GG87: The Cornell Chi Phi Gang Rape Lawsuit, Part 1

Transcript

This transcript was generated automatically and may contain errors — the audio is the record.

0:00:25 Thomas: Gavel in, Gavelinos, I'm Thomas, that over there is Lydia, how you doing?

0:00:29 Lydia: I don't know, mixed feelings, we're gonna be talking about something that, like, sucks that we're having to talk about this, but we have to talk about it.

0:00:30 Thomas: Yeah, yep, as opposed to the totally chill things, no, this is particularly tough, yeah, yeah no, it's kind of skipping the whole, happy-go-lucky, how ya doing, gavels, haha, pew-pew, yeah not really that mood, yeah but you know, it wouldn't be gavel-gavel if we weren't us, so we're still us, I mean, we're not going to turn into like the news and be like, you know, totally deadpan, whatever.

0:00:38 Lydia: I know, this is especially bad, yeah, yeah. Nope, but important, important.

0:00:57 Lydia: What? Oh, I see what you're saying, okay. Okay. Yeah.

0:01:04 Thomas: Then people could just listen to the news. Fuck that. Still going to be us, you Know? Oh boy. Yeah, I know. We're going to talk about the Cornell thing. This thing is huge. I mean this, and that's good. It's good that it's huge. You know? I mean not as though everything being said about it is good, the fact that it's blowing up like this I think is better than just no one caring, so that's, that's the, I'm starting with the positives.

0:01:06 Lydia: Yep. Yep, exactly. Yeah, should be. Yeah or

0:01:29 Thomas: You know, but also inevitably, inevitably, when it blows up, people are lying about it, people are not understanding it.

0:01:29 Lydia: Yeah Walsh is having a real hard time with this. He's posting about it a lot actually.

0:01:37 Thomas: Yeah yeah here, let me, let summarize, uh, Matt Walsh's opinion really quick, um, well if two people are drunk and then one person shoots the other, well then that, you could, that's sort of like the other person shot that person. So you could, why don't you sue that person for shooting? It's not just the shooter, it's two, it's too is shooter and a shooty, that's one shooting, so they both did a shooting together, they're both drunk.

0:01:52 Lydia: Yeah, equally

0:02:03 Thomas: Yeah so why don't you counter sue for being a part of the shooting while drunk that's just not anything, man, sorry, it's nothing.

0:02:03 Lydia: Responsible and irresponsible. Yeah, yeah. Yep.

0:02:13 Thomas: Not only that, one of the perpetrators did actually allege unwanted sexual contact the other way. I don't know what, what came of that. We'll get to it, but they did that.

0:02:20 Lydia: Yeah. During the Title IX investigation.

0:02:23 Thomas: I think so. Yeah. And it's like, don't, I don't know if it went anywhere. And if, you know, if, if there was merit to it fine, you know, if there was actual merit to it, I don't really think there was, but we'll see. But yeah, no, No, this is a horrible thing. If you haven't heard about what we're talking about, that's crazy.

0:02:23 Lydia: Yeah, Yeah. Yeah.

0:02:36 Thomas: We're taking a a basically a little gang rape case, a fraternity gang rape. You know, what sucks is this is like not even the first of these that we've talked about because A certain Brian Friedman did something not unlike this. His was worse because they just took somebody they didn't know and basically abducted her.

0:02:44 Lydia: Huh. Yep. Yep. An underage girl.

0:02:54 Thomas: Underage girl abducted her into the, and again, not to compare like traumas, but like that's how big of a creep that fucking guy is, is their, victim in 1980, whatever it was, was somebody who's trying to find her boyfriend. They didn't, she Didn't even know them and that's Brian fucking Friedman. God, I'm so mad about that still, like that people could possibly look at that guy as anything other than lying fucking creep.

0:03:06 Lydia: Yep. Just walking across campus. Yep.

0:03:15 Thomas: Not, so it's just a depressing thought that like, this is a, this is a very clearly a pattern, a predatory pattern of frat houses.

0:03:22 Lydia: Yeah, just I, like, was looking up Greek college life, you and sexual assault, and it's obviously significantly more prevalent within Greek life. Some research shows that fraternity men are up to three times more likely to commit sexual assault, and sorority women face a substantially higher risk of victimization. You know, just the nature of those environments, you know, how insulated it all becomes, this idea of brotherhood, right, right? And protecting the other people in your fraternity. It's a terrible combination of things that can only lead to more hurt and danger.

0:03:35 Thomas: Easily.

0:03:52 Thomas: I don't get why this should even be a thing. Like, honestly, I mean, don't get it. I didn't understand frats. I just, I wouldn't, it's not me. I've never understood. It seems fucking stupid to me. I will say, I was remembering back, like when I graduated college, I had friends that hadn't graduated, you know, I still around the college. It was like, you know the next year and they joined a frat that was like kind of a nerd frat, you know, it was kind of, it wasn't like one of the, it you was better. This particular one was better than the, you know than the other ones.

0:03:55 Lydia: Yeah. Yeah, yeah. Was more of like an academic fraternity kind of thing.

0:04:22 Thomas: Well, it's just the kind of people in my opinion, specifically were a little bit better it doesn't mean that they were all great or anything but like it was it was it was not a fucking disgusting like rape den and mostly they did nerd stuff together and like hung out and I was like I guess I see why you guys are interested in this if like it's just like you live together and you have shared hobbies and you're hanging out and you whatever but I just think it's so easy for it to turn into like yeah well our shared hobby rape that's what we like to to do and that's my impression of like most of the other ones and this one was like in a different place there was like you know frat row where the other one's were that were like the more like this kind of thing to me is what it came across as to me those ones and those were the ones people just kind of float through when the parties were having this one's still partied but it just it was a different vibe and so I guess I forgot I that like okay I I did go to a couple of those parties, like with my

0:04:24 Lydia: Oh, I see.

0:05:13 Thomas: Friends.

0:05:13 Lydia: You did?

0:05:13 Thomas: Oh yeah. I mean, yeah, you're hanging out. That's what my friends were doing at that time.

0:05:15 Lydia: Yeah. School didn't have have like a frat row or anything, they, they used to, and then they had disbanded it. I don't remember why exactly, there was like a whole thing where you couldn't have fraternity houses anymore at University of Tampa.

