Cornell Student Accused of Rape Confronted on Campus

Dramatic footage captured the moment furious Cornell students confronted a fraternity brother accused of gang raping a woman. The accused man, Gillio Lopes, was seen being angrily scolded by several women at the Ivy League school, as one questioned him: 'Are you not embarrassed to be here?'

'After all this time, after the case comes out, your name and face are out, are you not ashamed that you're still here?' the woman said. As the woman stated that Lopes' accuser had to drop out of college, Lopes responded, 'You know there is a reason for that right?' He added, 'I'm not going to talk about all of this with you. I don't even know you.' The woman then replied: 'Yeah, and I hope you never will, because you're a disgusting person. Everyone at Cornell is ashamed of you.'

Lopes and six other men—Matthew Ingalls, Jonathan Newell, Winston Lee, Diego Sarabia, Scott Norris, and Scott Kretzschmar—were accused in a civil lawsuit last month of sexually assaulting a woman, under the pseudonym Jane Doe, in their fraternity house in October 2024. None of the men have been charged with a crime.

The case sparked backlash after it was alleged that on the night of the alleged attack, the fraternity group chat included messages advertising 'free py' to members. In the footage of the student confronting Lopes, the woman told him the group chat messages were 'fing disgusting,' to which he responded: 'I didn't have anything to do with that.'

After the footage of the interaction with Lopes went viral across social media, his attorney stated that Lopes was being unfairly targeted over unproven allegations. The statement read: '(Jane Doe's) counsel has masterfully manipulated the media narrative, and the consequences are now very real. Mr Lopes was publicly accosted and is being condemned before the evidence has been fully heard.'

A Title IX investigation carried out by Cornell led to two of the men being expelled, two suspended, one who had graduated and could not be punished, and two found not responsible. Lopes was among those suspended, according to disciplinary summaries that indicated a three-member panel gave him a three-semester suspension followed by two years of probation. He has since returned to campus.