Make New York Post a Preferred Source Cornell University’s Phi Chi fraternity held emergency meetings to coordinate how to cover up allegations that a student was drugged and gang raped at their house, according to the accuser’s attorney.
Thomas Giuffra, the attorney for the accuser, identified only as Jane Doe, told CNN’s Anderson Cooper that after she reported the alleged sexual assault to campus police the “whole fraternity had meetings to try and cover this up and to be part of the conspiracy of silence.”
“That’s really frightening that this happened. There were 57 people who got that group chat and not one of them — other than the person who leaked it to her — did anything,” the attorney said, adding he’d just learned of the meeting on Tuesday.
“Nobody walked out of those meetings and said, ‘Hey this is wrong, we’re going to the police, we’re throwing these guys under the bus and holding them accountable,’”’ he continued.
“All they were interested in was protecting their fraternity brothers and keeping it as business as usual — that’s what they were interested in, not justice, not this woman.”
Documents first reported by ABC News this week showed the fraternity scrambled to control the narrative when Doe reported the alleged rape to police out of fear that “the reputation of all involved and the frat would be ruined” — and tried to frame the alleged rape as a “consensual orgy.”
“Chi Phi held a meeting essentially to get all of the men on the same page about what happened,” a student told Cornell investigators. “I know for a fact there are group messages about the situation.”
Chi Phi brothers interviewed by campus police insisted they weren’t worried about their night with Doe, claiming the incident only came up casually during their weekly meeting, according to the documents.
“We didn’t have a meeting about it specifically,” a brother said. “It was our weekly chapter meeting. We got through a bunch of stuff.”
However, messages exchanged between one of the brothers accused of raping Doe, Matthew Ingalls, and fraternity leadership suggested there was serious concern.
“When was the last time you spoke to [Doe]?” the Chi Phi president wrote to Ingalls at one point.
“Yesterday … what’s the plan of action,” Ingalls responded. “Should I call [her]? I don’t think she would have reported this.”
Ingalls was also one of the brothers accused of sending messages in a franterity group chat with more than 50 members inviting others to join the sex with Doe — allegedly telling his friends to “come whip it out” after another wrote there was “free p—y.”
Doe claimed she was under the influence of drugs and alcohol beyond the point of resisting as brothers walked into an upstairs bedroom at the since-shuttered frat house and had sex with her.
She has said she was too intoxicated to consent and called the incident rape.