0:05:21 Thomas: Yeah, that's probably good.

0:05:31 Lydia: Yeah, and so, like, like they would find off-campus, you know, housing and things like that, and then end up kind of creating like a version of it, but it was not like this typical college experience at all.

0:05:38 Thomas: Yeah. Yeah. God. And the whole thing just sucks, everything about it sucks. I will say that I'm sure there are people who had like a good experience, you know, like and mostly I wasn't necessarily going to parties, like, this is where my friends lived, like I would just go over, like, you know, I'm seeing my friends when I'm 22 and I just graduated and they're 21 or whatever, something like that we would usually just play ping pong and stuff like that was what I was doing.

0:05:53 Lydia: Go. Over To Their house. Yeah. That's So typical.

0:06:02 Thomas: Yeah.

0:06:02 Lydia: You Yeah.

0:06:02 Thomas: Like drinking, playing a game. That's what I want to do. That is always what I do. Yeah, yeah. You know, and people are dancing and doing college party stuff, you know. But, but yeah. But so I am sure people have had different experience. I know, you now, it is like not a hashtag not all fraternities, I guess. But like it feels like close enough to where it is, like isn't there a better way, some, some better better system, something more supervision. I know weird. It's like cause it's like, okay, these people are technically adults, but you're also a university. And this is a huge problem in every fucking university ever. There's huge problem here. Maybe there should be more supervision, maybe it shouldn't just be a bunch of fucking over horny, drunk dudes living together. And maybe you a have supervisor or two of some kind that like lives there or something. I don't know. I Don't know, but this

0:06:04 Lydia: Yeah. Compete.

0:06:22 Lydia: Yeah.

0:06:45 Thomas: Is bad. Yeah, they usually have like an alumni or something.

0:06:45 Lydia: Some Do, don't they like Sorority Mom, or whatever, yeah.

0:06:49 Thomas: Well, I don't know about sororities, but for the frats, there's somebody there's like some elder or something, but it's not what you would need. It clearly doesn't work, whatever it is, you know, who knows. But anyway, this has blown up, as we've said, and at Gavel Gavel, we want to tackle documents. We want to go through documents. There's this is this is a lot like we kept thinking we were good to record. And then all of a sudden, it's like New York Times has a thousand page documents. And so we're seeing if we can get ahold of that or at least see what it is. And it turns out not, we can't right now that I can find. We spent all day searching basically. Can't find that yet. I think those will be out eventually because those are mainly, we found out what they were, but still can't access them. But those are the, you know, the Title IX investigation report, all that kind of stuff.

0:07:23 Lydia: I think So too. If it's via Letitia James, and, as special, you counsel or whatever for, for, um, that New York oversight that they're trying to do specifically.

0:07:34 Thomas: Yeah. So, man, it's so hard because we're so into it. So let's try to reset, uh, so this incident, as a girl who attended in 2022, I think, was when she started, the incident was in 2024, um, and then obviously it's been a few years since that, even so we're going to talk about what whatever that was, but the incident happened, and just to do the quick timeline of why everyone's talking about this, it seems as though however this was handled, Title Title IX wise or whatever, it was not handled well, to put it lightly.

0:08:04 Lydia: Yeah.

0:08:04 Thomas: To the point where the DA for the actual police, you know, because there's always a weird thing where it's like, does universally police handle something? Do police police handle Something? And I know that there's been a lot of work done to try to fix that, know, especially under Biden, and then Trump obviously rolled it all back, and who knows if even the best intended methods of that are particularly good these days, know.

But the point is, when something this level of criminal, you'd hope the police are getting involved. And apparently the information maybe that they got or at least got to the D.A. like didn't have everything or we're still sorting through like who lied about what. But like the reason it's blowing up now is because they didn't do anything. They didn't fucking do anything.

And then when, when an article finally comes out in this lawsuit as well, that just came out, uh, just was filed in September. Then everyone's like, why the fuck didn't you charge this? And the DA is like, I, well, we didn't, she didn't say this at the time. And so it's a whole mess. And, uh. There's also a lot of, there's a lot of misinformation, you know, and there's misinformation on both sides that we want to correct, you, but there's also stuff where you're like, yes, it's kind of misinformation, or it's kind of inaccurate, but also there is some accuracy to it, like the essay thing, there's... there's certain things

0:08:54 Lydia: Right. Right.

0:09:11 Thomas: I want to talk about, I always want to know, and what I always want to be doing on the show, how is much of that is correct and in what way, and get the proper context for it. And, you know, just again, we haven't even gotten the first break, but one thing that is, I, so rough about this, is like, everyone, well, well, not everyone, many people are mad, and they should be, but mob justice, then, we already have like several instances of the wrong person being identified as a rapist. Like, no matter how mad you are, don't start treating people who aren't even the person, like mistaken identity as a rapist, just a reason why I always want to try to be on the side of like, let's get the right information out, let us get accurate information, let Let's take a second and then get mad at the real rapist. Well, you're still mad at The Real Rapist, but yeah, it's like your aim.

0:09:50 Lydia: Because It's Deserved. But Direct it to the appropriate person.

0:09:53 Thomas: Yeah, yeah. Aim your weapon first, you know, like you like, not just that I'm mad and then just start shooting everywhere. It's like, let's know who we're mad at. Because that sucks. I mean, I read like someone who had the same name got identified and then they're their like mom or their grandmother. You just see stuff like that.

0:10:06 Lydia: And Now There's An entire article in the Free Press about it, like that, that gives people like Matt Walsh the ability to downplay everything that we should be mad about, because someone else ended up becoming, a, you know, caught up as a victim in mob justice, and, like, I don't want that to happen at all.

0:10:11 Thomas: Right.

0:10:23 Thomas: Yeah, it doesn't mean that's the fault. Of, victim or anyone on that side is just here, we always want to just go like to the documents, get the real info. So that's kind of what we're doing here. And there's a lot of fact pattern stuff to go through, kind of the pattern with Lively Baldoni, where it's like, we're going to go Through a lot of that. And then I, I'm not sure which lawyer we're getting, but at least one, because I can't wait to talk to a lawyer about this. But there's just so much fact pattern to get through first. And those lawyers time, you might not know this very valuable. So we're doing the fact patterny stuff and then we'll talk to the lawyers later. So I guess we'll take a belated first break and then I think we're going to dig into this complaint, right?

