GG88: The Cornell Chi Phi Gang Rape Lawsuit, Part 2

Transcript

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

0:00:26 Thomas: Gavalinos, I'm Thomas that over there is Lydia. How you doing?

0:00:30 Lydia: As well as you can be, talking about this kind of stuff. What about you?

0:00:34 Thomas: You know, I've been great.

0:00:37 Lydia: Weird.

0:00:37 Thomas: Yeah, man, I am. I don't, actually. Yeah. I got no jokes. I gotta try to think welcome here. We not the same. Okay. I needed that meme. You have no jokes because you you never have any jokes.

0:00:46 Lydia: Welcome to my world. Have no jokes. Okay.

0:00:57 Thomas: I have no jokes because it's Cornell.

0:00:58 Lydia: All right. All right, because we're talking about the worst possible thing, yeah.

0:01:02 Thomas: Allegations. Horrible, not only talking about this cornell rape case of course but uh today we're going to get to a particularly ugly part of it which is this snapchat and I think it's important I'm going to talk about it more later when we talk about kind of the arguments against jane doe a little bit but this snap chat I think is a key part of that because Because just keep it in mind, to preview it before we go forward, when we talk about this Snapchat conversation, she did not find out about this for a while. I think if you want to put your brain on, put your, put you're brain hat on anyone out there who, you to accuse her of lying or whatever, like how your perception of something might change given this Snapchat information we'll get to. That's just a little preview, I guess.

0:01:33 Lydia: What

0:01:42 Thomas: We're going to talk about that today. It's again plenty of content warnings it's not fun stuff uh really important and then we'll probably get through the rest of her complaint and we'll see where we go from there I know there's a lot more to talk about uh All right. Well, we've got to start the episode as much as we're loathe to do it. Yeah.

0:01:41 Lydia: Yeah definitely yeah

0:02:03 Thomas: That first break. Hey, thanks for those who support the show, patreon.com/gavelpod. really appreciate it. We're excited to bring you this coverage. And when we get to talk to an actual attorney about it, I'm sure they'll have many opinions.

0:02:01 Lydia: Delaying yeah oh

0:02:14 Thomas: Yeah. I'm really excited for that, but in good time, we have to build out the facts first. All right, let's take a break and then we'll dig into it.

0:02:14 Lydia: Yeah I can't wait oh

0:02:27 Thomas: Okay. So we're going to pick back up in the complaint and we're gonna get to this Snapchat conversation.

0:02:33 Lydia: Approximately 1:42 a.m., defendant Newell sent a message into the Psi Chapter members' Snapchat group entitled Sci Actives, in which the active fraternity members are present, claiming there was, quote, free pussy upstairs, referring to plaintiff thereat.

0:02:47 Thomas: There's a screenshot of this that I think is important to go through. Is a Snapchat?

0:02:51 Lydia: This Snapchat.

0:02:52 Thomas: don'T use Snapchat, so I don' t understand.

0:02:52 Lydia: I just that the way

0:02:55 Thomas: Jonathan Newell.

0:02:55 Lydia: His, yeah. But they spell his name differently.

0:02:58 Thomas: So the Ryan person is like quoting that or something.

0:03:00 Lydia: So Ryan's responding to that. So do want to also call out here because it's snapchat those things are meant to be like um right like like so if you screenshot something in Snapchat, it would notify users that it's been screenshotted. And that's why we have a picture here. So this is somebody I want to call out. This is somebody who's in the chat that is taking a picture of what happened in the chart. And they're taking a picture of the chat. And that's what they're using in the lawsuit. So that that is super important. This is a guy, a is part of this, Snapchat this discussion. I think this has come out since and stuff that there is one person who kind up, but he got this to her, he took a picture of this from what I can tell and um gave that yeah

0:03:25 Thomas: How important that was. Maybe that person, you know,

0:03:41 Lydia: Yeah

0:03:41 Thomas: Maybe there were conflicting reports. How How many people were in this chat and how many were that guy? Do we know?

0:03:48 Lydia: Everything I am seeing is that there were 57 people in that Snapchat group chat. Those were the active.

