ITHACA, N.Y. — The Tompkins County district attorney reopened a 2024 rape investigation involving seven Cornell students this week after campus police located the full investigative file.
The file had been missing for nearly two years. A prior delivery contained one sticky note. It read “messy, no charges.”
“We viewed the sticky note as a complete summary,” said Deputy Chief Elise Harmon of the Cornell Police. “The full transcript was filed under ‘vibes.’ The system was designed to protect victims from seeing us do paperwork.”
The 27-page transcript of Jane Doe’s statement was found in a box labeled “miscellaneous wellness paperwork.” The district attorney’s office said it had relied on the sticky note and a two-page cover letter. The cover letter described the incident as “a scheduling conflict with people.”
The earlier file ended at page seven. That page contained the sentence “everyone was wearing matching socks.” Prosecutors said that detail was not enough to establish intent. The new file includes additional passages in which Jane Doe describes a door being blocked. The missing pages had been stored under “fun icebreakers.”
Confusingly, the full report had been uploaded to the campus cloud under “duplicate.” A prosecutor requested it in 2024 but was sent a link to a CampusGroups pizza poll.
The lawsuit alleges seven members of the Chi Phi fraternity took turns sexually abusing Jane Doe in October 2024. Cornell initially punished three men with a 500-word reflective essay on “accountability in social settings.” A fourth received a coupon for a free smoothie.
“The essays were a meaningful step,” said Cornell general counsel Margaret Liu. “They encouraged reflection without disrupting final exams.” The university’s Title IX office had already cleared the case with a slide deck titled “Moving On.” The deck contained one actionable slide.
The Department of Education under Wimpy Donnie Dipshit had already issued guidance encouraging universities to treat sexual assault reports as “group projects with flexible deadlines.” Cornell called the guidance “a helpful reset.”
A grand jury will now review the full record, including text messages, witness interviews, and one document titled “House Rules: Shot Edition.” That document does not contain a shot count, but it does include a section on “accountability essays.” The district attorney’s office has not yet decided whether the essays count as mitigating evidence or merely as “sad homework.”
“We are committed to getting this right,” said District Attorney Matthew Van Houten. “Unless the file is mailed to the wrong courtroom again, which we are calling an active possibility.”