0:10:26 Lydia: No. No. Yeah.

0:10:58 Thomas: Thanks so much for listening, everybody, and supporting patreon.com slash Gavel Pod. That's the only reason we can do this, and we really appreciate you. So. We'll take break and then мы'll get to it.

0:11:13 Thomas: Right, well, obviously, content note, every single different kind, you know, this is this is awful stuff, but I also think it's important, like, you don't want to be getting into details just, just to do it, but with some of this stuff in particular, I do think that the media's tendency to be like, and, and then there was some graphic text sent or whatever.

0:11:18 Lydia: Do it. Right. Right.

0:11:34 Thomas: I think it actually undersells it I think it is important to know, here's what the fucking rapists were putting in a text thread. You I think people need to know that because that's very important. You don't want to like downplay what that was.

0:11:45 Lydia: Agreed.

0:11:46 Thomas: So anyway, point is there's going to be a lot of, you obviously not great details. Don't know. We'll see if there's anything we can just not have to go into, but I don't I'm not sure.

0:11:47 Lydia: Yeah. I mean, I think there's also something to be said where it's like, the words that are put in this lawsuit, lawsuit, by the victim are there for a reason, She right? Is choosing and her legal team is choosing to get specific about certain things. And I want to honor that, and I think that the best way we can do that is to read her words, and the material as presented to us and not try and summarize it.

0:12:07 Thomas: I think that's important. One thing I also want to say is that, of course, just for legal reasons, this is a complaint. This is one person's allegations. These are their allegations were pretty much usually on the side of like, we believe this exact kind of person when they make this exact kind of allegation, but it doesn't mean that everything they say is 100% true because we've been through the process of like lawyers getting in there.

And like, also, um, one thing I saw with the Blake Lively thing that I just think, the bad faith assholes are never going to be able to understand this, but specifically specifically with this kind of thing, sometimes there can be stuff in these complaints that is inaccurate ultimately because the necessity of how bad the law is. So where it's like, okay, well, it turns out that in order to, for anyone to be liable for this, you have to prove like these particular couple things and that's because the law ist bad. And so then you're forced as a victim to be like, Okay, well, I'm going to emphasize, maybe you try to overemphasize like like this particular thing, because it meets this element of were you drugged, you know, or

0:12:23 Lydia: Yep. Right, right.

0:13:13 Thomas: Were you whatever, like, we're going to talk about that. It's, you're in a rock and a hard place. Cause it's like, maybe the truth is a little gray but to survive emotion dismissed. You need to try it. You're trying to get like any consequences. So you're going gonna leave out the stuff that might go against you. Of course, your complaint, ain't. You have every right to kind of do that. And ultimately I think it makes it so that people can poke at it in ways that are not entirely invalid, but it doesn't mean that it's like a lie. You know what I mean?

0:13:23 Lydia: Right. That's a great point

0:13:39 Thomas: But I think It's a level of nuance that just no bad faith at actor could ever fucking remotely acknowledge, you know? Cause the other part of our stupid legal system is way it works is it's adversarial. So it's like, it's like a stupid negotiation where you're like, well, this car car is worth a million dollars. And they're like no, it's Worth 20,000. It's like because that's the way the bullshit thing works. You kind of have to start with like your most your yeah, And it's just, it's just bad incentives all around, then you, it's one of those things where it's like, if you're the person who's trying to stick way too too close to facts in a legal system where that's not what people do, like people tend to write the most outlandish thing that could possibly be defensible as not misconduct by the lawyers, you

0:13:38 Lydia: Yeah, I think that's fair positions. Yeah.

0:14:19 Thomas: Know.

0:14:19 Lydia: The Rhetoric is always insane, you know, that the word choice that that lawyers are using to to fluff something up to make it seem more egregious potentially than it actually was. Yeah, yeah.

0:14:28 Thomas: And then it's an arms race, and then I always talk about it with the state of California application, I know it's a stupid, but you just have to lie because that's the only way, because literally everyone else is lying, and so if you don't lie, why, you don't get a job, like it's like so stupid. So, it's a little bit of that, but anyway, okay, let's let's get into it, I guess we'll just, we'll just start at the top.

0:14:43 Lydia: Sounds Good.

0:14:48 Thomas: What do you think?

0:14:49 Lydia: Let me read who it's against. So this is, filed by Jane Doe, of of course, against Cornell University Incorporated, Chi Phi Chapter House Association, Chi Phi Fraternity Incorporrated, Chi Phi Educational Trust, Alpha Beta House Corporation of Delta Delta Delta, Delta Delta Sorority, so Try Delta, Zerreen Enterprise LLC, DBA Mooney's Bar and Nightclub, Matthew Ingalls, Jonathan Newell, Winston Lee, Gilio Lopez, Diego Sarabia, Scott Norris, Scott Scott Kretschmar, John Doe Faculty, John Doe Alumni, John doe's executive board and arazio petito yeah all down to nature of the action this complaint is based on the negligent willful or intentional failure of the defendants that I just named employees agents and or servants to protect plaintiff jane doe from being sexually assaulted and raped by multiple members have the Psi chapter of the chi Phi fraternity at Cornell University while at the Chi Phi Fraternity House on Cornell University's campus, as well as against those individuals, defendants Matthew Ingalls, Jonathan Newell, Winston Lee, Gilio Lopez, Diego Sarabia, Scott Norris, and Scott Kretschmar, who perpetrated such heinous criminal sexual acts against plaintiff Theron.

This complaint also contains allegations against defendant Cornell University Incorporated for breach of contract. This complain also contains allegations against defendants Alpha Beta House Corporation of Tridel and Tridel Sorority for breachofcontract.

0:15:21 Thomas: Interesting.

0:16:07 Lydia: This complaint, so that's her sorority. This complaint also contains allegations against defendant Cornell University Incorporated for violations of New York State human rights law. This complaint Also contains allegations Against defendant Cornell university incorporated for violations Of New York education law. This complaint. Also contains Allegations against defendants, the named men, and each of them for their sexual assault and rape of plaintiff pursuant to the protections afforded by CPLR 213-C. This complaint also contains allegations against defendant Zerreen Enterprise LLC, DBA Mooney's Bar and Nightclub, their employees, agents, and or servants for causes of action pursuant to New York's Dram Shop Act, general obligations law, as well as others under the theory of negligence.