0:03:53 Thomas: Doesn't mean they were all active that night, I guess, right? Doesn't means they're all seeing it. And is there a time limit? I'm just trying to be fair. I know. Being still means being outraged, by the way. I'm Just to be fair and then outraged, is I don't know Snapchat, you've already kind of mentioned it to me, but like, does stuff last, what, an hour, 24 hours? Does it,

0:03:57 Lydia: And yeah, yeah, I think it's 24 hours. I mean, I haven't been on there in a long time, so they might have settings that are changed. Know that it's, I as signal potentially. I'm not

0:04:22 Thomas: So it could be that like all of them saw this if it's 24 hours, right? So it would be totally legitimate to say that out of 57, there's one that we know, but we don't, there could have been more who reported it, right, maybe, I guess, but it's not more More than what, a handful at most. And we know about like one for sure. I want to say there's it's hard because, again, we don't have the documents yet. I Want to Say the Report said there might have been another one that reported it to not to her, but to authorities.

0:04:26 Lydia: Yeah Mm Theoretically Yeah. But separately.

0:04:52 Thomas: But I I'm not positive it could be the same person. So, yeah, we'll and spot them. We'll say, hey, two to three. There are two to three at most dudes in this frat, in this chat group, who had the actual to report this, you

0:04:53 Lydia: Or it could be the same person. Yeah and you know, I think some people might say, you didn't speak out in the chat and I think that that can be, I'm not a dude, I think that can be really challenging sometimes with certain dynamics. You know, like when we talk about like a locker room talk and speaking up as, you know, a young teenager or something when you're hearing terrible jokes or whatever, how tough that can be. Now add on, these are, you know, active pledges for a fraternity and like the pressures that are there.

0:05:31 Lydia: And yeah, yeah. So, you it's tough. At the very least, we know of one to two, maybe three people that that at least spoke up outside yeah

0:05:30 Thomas: Bad social incentives there. With you where it's like, it might be tough to say something in the chat. That means, I mean, obviously that's what we would all hope, you know, that's what we all want at the very least do what this person did, which was, and and to downplay, they had to video it. Like, it wasn't just like, oh, this kind of sucks. I'm not into this. Like they had the presence of mind to take a video before it disappeared and from another cell phone that wouldn't.

0:06:04 Thomas: So, that person had two cell phones, you know, it's probably means there's someone else involved that, that That also wanted to report it.

0:06:03 Lydia: That wouldn't alert them to a screen recording or screenshot yeah

0:06:12 Thomas: So, I mean, good for that person. That's really good. You would hope that at the very least, like you said, if they can't speak up in the thing, because if you speak up in that chat, you know, that just means you're done with that frat and you should be. But I get that that's probably hard for some of those people.

0:06:11 Lydia: Yeah yeah I mean these are like 18 19 year old you know young men and stuff out in the world for the first time yeah could be tough

0:06:31 Thomas: Like we're talking about crimes. Know, I imagine maybe in maybe their heads, some of them are like convincing themselves. Oh, she's in on this and is wanting it or something. Thing like based on just the messages that they saw like maybe maybe

0:06:41 Lydia: Yeah like a cognitive dissonance sort of thing where they just sort of try and like alleviate whatever that might be Yeah.

0:06:48 Thomas: Sometimes when you encounter when people encounter really ugly horrible things they do want to like make it not be true you know and just like try try to have it yeah

0:06:56 Lydia: The experience of women who get sexually assaulted. So welcome to our world, boys.

0:07:01 Thomas: But if people are you about out of however many people, 57 people, only two, maybe at most, a up that that we know of. That's accurate. That checks out. That is not a myth or anything. That Is real. We can't know for sure that they all saw it. Who knows? But you got to figure a pretty high number of them did.

0:07:22 Lydia: Think so.

0:07:22 Thomas: That IS depressing. Then you think like, oh, okay, well, this people People need to have actual criminal consequences. And then that just changed the incentives, you know, like that, that really changes it from, boys oh, will be boys, blah, blah. To like, oh no, this is a thing people could do time for. Not going to just go along with this. And I, I'm Not saying that's going to change everyone overnight, but that would make a difference.

0:07:38 Lydia: I would hope so.

0:07:45 Thomas: Absolutely would make A difference. I really think it would like as, shitty as men aren't as bad as, you all that is there's at least well yeah there's at least some number who maybe before they would have been like I'm just not touching this to like I don't want to be part of a crime snapchat so it's over time of the process that will probably be never ending of getting to more justice and this kind of thing is seeing more justice seeing more consequences in real time and then that that changes the incentives, you know, that changes like the universe you're reacting in. Then over time, I think it gets

0:07:47 Lydia: Don't want to be like party to a crime. Yeah eventually the

0:08:18 Thomas: Better and better. Yeah. It's like, okay, maybe it nudges it a little bit. And then you see a few more consequences, nudges a little Bitmore, a few more consequences. And Then all of a sudden it would be like, if someone was, I don't know, reporting a murder, you Know, like get it to where it's like people are actually like, um, did you just say you were killing someone? You know, like that, that like, This I this is not going to sound like much and it isn't much. If the chat had said, hey, come on, everybody, we're raping this girl would not have the same reaction.

