Hochul slammed for cameo in Netflix doc on Cornell 7 alleged frat gang rape: Air of impropriety

Amid the renewed investigation into seven men accused of sexually assaulting a woman at Cornell, New York Governor Kathy Hochul has drawn backlash for appearing in a Netflix documentary about the case and commenting on the allegations.None of the seven men have been criminally charged.Hochul signed an executive order in October assigning New York Attorney General Letitia James as special prosecutor to investigate the case.In the newly released documentary titled “Instadocs: Jane Doe v.

Cornell,” Hochul appears around 13 minutes into the film, expressing her own reaction to news surrounding the case.Speaking to an interviewer, she said, “My first reaction was how disgusting, not again.You feel like, not again.”She also reflected on her past experience from when she was an undergrad at Syracuse University in the late ’70s.“There were a series of rapes our first week on campus and there was a sense of anxiety all around,” Hochul said.She condemned what she called a “culture” that “has never changed.”“The number of people involved and the repugnancy of her allegations would’ve drawn you to local police department fairly quickly,” she said.Jane Doe’s allegations gained the national spotlight when she filed a civil lawsuit naming the seven Cornell Chi Phi fraternity brothers, the university, her own sorority and others – claiming she was drugged and gang raped inside a frat house in 2024.She filed the suit nearly two years after she initially reported her allegations to local law enforcement – to which Tompkins County District Attorney Matthew Van Houten said, “multiple prosecutors and criminal investigators reviewed Jane Doe’s statement and correctly determined the alleged facts as set forth in the statement do not constitute a crime.”In the Netflix interview, Hochul addressed concerns about law enforcement’s handling of the allegations.She said, “In a situation like this, you want to make sure that people believe in the proc...