0:16:43 Thomas: Shop we can kind of try to breeze through parties as much as we can here, and

0:16:50 Lydia: All relevant times plaintiff Jane Doe was a 20 year old adult female. That all relevant times defendant Cornell University

0:16:55 Thomas: It always says that, at all relevant in time, just we'll skip that part.

0:16:57 Lydia: Okay. Was and is a private institution of higher education with address in New York City and Ithaca, New Yorke. Cornell maintained, operated, and controlled the private Ivy League university known as Cornell University, with a mailing address that, plaintiff was a full-time undergraduate student attending Cornell's, Cornell University, located in Ithaka. Plaintiff resided on Cornell's campus. Cornell Cornell maintained a private police department known as Cornell University Police. Cornell maintained a division of public safety. Cornell maintained the SHARE office within the Skorton Center for Health Initiatives. Cornell held itself out to the public and more particularly to plaintiff herein as possessing the proper degree of safety measure to adequately protect its students and to use reasonable care and diligence in its monitoring and policing of its campus and those utilizing said campus, while plaintiff was attending and lawfully located on Cornell's campus, of which Cornell had and has complete control.

0:16:58 Thomas: Yeah, yeah.

0:17:44 Lydia: She was sexually assaulted and raped by fellow Cornell University students at the fraternity house known as Chi Phi Fraternity. Cornell owned, managed, operated, and or controlled the subject Chi Phi fraternity House as it was and is situated on Cornell's property. Chi Phi Chapter House Association was and is a chapter of the International Men's Fraternity, managed, owned, and or controlled by defendants Chi Phi Faternity, Inc. and Chi Phi Educational Trust. Psy Chapter's executive office is located in New Jersey.

0:18:13 Thomas: And a lot of this is just establishing like who, would have had a duty of what toward her, you know, kind of thing, seems pretty straightforward, we'll get into more of the legal stuff later, like I said, with an actual lawyer, but this is all kind of what you would think. You, we're going to skip through the a ton of pages or paragraphs, because I think it'll be restated later and probably more detail. And we'll go down to page 20, paragraph 117, which is titled Forward, foreword. That's an interesting, I think that's the first time we've had a foreword in a complaint.

0:18:39 Lydia: Yeah, yeah. I think so. In August 2022, plaintiff was 18 years old when she flew across the country from her family home to begin her studies at Cornell University, with similar hopes, expectations, and trepidations of other high school graduates embarking on something so seemingly monumental. She arrived on a campus actively where promoted Greek membership as a, quote, vital part of the campus community, and endorsed these organizations as well-managed, worthy pathways to new friendships and improving one's educational and professional opportunities. Large fraternity and sorority houses were in prominent locations on campus. Before and when plaintiff's set foot on campus, she never knew that the university had been the scene of numerous incidents of sexual assault and rape in the months and years prior to her arrival. Students were afraid, protesting, and demanding reforms.

0:19:22 Thomas: Wow.

0:19:23 Lydia: By this time, the university has established campus organizations to address these prevailing issues, such as the SHARE, Sexual Harassment and Assault Response and Education Office, implementing anti-sexual violence training in the university's Greek houses, advising incoming students about the risks of sexual assault and harassment in college, and offering support services to victims slash survivors. These reforms took place after Resolution 34 was passed on March 19, 2021, requesting that, quote, Cornell University review policies and action items over fraternity including reform, disband or abolish, and have the Office of Sorority and Fraternity Life to perform a yearly review of all fraternities and any fraternity accused of sexual harassment will be placed on probation or have its recognition revoked.

0:20:06 Thomas: Yeah. This is why I love reading this stuff. I hadn't seen that anywhere else, you it's just interesting to get the full background here. I mean, this is a, if we didn't say 101 page complaint, so there's lot, we'll see how much we end up reading, but I hadn'T heard that. Yeah, and to our point earlier, this IS a problem. This IS a consistent problem.

0:20:08 Lydia: No, me neither. Mm-hmm. Right. Mm-hm. Even still, in the following fall 2022 semester, Cornell University saw at least five reported cases of drugging and two reports of sexual assault on Cornell's campus, all of which occurred at fraternity addresses. Addresses This triggered a response from the Cornell University Student Assembly, who presented Resolution 16, condemning Greek life, on December 1st, 2022. Yeah.

0:20:29 Thomas: Jesus. Wow.

0:20:44 Thomas: Condemning Greek life.

0:20:45 Lydia: What a name.

0:20:46 Thomas: As in like condemning a building or as in we're just condemning it.

0:20:49 Lydia: Yeah, plaintiff also never knew that the dangers of fraternities were so widespread in the decade before her arrival that they had been ranked as the, quote, sixth worst risk for insurance companies, just behind hazardous waste disposal companies and asbestos contractors. Oh my god, yeah, so dangerous were their activities that their commercial insurance carriers declined insuring them any further. Fraternities and sororities and their executives knew that fraternity chapters and members were incapable of responsibly managing the provision, use, and and misuse of alcohol and drugs in fraternity houses during recruiting and at Greek-sponsored events. One fraternity executive and industry leader confirmed that 99% of insurance claims were related to the misuse of alcohol. Fraternity recruiting events with alcohol would eventually be labeled by another fraternity executive and ministry leader as being the, quote, deadliest nights. Further, a plaintiff was also unaware that a president of Psy Upsilon at Cornell University, Wolfgang Ballinger, was charged with first degree attempted rape, first degree criminal sex act helpless victim, and sexual misconduct after raping a female student at his fraternity residence in 2016.

0:21:03 Thomas: Jesus Christ.

0:21:54 Lydia: Furthermore, in November 2022, Cornell's campus police issued alerts that a female student was sexually assaulted and at least four other students were drugged at off-campus fraternity parties.

0:22:03 Thomas: Jesus.