0:08:18 Lydia: Behavior itself yeah yeah it seriously yeah mm

0:08:44 Thomas: And I know that's not worth much, but point is not to exonerate anybody. It's to say that if we get our society to where that's how this actually reads, that would be better. I think we will have instead of 56 or 55 people not doing anything, it will shrink down quite quite a lot, not maybe not to zero, but like it'll shrink down quite a lot in your average fat. Like people, think I could be wrong. I don't know. That's my feeling. Either way, if even if I'm wrong, the thing I'm I'm saying is that we just should have more consequences for rapists so I think on that we can all agree it's

0:08:43 Lydia: -hmm yeah agreed yeah no absolutely hey yeah so So Jonathan Newell says, free pussy in alum PU. Don't know what

0:09:18 Thomas: Does that mean? Uh, Oh, Lum something party unit. I don't know. What is it? Yeah. I'm actually not sure. I'm seeing that I have the report. It's redacted a lot, but.

0:09:18 Lydia: That is. Alum, alumni.

0:09:32 Thomas: Didn't know I had this. We have the, uh, the Cornell office of civil rights hearing panel decision report. I document we can add to the stack that we could possibly read it is 99 pages so there's a lot in there but the report it says the panel decided that what the 1:42 message meant: alum meant the alumni room, and PU was short for pull-up, which the panel took as an invitation.

0:09:32 Lydia: Yeah yeah that's how I would interpret that so yeah well I mean like I don't know what pu means for short but if someone's saying pull up that's like yeah come on over I

0:10:01 Thomas: Really? I have no idea. I have absolutely no idea. PU is what people say, I

0:10:10 Lydia: I'm saying is I've never seen that abbreviation but if somebody had spelled pull up then I would have interpreted it that in that way I

0:10:17 Thomas: Later has legal stuff going on, we can explain later, says it's pickup, but I don't know what that would would mean pick up oh somebody was like calling via snapchat or something or calling that could be like pick up as in like they're trying to get a hold of you but not in a group chat huh

0:10:29 Lydia: Don't know but no no and I regard to free pussy as part of the rest of that message like I know yeah

0:10:40 Thomas: I your don't explanation makes more sense to me but anyway

0:10:43 Lydia: I responds, this is crazy work. Scott Norris responds, free dot, dot, dot. Scott Kretschmar says, Diego went seven minutes ago and is not AFK, away from keyboard. So I a long time looking up that abbreviation to see if there was anything else that Gen Z would use.

0:10:54 Thomas: And it's not AFK. Well, I used that with you the other day and you were like, I don'T know what that is. Well it's NOT a Gen Z thing. It's kind of weird. Weird, yeah

0:11:03 Lydia: I didn't know. Oh, yeah, I know. No. But that's what I'm saying that I that's why I was looking it up. Because like, is there another meaning to that? But I think it's just away from keyboard.

0:11:13 Thomas: So does this mean and he's not back yet, it's the opposite of AFK and is AFK maybe, it meant to say is AFKing so that means like he's doing whatever, okay, what are those, yeah what are those,

0:11:16 Lydia: Is not. And he's not. Or he's he's Not here. Yeah. Yeah? Maybe. Yeah could Matthew Ingalls responds. I fucking love Kai-Fi. Get some little avatar thingies. Those are like react buttons but I think they like layer in your avatar is from what I can tell with snapchat I don't I haven't been on snapchat in years um one of the defendants responds kai fi in all caps scott kretschmar again another defendant the alumni shit is not a bit first person pov not a beat don't know what that is about um and then matthew angles responds like you can walk in and whip it out uh

0:11:50 Thomas: There's a thumb in the way so I'm not sure if Ingles is asking like you can walk in and whip it out or if they're saying that I'm not actually what do you what do you think oh

0:11:57 Lydia: Think he's saying it because he was one of the first people in there that's mangles is the one that she liked yeah

0:12:01 Thomas: Yeah so is wait is he the one oh my god that's so fucking disgusting see so we've been able to get a hold of some other documents from some other parts of this legal thing that have more of this it's hard to piece together because it has more of the conversation but fully redacted in terms of names so we can only match the names from the one screenshot and then the further conversation then we can't tell really who's is doing what um it gets worse uh this doesn't even seem to be in her complain which is I does she not have, you know, like this whole thing? You're just like, how does he not have this information? This would be important for her to have like one way or the other. Right. I mean, you would think, doesn't he have

0:12:36 Lydia: Yeah

0:12:36 Thomas: The right to this? But so the free pussy text is at 142. then there's a long gap. I guess nobody responded for a while. It's kind of weird, but 219. So whatever that is, 37 minutes later. Um we get the stuff we already read now we can actually see in the transcript the part that the thumb is covering which is like you can walk in and whip it out rn yeah so that's even worse you the person who she was interested in and thought was like into her like telling people they can come in and rip it out Ridiculous. Type. That person asks type.

0:13:00 Lydia: Now yeah yeah

0:13:12 Thomas: Then the next thing, which is not in the screenshot, is someone sent, and guest this was Ingalls but we don't. Someone sent an image of her. Next thing is a photo and note now I would have to guess guess these are some unknowns I have to guess if this was her like naked or something that she would also be suing for that I would guess guess but maybe she didn't I mean I don't know if she didn't have that information yeah

0:13:12 Lydia: Angles yeah I mean she didn't include this further like material that maybe they'll amend I don't know yeah

0:13:36 Thomas: Or like it could honestly be it could range anywhere from obviously that which is awful and a further crime I would think to maybe just a photo of her from social media or something you know like this is who it is kind of thing and

0:13:49 Lydia: Let's say it is weird. That's... Jonathan Newell says type so Jonathan Newell who is also the third in that potential like first threesome that was going to happen with Matthew Ingalls so I don'T know why he would say a type if he is engaged and had been engaged at that point with her because the snapchat time I this is happening in order she details the with newell before those snapchat messages but I don't know I don'T obviously we DON'T know the exact timing of everything but

0:14:20 Thomas: And it would would make sense with the message message.

0:14:23 Lydia: But then why would he say type later I don't know yeah

0:14:25 Thomas: he'S the one who sent the first message.

0:14:27 Lydia: Oh maybe he's the one that sends the picture maybe he is not asking asking type he is sharing the type of girl that she is like so people know what she looks like

0:14:34 Thomas: Be. That could be, well, then the response to So that is shop still open. We don't know who these people are now. And this all happens like in a flurry, like 235, 236. There's like minutes two and messages these messages go back and forth. Says, yeah. Someone says yeah. Unknown user, no way. LFG. The next message is someone's name because the transcript that I'm reading from it's blacked all names so someone's name says laying rn so that means someone's like I think they were like taking a break and just laying down from you know raping and then someone says nice nice guys is my room open then someone says low -key he's cucking all of us and then never mind nvm and then someone replying to someone's message earlier fuck off mid does that mean they're not into her like now

0:14:51 Lydia: Fucking go like you can't tell what message they're responding to yeah

0:15:23 Thomas: It just says replying to someone else's first 236 message or Or they're saying, telling guy to fuck off? I don't know. And then the next is kid. The next message, I want my license. Then time unknown, unknown user, are you guys at least naked? Unknown, boys, come whip it out. Going later. Like, mean, this is, yeah, this is pretty fucking blatant. How could she be consenting to any of this kind of shit? Doesn't even know about it. Pretty fucking clear cut right like if there's anyone who just sent a message and then never did anything okay but if any of those messages and from people who then went and did stuff how they are are the fuck is that anything but rape like are people saying like they were doing this but then when they went in there she's like fine with it or something I just I don't understand that mindset that's a weird that's weird so pick up in the complaint 163. It's right after that screenshot. Again, we read more messages than she apparently had, maybe. I mean, it's hard to say, at least, than messages than she puts in the complain here. So

0:15:46 Lydia: Yeah no disgusting yeah got to think if she had access to those she would have included them too but who's to say all right uh on in doing so defendant newell organized and encouraged other side chapter members to join in on the gang rape of plaintiff in the side chapter fraternity house at this point multiple other members of side chapter entered the room and plaintiff retreated under the covers of the bed to hide her naked body from the fraternity men after defendant Sarabia approached plaintiff, grabbed her face, and started kissing her, all without her consent, and plaintiff pushed him away. That point, plaintiff's phone was on the other side of the room, and she felt as if there was no way for her to escape this room full of predatory fraternity men. Defendant Newell then poured a line of ketamine onto his erect penis and commanded that plaintiff snort it, which she did. Defendant Newell then got in the bed with plaintiff and began groping her and reaching for her vagina again. Plaintiff was lying on her back on the bed, defendants Ingalls, Newell, Lee, Lopez, Sarabia, Norris, and Kretschmar then began pouring lines of ketamine all over her body and snorting them. Eventually, defendants Newell, Lopez, Sarabia, Norris, and Kretchmar decided to exit this room and plaintiff was removed by defendants Ingalls and Lee to another smaller room believed to be the fraternity president's office. Once inside, defendants Ingalls and Lee made more lines of ketamine and instructed plaintiff to snort one, which she did. This point, plaintiff was completely incapacitated. I've never done ketamine,

