Prosecutors face uphill battle in criminal probe of Cornell 7 accusing of gang rape: experts

Prosecutors will face an uphill battle trying to get a conviction in the case against seven Cornell University fraternity brothers accused of drugging and raping a female student — due to the accuser’s evolving account of what happened and tricky New York laws about intoxication and consent, legal experts said.The woman, identified only as Jane Doe, filed a civil lawsuit last month alleging she was gang raped at the Chi Phi fraternity house while drunk and high on rum, weed and ketamine on Oct.19, 2024.However, she didn’t report the alleged rape to campus police until nearly three weeks later, and exchanged text messages with one of the men she is suing after the assault, according to a Title IX investigation conducted by the Ivy League in early 2025.These are facts that defense attorneys could try to use against her at a criminal trial.“The defense will use every text message, every inconsistency and every day she waited to report, to attack her credibility,” lawyer Sarah Klein, a former gymnast who was doctor Larry Nassar’s first known victim, told The Post.“And that’s exactly why so many sexual assault survivors are reluctant to come forward,” Klein said.Sexual harassment attorney Megan Thomas said that one way for prosecutors to combat defense attacks on the woman’s credibility would be to call an expert to testify about how victims of abuse process trauma, often taking years to reconcile and report what happened to them.“I think it is challenging to prosecute criminally, but I don’t think it’s impossible,” Thomas said.

“And here’s why: I think a good expert on trauma can help explain a lot of those text messages.”Still, Thomas acknowledged the accuser will have a much easier time fighting her case in civil court than in criminal court.Tompkins County District Attorney Matthew Van Houten initially declined to criminally prosecute the case in 2024, claiming that the six-page statement he was given from Cornell campus police at t...