0:22:05 Lydia: Footnoted, oh, just a New York Times article about it. During this period, a loose coalition of student activists began a movement known as the Ban Greek Life or Abolish Greek Life movement, which gained significant momentum in 2020 and continues to present. However, despite the Abolished Greek Life movement and all the bad press that fraternities and sororities had been receiving in the media since the early 2000s, upon her arrival at Cornell, plaintiff immediately encountered a glorified yet materially false and misleading facade of Cornell University Greek Life. Life. Alpha Beta Chapter, a regional member of Tri-Delta National's National Sorority, established at Cornell University in 1913, operated and recruited new members and revenue through its Alpha Beta chapter, which was housed in a stately all-brick mansion situated in a prominent location on campus. The university provided its facilities, staff, and resources to schedule and organize, quote, rush, which encouraged students to join these organizations after reviewing and relying upon the promotional information it and the Greek organizations provided.

0:23:01 Lydia: Plaintiff followed the pathway, applied for, and accepted a bid to pledge Tri-Delta National's Alpha Beta Chapter. Alpha Beta chapter quickly became her first choice after Rush began. She was drawn to the sorority and its promises of sisterhood and lifelong friendships, the status it conferred on its members, and the community it provided on campus when she was over 1,000 miles away from home. By this date, Tri-Delta National leadership had banned the presence and use of alcohol and drugs in its chapter houses, presumably based upon its knowledge that its mismanagement had resulted in numerous incidents of rapes and other injuries.

0:23:31 Thomas: So the sorority house? The sorORITY house has banned it.

0:23:35 Lydia: Yeah, and the fraternity houses haven't. All right, now we're getting into facts common to all causes of action.

0:23:37 Thomas: Yeah. All right, well, yep, here we go, we're getting into the the facts.

0:23:45 Lydia: Plaintiff Jane Doe repeats and re-alleges the above allegations. The occurrence complained of herein took place within Chi Phi National's Psy Chapter's fraternity house, located on Cornell's campus at the address, yada yada, where plaintiff was drugged and raped by multiple members of Chi Phi National's fraternal organization. At all relevant times, Plaintiffe was attending Cornell as a full-time undergraduate student and was residing on Cornell's campus within Tri-Delta National's Alpha Beta Chapter Sorority House. On the evening of October 19, 2024, into the morning of October 20, 2024, Plaintif Doe was the victim of one or more criminal sex acts at the hands of defendants Ingalls, Newell, Lee, Lopez, Sarabia, Norris, and Kretschmar, here and after student defendants. Plaintiff Doe was in a very vulnerable situation when she was sexually assaulted by student defendents, of which the student defendments were fully aware.

0:24:31 Lydia: On October 19, 2024, Tri-Delta National's Alpha Beta Chapter was hosting a social event at Mooney's Bar and Nightclub in Ithaca. Prior to the event at Mooney's, plaintiff consumed consumed Tito's vodka within Tri-Delta National's Alpha Beta Chapter sorority house. Until she was intoxicated. Thereafter around 8 30 p.m. plaintiff took an Uber from Alpha Beta chapter sororITY house on Cornell's campus to Mooney's bar and nightclub accompanied by the chapter soroities by the chapters sororities house mother quote Jade. When plaintiff arrived at Mooney is around 9 p. m. the bouncer placed an X on each of her hands to signify she was under 21 years old. Despite having underage marks on her hands, plaintiff was served and consumed at least one alcoholic beverage at Mooney's. Within Mooney'S, Tri-Delta National's Alpha Beta chapter had designated sober monitors, tasked with ensuring the safety and well-being of attendees and monitoring their fellow sorority sisters for signs of excessive intoxication and or disruptive behavior.

0:25:26 Lydia: Around 10 p.m., plaintiff and other sororITY sisters left the event at Moony'S nearby known as Lot 10 Bar and Lounge. At Lot 10, Plaintiff was given an under-21 wristband. Around 11 p.m., Plaintive decided to leave Lot 10 and stumbled alone to Chi Phi National's Side Chapter Fraternity House on Cornell's campus to hang out with her friend, Defendant Ingalls. When Plaintif arrived at Side Chapter's fraternity house, Plaintife was visibly intoxicated as she had consumed about 10 standard drinks within the past three hours. That is So much, I don't, I don't know if I've ever done That, yeah.

0:25:53 Thomas: Wow. Yikes. Yeah. That's a lot. She's So. She's already pretty hammered.

0:26:01 Lydia: I, I seriously don't know if I ever had that many.

0:26:04 Thomas: Is a, yeah, I mean, three an hour, you know, three and a third an hour. That's, I mean, I definitely have before, but yeah, that's a lot. But I was, you know, also, I weigh way more, but no, that, that gets you fucked up for sure.

0:26:05 Lydia: Three hours. Yeah. Plaintiff was let into Side Chapter's fraternity house by three or four members of the fraternity who had been standing by the front door. Therein, plaintiff saw defendant Ingalls, who greeted plaintiff and gave her a beer. Plaintiff and defendant Ingalls then danced together in the main room of the fraternity house. After dancing, defendant Ingalls pulled plaintiff off to a quieter area and propositioned her with having a threesome with her and another one of his fraternity brothers. In her drunken state, plaintiff was incapable of consenting to this proposition. Despite being incapable of consent, defendant Ingalls then led plaintiff to the upstairs of the fraternity house and left her with Alex Vega, another Side Chapter member. After speaking with Alex for some time, defendant Ingalls returned and led plaintive to another room down the hall where defendant Newell was was sitting on a couch. While on the couch, defendant Ingalls-Newell began passing around a plastic bag containing a white powdery substance, claimed to be ketamine, a dissociative anesthetic with hallucinogenic properties.

0:27:08 Lydia: Defendant Ingalls-Newell then pressured plaintiff into snorting the alleged ketamine with them, a drug she had never done before. During this time, defendant Ingalls-Newell also plied plaintiff with marijuana and, quote, Jamaican liquor, believed to be some type of high-proof rum. Soon after, defendant Ingalls-Newell began engaging in sexual acts with plaintiff, all without her consent. During the assault, defendant Ingalls forced oral sex on plaintiff while defendant Newell forced vaginal intercourse on her from behind. Throughout the assault, defendant Newell slapped plaintiff on the buttocks multiple times, resulting in bruising. At one point, defendant Ingalls could no longer maintain an erection, so he stopped participating and told the other two that he was going to take a nap and proceeded to get up, move to a bed, and sleep.

Defendant Newell then began reaching for her vagina with his hand multiple times, and each time plaintiff pushed his hand away. Soon after, defendant Lopez entered the room, grabbed plaintiff away from defendant Newell, and began kissing her while defendant Newell groped her from behind, specifically reaching for her vagina. Defendant Lopez and Newell then placed plaintiff on a bed, and the two men began having sex with plaintiff, initiating another assault, all without plaintiff's consent.

0:27:20 Thomas: Jesus Christ.

0:28:18 Thomas: So there's a lot of information that is has been kind of reported on, again, from these documents that we don't have yet. And it talks about her story, back in the investigation. So I want to be fair, and my impression of that is one of these guys is someone she was interested in and went to Is it Ingalls? Okay.

0:28:39 Thomas: I was, I wanted, one, I think that's kind, definitely important to know one way or the other. And so the, I think the part where there's, there's going to be pushback that I think is worth considering is she did say that she was like okay with that first thing. So she said she was okay, she wanted to have sex with that guy, that, whichever one you said that, I forget, Ingalls, and I believe she even said, I wish we just had the fucking documents, but it's reported that she said he was okay with the first, like, threesome. I think it's just important to note this, you know, because it's like, for people, people who are talking about that, it's not like, it's not crazy to point out that she said that at first, and the

0:28:37 Lydia: Angles. I think and think that's

0:29:17 Thomas: Fact that

0:29:17 Lydia: Why her, that's by her lawyers, also the way that they present that material too, is that she was incapable of consenting to that because of how under the influence she was of alcohol.

0:29:24 Thomas: Right. Right. Yeah, and this is the part that I kind of was referencing earlier, where, because of the way the law is, and this part, well, maybe we should talk about this for a sec, because this will be the first thing I want to talk to a lawyer about, is I keep seeing it reported that, like, because the way New York law works, you have to have been given, or like drug or whatever, right? You have to have been like given the drugs or drugged, I guess, in other words, in order for that to like take away your ability to consent, according to New York law, right?

0:29:36 Lydia: Yeah.

0:29:54 Lydia: Yeah, if you have consumed alcohol or drugs of your own volition, then this is like an area where you don't have protection.

0:30:02 Thomas: Yes. Two things. First off, there's a certain sense in which I understand that, like, for one, you know, like, you and I want to get drunk together and like have sex. Like, it's not, it shouldn't be that if we do that together, then we're like both raping each other, you know, like, I get that there's obviously there's a certain practicality and, like, that makes sense in a certain way. If you just had a blanket rule that like any alcohol means no one can consent, that that wouldn't be sustainable, I don't think, and it isn't, like, reality, you know, there's a lot of people

0:30:28 Lydia: I don't think any women are even calling for that, like that that's

0:30:30 Thomas: No. No one Is and I, and I think that's important to just talk about. Like, that's probably part of the reason why the law is that way, but here's what I don't get. Like, people keep saying that, but it's not as though if you're drunk, therefore you can't not consent, right? I mean, like, what I, that's what I'm not getting.

0:30:31 Lydia: Yeah.

0:30:45 Lydia: Getting.

0:30:45 Thomas: And I, yeah.

0:30:46 Lydia: Drunk is not consenting to whatever happens to you after you're drunk. That's insane

0:30:49 Thomas: Be pretty fucking weird to be like because you decided to get drunk, now you can't not consent. Like, if someone came along right but I think what's going on here is that it's just going to be way easier to prove that it's rape if she was drugged or if she took it involuntarily. That's going to be one of these places where she had already had 10 drinks. Obviously, she's not the best decisions or sometimes not capable of making the most decisions.

And I feel when, like, all is said and done, based on the reporting of the, like, original interviews and stuff, like, if none of this awful shit had happened, this is something that probably happens every single day times a million at these frats where somebody takes drugs they probably shouldn't, and it wasn't as though they were drugged or pressured, even though it was offered to them, and they probably should have said, you know what I mean?

Like, so that alone, I think, is what I've seen from the reporting is basically, is this may be a bit of a reach on the facts, because it will make it way easier for her to prove that they raped her. And so being able to say, "I was pressured to have

0:30:54 Lydia: Your body's a free-for-all for anybody yeah Yep. Yeah.

0:31:51 Thomas: This stuff," is by New York law. And again, we're going to talk to real lawyers about this, but this is what I'm seeing from all the reporting, thing. This is one of those things I was talking about, where it may be that the reality, especially based on, like, texts and report, like, interviews at first, you know, because this lawsuit is two years after the fact.

It may be that the facts don't quite support, but they drugged her in this instance, it may, I'm just saying maybe, I don't know for sure, but that's the impression I'm getting. But it's one of those things where it's like, as the lawyer, you're gonna take that swing and be like, you were pressured, you, or, and maybe she feels that way, maybe she really feels that way, I have no idea, I'm saying that this is one of those things I just feel like no, no bad faith actor can understand this, and it's such an easy attack point, but for, the gavel heads here, that could be what's going on. Now it also could be that that's entirely how she feels after the fact, and the and the initial report didn't reflect that, but now that's how she feels.

I want to fully acknowledge that this is just, I'm kind of speculative, but it's, it's the indication I'm getting, and the reason I bring it up is, again, I think we all here understand that that would not mean she's a liar, and that would not mean he's making up the whole thing. It would just mean that because of our shitty legal system, this is kind of the best way that she has to still get some kind of justice. Yeah.

0:32:21 Lydia: Yeah. They To present it in a particular, yeah, manner.

0:32:58 Thomas: You Know, and it's like that, it sucks, but that's the part where it's like, yeah, it sucks, you just have to understand that victims are often forced into these, like, bad, no-win situations where it is like, well, I guess I got to emphasize this particular thing, even though it, is maybe going, the facts don't quite back it up, but that is just what you have to do.

It doesn't mean she's lying, doesn't mean that didn't happen, and it, it may be that because she can't really prove some of this stuff to the satisfaction of the, the out arc of date law, like, this is just her best bad option, you know, or, and again, I'm speculating, or maybe this is how she really felt after the fact, and and there's some, you know, just some texts that she was not really saying how she really felt, you know, who knows, I'm just pure speculation, but I just wanted to mention that because I think it's important.