0:16:23 Thomas: I think so, but yeah. Yeah,

0:17:42 Lydia: But that feels like, a like lot of ketamine. I

0:17:43 Thomas: I mean... Yeah, no idea. I have no concept of it. It's

0:17:47 Lydia: No idea. Thereafter, defendant Ingalls and Lee initiated another assault of plaintiff, forcing oral and vaginal sex upon her simultaneously. Around 5:45 a.m., this assault concluded and plaintiff lost consciousness when plaintiff awoke later that day on october yeah

0:18:02 Thomas: Interesting to say that because it's like there there is a world in which she could have said this is what I remember I lost consciousness don't know if anything happened after that but that the assault concluded and she lost consciousness it's kind of interesting I guess it I guess it means she just was kind to be at least awake and perceiving things the whole time it's surprising to me that it wouldn't been like as what I I remember who knows what else happened kind of thing.

0:18:28 Lydia: Well it's interesting because like you her statement was presented by cornell police to the da the statement was that around 5 45 she said she was tired and went to sleep um that's kind of a difference in presentation there

0:18:43 Thomas: Well, we'll get to that later, but yeah.

0:18:45 Lydia: Plaintiff awoke later that day on October 20th, 2024. Plaintiff returned to her residence within the Alpha Beta Chapter sorority house. At this point, Pl plaintiff was in a state of shock. Her residence, Plaintiff noticed a large bruise that had formed on her buttocks and took preemptive medication for a urinary tract infection. That day, Plaintiff became aware that what had happened to her at the Psi Chapter house the previous night was becoming public knowledge on Cornell's campus. With the encouragement of her friends, on or about November 8th, 2024, Plaintiff reported the incident to Cornell's private police force known as Cornell University Police Department.

0:19:19 Thomas: That skips quite a bit of time there.

0:19:21 Lydia: So we're talking about three weeks, thereabouts. Or about November 8th, 2024, Cy Chapter was placed on a temporary suspension for alleged violations of the Student Code of Conduct. Same day that she made the report. Or About November 8, 2024. Temporary suspensions were also issued for several students, including defendants Ingalls, Newell, Lee, Lopez, Sarabia, Norris, and Kretschmar, who were afforded the opportunity to mitigate their conduct by submitting essays to Cornell. November 26, 2024, so now couple weeks after that, Cornell released a university statement entitled, Update on Disturbing Allegations of Sexual Violence, providing an update on its ongoing investigation into the, quote, serious and deeply disturbing allegations of drug abuse and sexual violence at the Chi Phi fraternity house, as further described in this complaint. Or about january 14th 2025 so when they are all back from their winter vacation winter break cornell commenced the title nine investigation in response to plaintiff's formal complaint filed with cornell's title nine coordinator I think so oh

0:20:18 Thomas: Seem like that statement it was already happening not why that would be it said uh title nine have been diligently reviewing all reported information yeah okay I don't know maybe technically hadn't started maybe

0:20:28 Lydia: But it might it It might be the report. The report was submitted, but then they hadn't opened the investigation yet. Could be just a process thing. May 2nd, 2025 up and through May 29th, 2025, Cornell's Title IX office conducted numerous, at least 12, hearings regarding plaintiffs'

0:20:34 Thomas: May hold on why are we why are they already to may geez so not did nothing happen for four months

0:20:46 Lydia: Allegations herein. So they did. I know. I don'T know that it's nothing happened. And I'm not sure what the process is there, and I'm sure we'll learn a lot more about that.

0:20:57 Thomas: Numerous, at least 12. Oh, hearings. So we can assume the investigation happened and then the hearings were then, I guess.

0:21:02 Lydia: Between January to May, and then they did the hearings in the month of May. November 4th, 2025, Cornell released a university statement entitled, 2025 Cornell Survey of Sexual Assault and Related Misconduct Results, noting an increased prevalence of sexual misconduct on its campus, among other troubling results.

0:21:19 Thomas: I can look at this real quick. A little long. I'm not going to read the whole thing. So every two years, they conduct a survey in accordance with New York State law. That's interesting. Okay. So it wasn't like just because of this. It's, they do a survey about sexual assault, stalking, domestic violence kind of thing. A 15% response rate. Hmm. Interesting.

0:21:38 Lydia: That's not great.

0:21:39 Thomas: It says the 2025, uh, survey represents a 60% decline in previous years in terms of response. That sucks. Cause it was 36 in 2023, 38 in 2021, but then 15% in 2025. Huh? I wonder why that is. Might be stupid. Is it anything to do with Trump? Like, is it like because the guideline do they do do a different? Well, I guess this is in accordance with New York law.

0:22:01 Lydia: It's and it's a state law.

0:22:02 Thomas: Yeah. I don't mean know if it's just like people felt less comfortable for some reason.

0:22:07 Lydia: I mean, it could be any number of things.

0:22:09 Thomas: That's that is a big reduction though from to go in 38 to 36 to 15. uh reduced response rate makes it more difficult to analyze the data especially for students from less represented backgrounds and limits the reliability of estimates yep no that's fair um a more detailed report but they highlighted some things increased prevalence of sexual misconduct 15% of respondents reported experiencing non-consensual sexual contact since entering Cornell, an increase from 11% in the previous ones the rise is driven primarily by undergraduate women whose experiences reported in the survey increased from 23% to 35% uh 35 yeah and the thing is like who knows are are they doing the control it is true that with like that low of a response rate it's gonna be tricky yeah

0:22:50 Lydia: And yeah, exactly. Well. And it's like a selection bias to write the people who are more likely to respond to this, especially when you're talking about such low numbers are probably going to be the people that have experienced negative sexual misconduct.

0:23:03 Thomas: But I think they would try to account for that so So who knows? You never know if they like could have overaccounted for it, you know, could have come back. That's like, oh, this is a super high percentage. And then they try to like control for it somehow.

0:23:14 Lydia: I don't know. It reads to me like this is just kind of strict percentage, like, you know, self -response kind of thing right now.

0:23:21 Thomas: That's fair. Yeah. It might be. You're probably right. Harassing and stalking trends. Nearly half of respondents reported experiencing sexual or gender-based harassment, from 45% in the previous one. Stalking reports also increased, with 17% of respondents affected compared to 13% before. Four. Yeah, So, that's not great. It says context of incidents. Most incidents occurred in campus affiliated settings, such as residence halls and fraternity houses. Was involved in over half of reported NSC cases. 50% of victims reported being incapacitated during the incident. I'm I'm surprised it's not higher, honestly, but yeah. That was was that? Got Yeah. A little bit of of information there.

0:23:57 Lydia: It's interesting. I wonder why they're highlighting that exactly. I guess it's that Cornell has knowledge that there's, you that's happening on their campus and like the link with potentially fraternity houses and alcohol, maybe like maybe they're trying to just get that into the record. Heard with regard to like her specific experience I don't think that that report necessarily means anything right information and belief cornell's title 9 investigation is concluded upon information and belief, the matter is also still being investigated by the Ithaca Police Department oh interesting yeah

0:24:28 Thomas: Guess because they haven' t closed it or something, maybe?

0:24:31 Lydia: It's just that the da declined to pursue sue the case, but the police have kept it open. All times relevant, not only did defendants Ingalls, Newell, Lee, Lopez, Sarabia, Norris, and Kretschmar violate applicable law, but also violated the terms outlined in the Cornell Student Code of Conduct. Information and belief at all relevant times, Cornell managed, maintained, supervised, operated, and controlled the facilities, locations, and equipment that they used to sexually abuse plaintiff. Defendant Cornell hired, managed, supervised and controlled the officers, managers, supervisors, administrators, administrators, and staff that worked and or volunteered at its facilities and locations plaintiff was sexually assaulted and raped.

0:25:06 Thomas: Think we can probably skip through some of this. It's just talking about basically Cornell' s responsible because it owned the stuff, it had to supervise, etc etc and then so it's going to go through all of the parties for this so we'll see if there's anything important like chi phi we kind of already sort of covered this earlier but yeah chi phi you national know um blaming them for it's saying they're responsible for the fraternity in different ways okay let's see a reason of the wrongful acts and omissions of defendants cornell chi phi national you basically all the defendants uh as detailed Sailed herein, