Messages from a group chat among members of the Chi Phi fraternity at Cornell University in Ithaca, New York, have surfaced in the case of a student who says she was drugged and gang raped at the chapter house in October 2024.

According to messages obtained by CBS New York and included in the court filing, a member of the fraternity allegedly wrote on Snapchat: “Shop still open?” The lawsuit says the message referred to the young woman. Another member is said to have replied that it was. It has not been disclosed who sent the messages.

What the lawsuit alleges

The woman, identified in court documents as Jane Doe, says in a 101-page lawsuit that she went out with friends on the night of 19 October 2024 before arriving at the Chi Phi house to meet a male friend who was a member.

The lawsuit says she was heavily intoxicated when she arrived. She was allegedly asked whether she would have sex with two men, despite being clearly unable to consent. She says she was pressured into taking ketamine for the first time, and that she also drank strong alcohol and smoked cannabis.

Members of the fraternity then allegedly carried out sex acts without her consent. The lawsuit claims the assault lasted about seven hours, until 5.45am, and that she felt unable to leave the room because her phone was on the other side of it.

Earlier messages in the chat

Earlier in the Snapchat conversation, one member allegedly wrote that there was a “free p***y” upstairs, referring to the student. Another is said to have replied that he “loves Chi Phi”, while a third wrote that someone could “just go and get him out”, according to the lawsuit.

One of the seven students named in the filing allegedly messaged the woman two days after the incident to apologise for “how things went”. He is said to have admitted he should have “shut it down and kicked people out before it got out of hand”.

The woman reportedly replied that “none of the sex acts were illegal”, while noting that her memory was “very hazy”. Her lawyer said he was aware of the messages but could not confirm their content.

Prosecutors take a second look

Tompkins County District Attorney Matthew Van Houten announced that the investigation was being reopened after possible new evidence emerged in the woman’s lawsuit. He had originally decided not to press charges, saying the evidence presented at the time was not enough to support a prosecution.

“We all process psychological trauma differently,” he said, adding that the woman may have different memories or interpretations of what happened.

Van Houten also said her original statement did not include claims that she had been drugged against her will or gang raped. He has said the case will go before a grand jury because of “dramatically different” details in the lawsuit that were not in her account to police at the time. Cornell has said it supports his decision to revisit the case.

The woman’s lawyer says the alleged attack was reported to both the university police and Ithaca police, but that key evidence, including the group chat, was never examined.

The seven students and their denials

The seven students named in the lawsuit are Matthew Ingalls, Jonathan Newell, Winston Lee, Gillio Lopes, Diego Sarabia, Scott Norris and Scott Kretzschmar. None has been criminally charged to date. All have denied the allegations through their lawyers.

Kretzschmar’s lawyer rejected any suggestion that his client took part in abuse. He said Kretzschmar saw the Snapchat messages, went to the room where the woman was, stayed for a few minutes and left. While he was there, the lawyer said, the woman “was clothed and did not appear to be under pressure”. The lawyer also claimed a hair follicle test found no trace of ketamine in his client’s system, although the result has not been independently assessed.

Lopes’s lawyer said his client “categorically denies” the allegations, arguing that they differ from what was originally investigated. According to the woman’s account, Lopes sexually assaulted her and snorted ketamine off her body.

The Chi Phi chapter was shut down in 2024 and remains barred from the Cornell campus. The university has not said how many students were disciplined or who they were, although the woman’s side maintains that two of the seven were expelled.

Breaking: CBS News has obtained a transcript of the Cornell gang rape victim's interview with campus police.

She explains the initial encounter was consensual, but later in the evening she was raped and physically beaten.

When describing what happened later in the night, the… https://t.co/tT49yWHjaB pic.twitter.com/vrpEG9XYfa

— Power to the People ☭🕊 (@ProudSocialist) September 30, 2026