A lawyer for a woman who alleges that she was gang raped at Cornell University in 2024 said he believes there were more than seven men involved in the assault.
“I’m not even sure we have everybody who participated in this assault because my client was blacked out during periods of time, and that’s reported in these statements. We don’t even know the people we have are the people we definitively know,” he told CNN's Jake Tapper.
The attorney continued, saying, "If you ask me, I believe there were more."
A student, identified as Jane Doe, claims that in 2024 seven men at the Chi Phi fraternity house on Cornell's campus raped her for multiple hours.
On Friday, New York Gov. Kathy Hochul said the school and its leadership failed to properly handle the incident.
“I’m deeply disturbed at Cornell University’s police and how they handled this. They were the first ones to be able to interview and have their questions answered, and let this young woman tell her story. Them sending a partial record over [to prosecutors] is, in my judgment, a failure,” she said.
On Saturday, Cornell's President Michael Kotilkoff released an eight-minute video acknowledging questions over the university's handling of the alleged rape.
"I want to acknowledge something that can be difficult for an institution to say. We don't have all the answers, but we are committed to investigating and finding the answers our community deserves," he said in his statement. "We must do everything we can to prevent what happened to Jane Doe and everyone before her and anyone after her from ever happening again."
Last week, Hochul appointed New York State Attorney General Letitia James as special prosecutor investigating the Cornell case.
“As special prosecutor, the attorney general will investigate this incident and, if warranted, prosecute any offenses arising from that investigation and present evidence to a grand jury.”
James’ presence in the case caught the attention of President Donald Trump, who initially brushed off questions about the incident, saying he was confident that Cornell would handle things well because it’s a “fine school.”
Then, once James was appointed, Trump said he feels “badly” for the seven men accused of raping Jane Doe.
James successfully prosecuted Trump on 34 counts of falsifying business records in a case that ended months before Trump was re-elected in 2024.
At the White House earlier this week, Trump was asked by Fox News how he felt about James’ inclusion in the case.
"Well, Letitia James is a corrupt person. She's totally corrupt, and I can't imagine it. I feel badly for whoever she's looking at because they won't get a fair shake,” Trump said.
