Woman felt 'like bait' during alleged Cornell gang rape, documents show

A woman who says she was gang-raped at Cornell University told the school's investigators that she "felt like bait" as the attackers were "like lions around me," according to records from the university’s disciplinary investigation.

The documents, reviewed by The Associated Press, include excerpts of interviews Cornell investigators conducted with the woman and the men she accused, shedding light on the university's handling of the case.

The woman, identified in court papers as Jane Doe, sued Cornell and seven former students last month, alleging she was given ketamine and repeatedly assaulted at a fraternity house in October 2024. She went to campus police three weeks after the encounter and gave a detailed account, but the local district attorney decided not to file criminal charges.

Cornell's investigation, under the federal Title IX law, persisted with the goal of deciding discipline for the students involved. This week, a lawyer for one of the accused men filed documents from the school’s investigation in a lawsuit seeking to overturn the university’s punishment. These records offer a fuller, though sometimes conflicting, timeline of events and reveal how the accused men responded to the allegations.

According to the Title IX documents, the woman and several of the men gave investigators similar accounts of drug use and sexual activity at the Chi Phi fraternity house, but differed sharply on consent. The woman had been invited by a fraternity member for whom she had romantic feelings. The disciplinary panel found she initially consented to sex with that man and one of his friends.

However, she later alleged in her lawsuit that she was pressured into taking ketamine, marijuana, and alcohol, and was too intoxicated to consent. She told investigators she remembered smoking marijuana and knew she took ketamine, but did not have an independent memory of it, stating the drug left her in a state of "vague consciousness."

"You look like an operating human being," she told school investigators in May 2025. "Lights are on, but nobody’s home. Your brain is not functioning at its proper level."

She stated that some of the men inhaled drugs off her unclothed body, telling investigators, “I felt like bait. I felt like lions around me. It just was a totally debilitating place to be in."

One of the men accused of snorting drugs off her body denied her account, telling investigators he was in the room for no more than five minutes and did not go there for sex. He insisted he did not see the woman naked, stating she was covered, and denied participating in drug use. He said he left after the woman and another man indicated they were all right.

Cornell’s disciplinary panel later cleared him of sexual assault or exploitation allegations but found him responsible for attempted sexual exploitation because it did not believe his claim of going to the room for altruistic reasons.

The fraternity member who challenged his punishment also posted in a Snapchat conversation about the events. He later told investigators he did not remember sending the message.

In her lawsuit, Jane Doe accused two other men of performing sex acts on her without consent while she was partially incapacitated, and another man of kissing her without consent. She told investigators two other men acted as "voyeurs."

The lawsuit seeks to hold all seven men liable for rape and is asking for unspecified damages.

Cornell has not detailed the results of its investigation, but has stated that some students were expelled. The man who filed the lawsuit challenging his punishment was allowed to remain at Cornell but was ordered to stay away from the woman, take classes on sexual harassment and bystander intervention, and write a reflective paper on the circumstances for which he was found responsible.

Late Thursday, Gov. Kathy Hochul appointed Attorney General Letitia James as a special prosecutor to lead a renewed criminal investigation, stating she had lost faith in Tompkins County District Attorney Matthew Van Houten.