A former Cornell University student who alleges she was sexually assaulted by multiple men at a fraternity house is reeling after police showed up at her parents’ home with weapons drawn, according to her attorney.
The woman, who is identified in her lawsuit as Jane Doe, filed suit last month against Cornell University and several others, including seven former members of the Chi Phi fraternity. Doe alleges that in October 2024, when she was 20, multiple men plied her with drugs and sexually assaulted her.
Thomas Giuffra, Doe’s attorney, told CNN on Wednesday that his client fears for her safety after a series of violent threats and a recent swatting incident. According to Giuffra, Doe spent Wednesday taping paper over the windows of her parents’ home because she is afraid people may try to shoot her.
“I don’t think she’s in a good spot now,” Giuffra said. “She’s scared.”
“Swatting” is a harassment tactic in which the perpetrator tricks law enforcement into sending police officers, or even a SWAT team, to an unsuspecting victim’s home by reporting a fake bomb threat or active-shooter situation.
On Tuesday, a police officer in Doe’s hometown rushed to her parents’ house after a report of an active-shooter situation there. The fake tip claimed a man had shot and killed his mother and then turned the gun on his sister.
Police and the FBI are investigating Tuesday’s incident, Giuffra noted.
According to a police report obtained by CNN, the officer arrived and detained two men he saw in a vehicle backing out of the driveway. The men were Doe’s brother and boyfriend.
Doe’s father then stepped outside and asked the officer what was happening. He later explained that his daughter is the woman at the center of the Cornell University sexual assault case and that the family was “being threatened by numerous unknown people.”
Giuffra told CNN that Doe’s brother was in his car during the incident and “put his hands up.” According to the attorney, Doe’s boyfriend was “thrown on the ground,” and her father had “guns put in his face.”
“If you had a trigger-happy cop, or somebody had done the wrong thing, somebody could have ended up dead,” Giuffra said.
Before police arrived, Doe received a phone call from someone claiming to have the same name as one of the men she accused, according to her attorney and two police reports reviewed by CNN. Giuffra’s wife also reportedly received a threatening phone call the same night.
Giuffra previously told People magazine that his client has received threats from people trying to pressure her into dropping the lawsuit she filed Sept. 16. He said the threats have left Doe frightened, calling them a development “that has really been very hard on her.”
“There are threats, ‘If you don’t drop this lawsuit, I’m gonna do X, Y, and Z,’ you know, that kind of stuff,” the lawyer said, adding that the harassment is coming from “online trolls.”
In her lawsuit, Doe alleges that seven then-members of Chi Phi drugged and sexually assaulted her at the fraternity house. She reported the alleged assault to Cornell police in November 2024, but no criminal charges resulted.
Cornell said in a statement that it spent several months conducting a Title IX investigation into the allegations. Title IX is the federal law that bars sex discrimination, including sexual misconduct, at schools that receive federal funding.
“Following the university’s Title IX investigation, sanctions including expulsions and suspensions were issued by a hearing panel comprising trained faculty and staff. Federal privacy law prohibits Cornell from disclosing specific information regarding individual students, and the university is therefore unable to make a public statement regarding any other disciplinary response,” the university said.
The university also denied claims that some of the students involved were punished only by having to write essays.
After Doe filed her lawsuit, Tompkins County District Attorney Matthew Van Houten reopened the investigation. New York Gov. Kathy Hochul later removed him from the case and appointed state Attorney General Letitia James as special prosecutor.
Leaked text messages from Oct. 21, 2024, show one of the accused men telling Doe, “I just wanted to apologize for how things went down the other night.” He said he and another of the accused felt bad that they had been under the influence of drugs and alcohol and failed to “shut it down and kick people out before it got way out of hand.”
Doe replied, “At the end of the day non of the sexual stuff was illegal and honestly i really liked being w u and [name].”
In an Oct. 23, 2024, exchange, Doe told a man the Tompkins County District Attorney’s Office identified as Male No. 1: “everyone needs to grow up cause sexuality and sex and s— is changing and stuff like this is going to become more common, I’m also really open minded tho, I luv you king.”
Giuffra told NewsNation that those texts resemble others Doe sent while she was processing what had happened and trying to get information, and that at that point she was still struggling to accept that she had been assaulted.
Samantha Kamman is a reporter for The Christian Post. She can be reached at: [email protected]. Follow her on Twitter: @Samantha_Kamman