I think it's just the, the, the people on the other side who want to discredit victims, like, these are the things they have to seize on, like, the little parts where it's like, yeah, it's gonna be hard to defend this particular thing, and maybe they have a point, but it doesn't mean that she's a liar, doesn't means she's making it up.

0:33:49 Lydia: And just a quick little note on that too, that, you know, this is something in New York law that, again, not a lawyer, but that folks have recognized as a problem, and, um, they have the votes in New York legislature, honestly, to to make this law. They've been working on it for seven years, it passed, this, yeah, it passed the senate unanimously last session and then didn't come up in assembly for a vote. I, they think they have the votes and it just hasn't been brought to vote.

0:33:56 Thomas: Seven. Years. Wow. Seven. Years. So probably like right after Me Too, sort of, like in the wake of that that's interesting.

0:34:14 Lydia: Yeah, I think so, I, think so. Um, so, uh, Governor Hochul, Kathy Hochul's been talking about, you know, this being a priority when the legislature comes back in session, which isn't until January. So now there's calls for, like, no, you need to call special legislative session because this needs to be fixed now. It should have been fixed years ago, it hasn't been, it's a problem.

0:34:20 Thomas: Yeah.

0:34:31 Thomas: What is the fix, do you know? Because, like, I, I really think this, this is an area where it's like really tough to write it just right, you know, and and I'm not, I'm not against it, I think, I think the other thing is that I always want to emphasize is people will look at whatever the downsides are of a, like, revision, and not acknowledge what the current fucking downsides are, you, that's a, bias that people have. So, like, it might be that, you know, you have to rewrite it in a way that, like, kind of goes too far the other way, but that is possibly way better than something that is falling woefully short, you know, like, it is, looking at it is always letting the perfect be the enemy of the good, like, oh, if I can find a few problems with the new wording, then, like, we just have to keep the shitty system that is not working. But I am very curious at, like, also, I know that a lot of times people who write legislation aren't the most woke or well-informed on this.

0:35:18 Thomas: And sometimes they're trying to do a good thing and the way it's written is bad. So I would be curious how people are trying to amend this,

0:35:25 Lydia: So from what I understand, it's it's specifically written to law that there is a voluntary intoxication exclusion, you, cannot pursue rape charges if, if you willingly became intoxicated.

0:35:31 Thomas: Hmm. What? It's that far?

0:35:36 Lydia: I think so. So

0:35:37 Thomas: I understood a little differently, and I might just be wrong, because it could be a case of me trying to make it better than it is in my mind.

0:35:40 Lydia: Think, I think it's good. I think a lot of other states have this figured out better. And New York, for whatever reason, has this exclusion that

0:35:48 Thomas: Hmm. I would be very surprised if the law were, if you had voluntarily consumed stuff, then no matter what happens to you, you just screw, like, that, I mean, because that would be insane, like, that would mean that anyone could rape anyone who's had anything to drink. Like, so, I mean, I could be wrong, but I, I think it's likely that it's slightly different in that it is, like, if you have not voluntarily consumed stuff, if you've involuntarily consumed stuff, then it is just, like, definitionally rape.

0:36:16 Lydia: Yeah.

0:36:16 Thomas: It might be trying to adjust it, allow for, like, if your at a level of intoxication, even though it was voluntary, you reach a level where it is still like by default fault, it's rape, you know, like, that's my guess, but I don't know.

0:36:29 Lydia: I mean, this says that the current law requires proof of forcible compulsion or clear incapacity. So the loophole is that, about rape, it's that someone who's incapable of consent by reason of being mentally disabled or mentally incapacitated, but the person is only considered mentally incapacity under the state law if they were temporarily unable to understand or control their actions due to the influence of a narcotic or intoxicating substance administered to them without their consent, or to any other act done to them without their consent.

0:36:55 Thomas: Yeah. Well, But I'm pretty sure the way it's working is that that just means it's going to be harder to prove, and again, I think the DA is saying Well, we're just not going to be able to, because, you know, whatever. So it's a the difference between if they said they had sex with her, they're guilty of rape, versus you have to then prove that you didn't want it, that you said no, you know what I mean? Like, I don't think it means they can just have sex with her because she drank herself. That can't be it. There's no way. Where, I think we're, again, this is stuff for a lawyer, but reading up to kind of understand it first. I just want to make very clear, it's not the case that if you voluntarily drank, that means anyone can rape you. That's not what it is, but it is. So it's a combination that I think the place we're struggling is that what should have happened was that the DA still said, oh, this is still

0:37:04 Lydia: Right. Right. I mean Yeah. Yeah,

0:37:39 Thomas: Rape, that's the part that's like, I think, messing us up. Rape, so here's how it works. To prove rape, you have to show a lack of consent. New York allows a few ways to show that: force, obviously, so if someone's forcing you, seems pretty straightforward; the person couldn't legally consent, now that gets divided into three things: mentally incapacitated, you've, and that's why the administered without consent is kind of part of it, the pressured, I don't know, that will be curious, that's what I want to ask a lawyer, if the pressured thing is gonna, like, there's a reason she didn't say they gave it to me unknowingly, you know, like she's saying pressured because I think that's, that's the closest she can get within the facts.

0:38:11 Lydia: Right, to try and demonstrate that, yeah, it wasn't her choice.

0:38:12 Thomas: Yeah. So back to to couldn't illegally consent, you know, mentally incapacitated was one physically helpless was another obviously, Or mentally disabled. And then three is just a clear no. So the gap that's happening is if you are someone who did get drunk yourself, that it's rendered you in a, a state where you are not really like fighting back, allegedly, you know, like, this is the gap, like, you're not physically Yeah, you are conscious, so you're conscious, can't, because if you're unconscious, obviously, you know, it doesn't matter who drank what, you're unconscious.

0:38:20 Lydia: Yeah not blackout drunk and physically helpless. Yeah right. Then you have the Brock Turner case, right?

0:38:46 Thomas: Right, yeah, and it's like, that the key here is that I don't really think this is an accurate way to describe what happened to her, you know, but hypothetically, if someone is drunk from their own doing, and they're in that state where they're still conscious, but they're just not, they're not fully understanding something, you know, what's going on, you know, and aren't, they aren't actively saying no, that's the state that's like, it's going to be a gray area, that's, that's hard to prove.

0:39:10 Lydia: Mean it's like it's things are happening to you and you're not necessarily even like in your body while it's happening.

0:39:13 Thomas: Yeah. And sometimes when people are that level of drunk, sometimes they are kind of going along with stuff, but it's still rape because they don't understand what they're doing. And it's also still rape because clearly the person raping them should know better. But this is the hypothetical gap in the law. Now, here's the thing that I think has made it hard for us to understand this. The DA said later. The we'll DA says, well, she took the alcohol and ketamine herself, so there's no being drugged without her knowledge, which rules out mentally incapacitated.

Her statement didn't describe being unconscious which rules out physically helpless and no force was alleged and uh, on his reading of the statement, quote, "each time Jane Doe asked to stop the sexual conduct, the sexual conduct stopped," and so by his logic that ruled out, like, the clear no. That's the part where I'm like, that doesn't sound accurate to me, like, Yeah, at the very least you've got a fucking dispute and as we'll find out later, she, she was much more clear than that in terms of at least how, how, she alleges it went down. And again, you at least should be able to allege what happened, even if you can't, maybe it's hard to prove in a court of law, but you should get your fucking day in court. Right. I mean, like you should gets to say, yes, I said no. And they didn't stop. Right?

0:39:22 Lydia: Yeah, yeah.

0:40:05 Lydia: Sorry. Yeah.

0:40:25 Lydia: Yeah.

0:40:25 Thomas: You can't shouldn't be a DA just deciding like, ah, we won't be able to prove that. Like what?

0:40:30 Lydia: I got, I got a few pages here of this statement that someone else wrote up on her behalf, you know, supposedly, and I'm just, you know, file it in the no pile, like that can't be that can't be how we do things.

0:40:33 Thomas: Yeah. Yeah. So I think that's why we're getting tripped up because Cause people are saying, well, this falls in that gap and that would lead us to believe like, okay, so you can just get raped if you drank by yourself. But it's not really that it's that just didn't really fall in this gap. I think she was saying, no, I think She was making it clear that she didn't want to do it, but the DA just decided she wasn't, you know what I mean?

0:40:56 Lydia: Yeah.

0:40:57 Thomas: So anyway, that we'll, we'll get more on that with a lawyer, but that, that is the gap.

0:41:02 Lydia: Yeah, why don't I quickly just read, like, how they're trying to fix this, the, the language of the bill itself, it's pretty short. It says that they would add a new paragraph to read as follows, where the offense charged is sexual misconduct as defined, as defined in subdivisions one, two, and three of section 130.20, rape in the, the third degree as defined in subdivision 7, 8, or 9 of section 130.25, or a crime formerly defined in subdivision 3 of section, you know, this is all New York State law stuff, in addition to forcible compulsion, circumstances under which, at the time of the act of vaginal sexual contact, oral sexual contact, or anal sexual contact, the victim clearly expressed that he or she, such victim, did not consent to engage in such act, and a reasonable person in the actor's situation would have understood such person's words and acts as an expression of lack of consent to such act under all the circumstances, or the offense charges sexual misconduct as defined in subdivisions one, two, and three, blah, blah, blah, in addition to forcible compulsion, circumstances under which, at the time of the act of vaginal sexual contact, oral sexual contact, or anal sexual contact, the victim was under the influence of any drug, intoxicant, or other substance to a degree which rendered the victim temporarily incapable of appraising or controlling such person's conduct, and such condition was known or reasonably should have been known to

0:42:14 Thomas: Yeah.

0:42:14 Lydia: A person in the actor's situation.

0:42:16 Thomas: That's the key, and it's still gonna mean, it's hard to, when you have, if he said, she said, still gonna means it's hard to prove it. I'm sure to, like, a jury or whatever, Well, You Make your case. Yeah.

0:42:22 Lydia: Then You do an investigation, you know, and then, yeah, Yeah, Exactly.

0:42:25 Thomas: Yeah, for sure, but like that's definitely at least better than the way the law was before, you know, so hopefully that passes. Now, it can't help her, obviously, because you can't, that's not the way laws work, um, it's pretty sure there's a constitutional, uh, provision about that, ex post facto or whatever, so, but it's still, I mean, I still think, yes, do that, obviously, pass that. I still think that's just not the issue here. We'll get to it, but, but it just feels like the DA just didn't actually, properly understand or want to understand what happened.

0:42:30 Lydia: Yeah,

0:43:00 Thomas: All right, well, we're gonna have to leave it there because the next part is the Snapchat and we really need to get into that. We really need to dig into the Snapchat. And not only do we have a screenshot from her complaint, we also have more I dug up more of that from other legal documents that weren't in her lawsuit. It's kind of weird that it's not in her complaint. She has to have had it by then.

0:43:08 Lydia: We Yeah, I don't know.

0:43:22 Thomas: But who knows? We'll, we'll talk about it. I know that was a little bit on us going back and forth about that law, but actually think it was important because I think a lot of people might have been under the impression that like New York law said, if you're drunk by your own hand, that you just can't, no one can ever be accused of raping you or whatever. And that's not how it is.

0:43:23 Lydia: Yeah. Right.

0:43:40 Thomas: It really is just that kind of easier lane in terms of like it'd be de facto, you know, if any of them had sex with her and she could prove that that part of it that she was drugged or that, you know, then it would just be like automatic. It's just a way for it to be easier. So I'm glad we got there. But we'll talk more again. We'll talk some more with the lawyer about that. But I think I think people are there are a lot of misconceptions people have about this.

0:44:06 Thomas: And some are some are also like sort of misconceptions, but also true. You know, that's like a clarification that we need to do. Looking forward to getting into this and getting more of her story from more places, because there are some things that people are using against her. I think there are good answers to it, but the information in the complaint is really not quite enough, and that's fine, it's complaint just says what it needs to say, pretty much, I think.

0:43:52 Lydia: Mm hmm. Oh, yeah, for sure. Mm hm. Right?

0:44:31 Thomas: But but there's a lot to get into. So definitely need a part two. So we are going to break here. And then when we come back for part two, going to dig into the horrible Snapchat conversation and finish the complaint from there.

0:44:43 Lydia: Like I said, at the outset, depressing you work, but important. And glad we're covering this, even though it's tough.

0:44:49 Thomas: Gavelinos, we'll see you next time.