong or disgusting or offensive, it does not mean that the penal law was violated.”

Van Houten said that a senior female prosecutor specializing in sex crimes had been assigned to lead the grand jury presentation and that his office had reached out to schedule a Zoom meeting with Doe.

“I expressed to him our desire to meet with Jane Doe to start the conversation to understand what insights she has gained over the last two years,” Van Houten said. “What additional reflections and healing that she has done that she can provide to us in terms of additional evidence that we could present to the grand jury.”

Giuffra, Doe’s attorney, aggressively pushed back against the DA’s characterization of the initial investigation, arguing that authorities failed to properly pursue evidence and that his client was in a state of trauma.

In the Monday episode of CNN’s “The Lead with Jake Tapper,” Giuffra detailed the financial and emotional toll on Doe following the incident, claiming Cornell University refused to refund her tuition when she sought to leave campus.

“She felt like she wasn’t heard and there was no accountability,” Giuffra told CNN. “She wanted to leave the university and go home and heal. And her parents, who had paid thousands and thousands of dollars for her to attend Cornell, tried to get their money back.”

The refusal forced Doe to remain enrolled for an additional term, according to Giuffra.

“Cornell said, ‘No, you have to stay in school,’” Giuffra said. “So she spent an entire semester on the campus where she saw these guys on a fairly regular basis.”

He added that the ordeal derailed her future.

“Her life has been destroyed,” Giuffra said. “She’s a woman who comes from a small town, she was not somebody who was a legacy, or somebody from a wealthy family. This was her dream and it was taken away from her at a young age in just a horrific fashion.”

Attorneys representing the named fraternity members have vigorously denied the claims in the lawsuit, which accuses seven men of sexual assault and battery. The complaint alleges that two members drugged Doe before the assaults continued until approximately 5:45 a.m.

Jeremy Saland, defense attorney for named defendant Scott Kretzschmar, rejected the lawsuit’s claim that his client poured ketamine onto Doe’s body and snorted it.

“Absolutely not ... what you need to do is look at the demonstrable, objective evidence, which is a hair follicle test showing no, he had no ketamine in his system,” Saland told CBS News, though the outlet noted it had not independently verified the test results.

Saland stated that Kretzschmar entered the room briefly after seeing the Snapchat messages and observed no distress.

“She was not undressed,” Saland said. “He didn’t see her under duress. She wasn’t having a hard time articulating any things.”

Andrew Miltenberg, an attorney representing another defendant, Gillio Lopes, also refuted the allegations in a statement to CBS News.

“Cornell previously investigated these allegations,” Miltenberg said. “The allegations now being made publicly differ from what was reported and investigated during that process. These are serious accusations, but accusations are not proof.”

Diego Sarabia, another of the seven men accused in the lawsuit, was fired from his job at Wells Fargo in Charlotte, North Carolina, as reported by TMZ Monday. Sarabia, a former Chi Phi member who had worked at the bank since 2022, was terminated directly as a result of the district attorney reopening the criminal case, sources told the outlet.

The Independent has reached out to Wells Fargo for comment, and it was not immediately clear on Tuesday if Sarabia had legal representation.

In a statement to CNN, Cornell University said that it supported the district attorney’s decision to present the matter to a grand jury, while defending its institutional response and Title IX administrative process, which resulted in sanctions and the campus prohibition of the Chi Phi chapter.

"Any suggestion that the university did not impose consequential punishments for those involved is false,” the university said. “A continuation of the false narrative that there were minimal consequences in this case, is irresponsible, will make survivors feel less safe and supported, and will perpetuate the underreporting of sexual assault.”

For those affected by rape and sexual abuse, if you are in the United States, you can call Rainn on 800-656-HOPE (4673).

Rape Crisis also offers support. You can call them on 0808 802 9999 in England and Wales, 0808 801 0302 in Scotland, and 0800 0246 991 in Northern Ireland, or visit their website at www.rapecrisis.org.uk.