A Closed Cornell Chi Phi File Is Headed to a Grand Jury

Tompkins County District Attorney Matthew Van Houten said on Sept. 27, 2026, that he will take a 2024 Cornell Chi Phi assault case to a grand jury. He wants Jane Doe’s help, and he wants another look at evidence his office says it did not have when it declined charges.

The same prosecutor who closed the file is now treating a civil complaint, and a Snapchat thread inside it, as the reason to start over. No one has been charged. The seven men named in court papers deny criminal wrongdoing where they have spoken, and they remain presumed innocent.

Tompkins County Will Put the File Before a Grand Jury

Van Houten said it is his office’s intention to present the case to the grand jury with Jane Doe’s cooperation. He said prosecutors will reexamine whether evidence that was not in front of them in November 2024 would change the assessment and support a finding of criminal conduct.

We want to reexamine whether there’s additional evidence that we were not aware of in November of 2024, that exists now that would change our assessment of the case and would result in the grand jury finding that there was criminal conduct.

Matthew Van Houten, Tompkins County district attorney

The plan landed 13 days after Jane Doe’s lawyers dated a 101-page complaint in Manhattan. The summons is dated Sept. 14, 2026. New York County’s e-filing system received it on Sept. 16 under index number 161704/2026. She sues Cornell University, Chi Phi groups, seven current or former students, Tri-Delta entities, Moonies Bar & Nightclub, and others.

Thomas P. Giuffra, her attorney at Rheingold Giuffra Ruffo Plotkin & Hellman, described a civil suit filed this month after a criminal review that produced no arrests. W. Whitney Seals of Cochrun & Seals is also on the papers. The civil case uses a lower burden of proof than a criminal trial. A grand jury is a separate track, and it has not sat.

Why Prosecutors Closed the Case in 2024

Van Houten said his office brought no charges because Jane Doe’s statement to authorities did not allege she was drugged without her knowledge or that she did not consent. He said he relied on Cornell University Police and did not run a separate probe, a practice he said is common in many upstate counties.

He went further on the 2024 statement. He said she never claimed she was drugged without knowing it, admitted taking drugs and alcohol voluntarily, did not allege she was forced into acts, and did not say she was helpless, unconscious, or incapacitated at the house.

That account sits beside a different public record from the same month. Cornell police told the campus on Nov. 8, 2024, that a person had reported being sexually assaulted by several males and coerced into consuming ketamine and other drugs at a fraternity on the 100 block of Edgemoor Lane. Chi Phi’s house is at 107 Edgemoor Lane. The complaint dates the night as Oct. 19 into Oct. 20, 2024. The 2024 crime alert described the report as involving Oct. 25. Those are two documents, not one blended date.

HOW THE 2024 FILE AND THE 2026 COMPLAINT DIVERGE

Giuffra rejected the DA’s reading of that first statement. He said talking with an abuse survivor takes specialized training that an average university officer would not have, and that Jane Doe was never contacted by anyone with those skills.

Her Lawyer Says Nobody Trained Ever Called

The gap Giuffra describes is not a new forensic test. It is the first interview that, in his telling, never happened. He said his client went to Cornell police because a crime had been committed and that it was the police’s job to investigate.

They were given the group chat inviting the members of the fraternity to rape my client. This was a critical piece of evidence supporting that a crime had occurred. Despite this there was no follow-up with Ms. Doe either by the Cornell Police or the Tompkins County District Attorney.

Thomas P. Giuffra, attorney for Jane Doe

Jane Doe, identified only by that pseudonym, was 20 and an undergraduate at the time of the alleged assault. She later left the school. In a statement released with the suit, she said, “What happened to me was horrific and deeply disturbing,” and that almost two years later she still carries the weight of it “every day and night.”

Giuffra has also said none of the seven men was arrested. “Not one of these guys was arrested. Not one. That I can tell you for a fact,” he said after the filing. The DA’s office had already told the public it reviewed the police work and found insufficient evidence for charges. Van Houten is now asking a grand jury to look again, with the plaintiff as a cooperating witness rather than a one-time campus reporter.

The Snapchat Thread the DA Says He Never Saw

The exhibit that turned a sealed campus file into a public fight is a screenshot. The complaint says that at about 1:42 a.m., Johnathan Newell sent a message to a Snapchat group titled “Chi Phi Actives” about “free pussy” upstairs. The filing describes that group as a chat for Xi chapter members. Giuffra calls the messages a critical piece of evidence. Van Houten says the chat in the complaint never reached his office.

If both men are describing the same thread, the 2024 criminal review either missed it or did not treat it as enough. If they are not, the civil lawyers now have a document the DA says he is seeing for the first time. Either way, the screenshot did what a closed prosecutor’s memo did not. It put an alleged invitation in front of people who were not in the room.

The complaint’s story of that night, stripped to the claims a grand jury would have to test, is this. Jane Doe drank at the Tri-Delta house, then at a Tri-Delta event at Moonies, where she says staff served her while she was marked underage and visibly drunk. Around 11 p.m. she left, stopped at another bar, and went alone to Chi Phi to see Matthew Ingalls. She alleges Ingalls and Newell pressed her to snort a powder they called ketamine, gave her more alcohol and marijuana, and sexually assaulted her. Other named men, she says, came in after the Snapchat message. The filing says the assault ran until about 5:45 a.m. on Oct. 20, 2024, and that she was then fully out of it.

Those are allegations in a civil complaint. They are not findings. Moonies has denied negligence and Dram Shop claims. Several student defendants have not issued public statements. The ones who have spoken do not accept the complaint’s version of the room.

Cornell Barred the Chapter and Stopped There

Campus discipline moved faster than the criminal file, then went dark. Jane Doe reported to Cornell police on Nov. 8, 2024. The Xi chapter was suspended that day. Then-interim president Michael I. Kotlikoff told the campus on Nov. 26 that the conduct described in the reports was “abhorrent and cannot be tolerated,” that Chi Phi remained under a temporary suspension issued November 8, and that temporary suspensions had been issued for a number of students.

The complaint says those student suspensions covered Ingalls, Newell, Winston Lee, Gillio Lopes, Diego Sarabia, Scott Norris, and Scott Kretzschmar, and that they were offered a chance to mitigate their conduct by submitting essays. Giuffra has said only two of the seven were expelled and that others got lesser penalties, including suspensions, workshops, or essays. Cornell has not confirmed any of those individual outcomes.

Kyle Kimball, vice president for university relations, said on Sept. 21, 2026, that the Office of Civil Rights and the Office of Student Conduct and Community Standards investigated and adjudicated the allegations under school policy. He said the Xi chapter of Chi Phi remains barred from our campus. Federal privacy law, he said, stops Cornell from discussing other discipline. Sanctions can include suspension or expulsion. The school will answer the lawsuit in court.

FROM THE HOUSE TO A GRAND JURY CALENDAR

1. Oct. 19 to Oct. 20, 2024: The complaint dates the alleged assault at 107 Edgemoor Lane.
2. Nov. 8, 2024: Jane Doe reports to Cornell police. The Xi chapter is placed on temporary suspension.
3. Nov. 26, 2024: Kotlikoff confirms a criminal investigation and temporary student suspensions.
4. Jan. 14, 2025: Cornell opens a Title IX investigation on her formal complaint, the filing says.
5. May 2 to May 29, 2025: The Title IX office holds at least 12 hearings, according to the complaint.
6. Sept. 14, 2026: The 101-page civil complaint is dated in New York County Supreme Court.
7. Sept. 21, 2026: Cornell says its investigation has concluded and Chi Phi stays barred.
8. Sept. 27, 2026: Van Houten says he will present the case to a Tompkins County grand jury.

The complaint also says Jane Doe believes Ithaca police are still investigating. Cornell has not confirmed that. Orazio Petito, listed as Chi Phi’s chapter president at the time, is named as a defendant. National Chi Phi had already moved on its own in November 2024, when executive director Michael Azarian said the fraternity temporarily suspended the Cornell chapter and would cooperate with police and the school.

Scott Norris Admits a Message and Denies the Rest

Two of the seven men have put words on the record. The other five had not issued comparable public statements in the material around the DA’s announcement. Class years in campus reporting listed Ingalls, Newell, Lee, and Lopes as the Class of 2027, Sarabia as 2025, and Norris and Kretzschmar as 2026. It is not clear who is still enrolled.

THE SEVEN MEN NAMED IN THE COMPLAINT

• Matthew Ingalls: Named as the friend she went to the house to see; no public statement located after the DA’s announcement.
• Johnathan Newell: The complaint says he sent the 1:42 a.m. Snapchat invite; no public statement located after the DA’s announcement.
• Winston Lee, Gillio Lopes, Diego Sarabia: Named as joining the alleged assault; no public statements located after the DA’s announcement.
• Scott Norris: Denies sex and drug use; says he sent a message that appears in the complaint and briefly entered the room at the wrong time.
• Scott Kretzschmar: Through attorney Jeremy Saland, denies any sexual assault or touching and calls the claims false.

Norris’s statement is the narrowest crack in the wall. “I did not participate in any sexual activity or drug use,” he said. “I was not found responsible by Cornell for any of the accusations involving sexual activity and drug use for which others received serious consequences. I thoughtlessly engaged in Snapchat and briefly stopped in the room where misconduct happened but not when it happened.”

That is not a confession to the complaint’s core claims. It is an admission that he was in the chat and in the doorway, and a claim that Cornell’s own process cleared him of the sex and drug findings that, he says, brought “serious consequences” for others. If the DA puts the Snapchat thread in front of a grand jury, Norris’s own words make him a witness as well as a defendant in the civil case.

Saland, speaking for Kretzschmar, left no gap. He said the incident in the complaint “did not happen.” “At bottom, Scott never sexually assaulted or even touched the plaintiff in any way. Period,” Saland said. “We look forward to confronting the plaintiff in a court of law for her selfishly false claims with both the evidence and her own words.” In an earlier statement he said the defense has documents, other people’s statements, and scientific evidence that he says contradict her account, and that there was “absolutely no criminality on Scott’s part.”

Those denials will matter in both rooms. A civil jury can find for Jane Doe if it thinks her version is more likely true than not. A grand jury, and any later criminal jury, would have to clear a higher bar. Saland is already pointing at “her own words,” which is the same ground Van Houten used in 2024 when he described her first statement as a reason not to charge.

After the Report, Cornell Built a Task Force

The criminal file went quiet. The campus did not. Cornell launched a Presidential Task Force on Campus Sexual Assault after the Chi Phi reports and released recommendations in March 2026. Kimball said some of those steps are already in place and others are moving under an implementation committee.

The school’s own 2025 Survey of Sexual Assault and Related Misconduct, sent to a random sample of 6,000 students, is the backdrop the task force was asked to answer. Among 926 respondents, a 15% response rate, down from 36% in 2023, 15% reported nonconsensual sexual contact since arriving at Cornell, up from 11% in 2023. Undergraduate women drove that shift: 35% reported such contact, up from 23% in 2023. Forty-nine percent of respondents reported sexual or gender-based harassment. Cornell itself warned that the lower response rate makes the estimates harder to trust, especially for smaller groups.

CORNELL’S 2025 MISCONDUCT SURVEY

• Undergraduate women: 35% reported nonconsensual sexual contact, compared with 23% in 2023.
• All respondents: 15% reported nonconsensual sexual contact, compared with 11% in 2023.
• Harassment: 49% reported sexual or gender-based harassment, compared with 45% in 2023.
• Who answered: 926 of 6,000 sampled students, a 15% response rate.

Those figures do not prove or disprove what happened in one bedroom on Edgemoor Lane. They are why a barred chapter, a civil filing, and a grand jury plan are landing on a campus that already told itself the problem was getting worse. The DA’s 2024 close treated Jane Doe’s first statement as the ceiling of the criminal case. The 2026 complaint, the Snapchat screenshot, and her agreement to walk into a grand jury are the first things that have raised that ceiling since.

A Tompkins County grand jury can refuse to indict. It can also return charges the first review never filed. Until it meets, the only sworn narrative in public is the civil complaint, and the only on-the-record criminal plan is Van Houten’s. The seven men have not been charged. Chi Phi is still off campus. The messages the DA says he never saw are now in a court file anyone can read.

Disclaimer: This article is news reporting on pending civil litigation and a prosecutor’s plan to present a case to a grand jury. It is informational only and is not legal advice, a finding of guilt, or a prediction of how any court or grand jury will rule. Readers who need advice about a criminal investigation, a Title IX process, or a civil claim should consult a licensed attorney in the relevant jurisdiction. Names, charges, disciplinary outcomes, and case status are drawn from public statements and court papers available on Sept. 27, 2026, and may change as the grand jury process and the civil suit move forward. All defendants are presumed innocent unless and until proven guilty in a court of law.