Former members of a Cornell University fraternity allegedly met to discuss concealing an alleged group sexual assault that took place in 2024.
The former members of Chi Phi, an Ivy League fraternity chapter that has since been disbanded, are accused of giving a female student alcohol and drugs at a party in October 2024 before raping her.
According to records obtained by ABC News, Cornell police received an anonymous report alleging that Chi Phi leaders urged potential witnesses to remain silent. The caller said members feared that revealing details of the alleged incident would damage the reputations of those involved and the fraternity itself.
“The whole fraternity had meetings to try to cover this up and to be part of the conspiracy of silence,” Jane Doe’s attorney, Thomas Giuffra, told CNN on Tuesday night.
“That’s really frightening that this happened. There were 57 people who got that group chat and not one of them—other than the person who leaked it to her—did anything.”
“Nobody walked out of those meetings and said, ‘Hey, this is wrong. We’re going to the police, we’re throwing these guys under the bus and holding them accountable,’” Giuffra claimed.
“All they were interested in was protecting their fraternity brothers and keeping it as business as usual. That’s what they were interested in—not justice, not this woman.”
Thomas Giuffra, the attorney for a woman who accused former members of Cornell University’s now-defunct Chi Phi chapter of group sexual assault, said the fraternity appeared to have mounted an effort to conceal what happened.
Cornell police questioned at least two fraternity members about the alleged assault and internal communications concerning it. Students are shown walking past Cornell Police headquarters last week.
Witness says Chi Phi members met after alleged assault
Asked by investigators about a possible fraternity cover-up, a female student said Chi Phi members held a meeting “essentially to get all of the men on the same page about what happened.”
“I know for a fact there are GroupMe messages about the situation,” she told investigators, according to records obtained by ABC News.
The student also said fraternity members referred to the encounter as a “consensual orgy” while worrying that it would be damaging to their image.
Cornell police separately interviewed at least two fraternity members about the alleged incident and the conversations taking place within the fraternity house.
One member reportedly said the matter arose informally during a regular weekly meeting, when chapter leaders were discussing their “brother of the week and idiots of the week.”
“We didn’t have a meeting about it specifically,” he said. “It was our weekly chapter meeting. We got through a bunch of stuff.”
However, text messages reviewed by ABC News indicate that members were attempting to manage the fallout after Cornell suspended the chapter.
“When was the last time you spoke to [Jane Doe]?” the fraternity president asked Matthew Ingalls, who had invited the accuser to the fraternity house on October 19, 2024.
“Yesterday… what’s the plan of action?” Ingalls reportedly replied.
“Should I call [her]? I don’t think she would have reported this.”
Audio recordings offer conflicting accounts of alleged Cornell assault
The exchange came several days after Ingalls insisted during a phone call that the alleged victim had told him she was sober.
Audio of that call, obtained by police, captured conflicting accounts of the encounter. Jane Doe told Ingalls that he “already knew I was 10 shots deep” when he and six other men allegedly sexually assaulted her.
“If I wanted to take this somewhere, what y’all did would be classified as gang [sexual assault],” she told him in a message.
During another part of the conversation, Jane Doe said she could not remember all of the men present. She recalled seeing four men on a bed, with additional men standing around them.
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Ingalls replied: “I have racked my brain for this mystery. You know, it’s possible that both of us, like, remember this and it’s not true.”
Jane Doe rejected that suggestion, saying: “No, because I remember looking up and being like, ‘That is too many people.’”
According to Jane Doe’s lawsuit, the recording showed Ingalls attempting to ease her concerns about the encounter while failing to mention that he had texted the fraternity’s group chat during the alleged assault.
The lawsuit alleges that Ingalls posted a photograph of Jane Doe in the chat and wrote, “Boys come whip it out.”
Matthew Ingalls, who invited Jane Doe to the October 19, 2024, party, later claimed that he was the person who had been sexually assaulted.
Jane Doe alleges seven men took part
In a civil lawsuit, Jane Doe alleges that seven men ultimately participated in the encounter and that she became “completely incapacitated.” She says the alleged assault continued until about 5:45 a.m., when she lost consciousness.
Friends later encouraged her to report the allegations, and she contacted Cornell University Police on November 8, according to the lawsuit.
Ingalls later maintained that he was the person who had been sexually assaulted, arguing that he was too intoxicated to consent to sexual activity.
In a February 2025 email to Cornell’s Title IX investigator, Ingalls accused the university of “entrapment” and suggested he would file a complaint against Jane Doe.
“After all, you received information that I was sodomized by her while I was incapacitated back in November and you never once thought to alert me of my rights under these procedures as a survivor of this assault?” he wrote.
“The very fact that I had to bring this to your attention now in February confirms my worst fears: that this process is rolled [sic] with gender discrimination.”
Cornell officials announced Tuesday that they had hired former Deputy Attorney General Sally Yates to review the university’s handling of the case and its wider sexual assault policies.
Cornell expelled two students following investigation
Cornell later expelled Ingalls and Jonathan Newell. Newell had engaged in a threesome with Jane Doe and Ingalls and was accused of striking the woman.
Winston Lee and Gillio Lopes received suspensions and disciplinary probation, according to records obtained by The New York Times.
Both men were also prohibited from contacting Jane Doe and required to complete sexual-harassment studies and write reflection papers.
Diego Sarabia was barred from campus for three years. He had graduated by the time the disciplinary panel issued its ruling in March 2025.
The remaining two men, Scott Norris and Scott Kretzschmar, were ordered to avoid contact with Jane Doe and complete coursework on sexual harassment, social media use and bystander intervention. They were also required to submit reflection papers.
Neither man was accused of participating in the alleged assault. However, they were accused of entering the room after Newell allegedly posted in a fraternity Snapchat group that there was “free [expletive]” upstairs.
No one involved in the alleged assault has been criminally charged. Tompkins County District Attorney Matthew Van Houten previously concluded that there was insufficient evidence, based on Jane Doe’s statement to police at the time.
The district attorney’s office has since reopened the investigation, while New York Governor Kathy Hochul appointed Attorney General Letitia James as a special prosecutor.
Cornell officials also announced Tuesday that the university had retained former Deputy Attorney General Sally Yates to examine its handling of the case and its broader approach to sexual assault.
The review will assess Cornell’s “policies, practices and resources across the full range of prevention and response,” university officials said.
That examination will include how reports are received and investigated, how hearings and disciplinary decisions are conducted, and how campus police respond and coordinate with outside law enforcement agencies and prosecutors. It will also consider the university’s oversight of fraternities and sororities.
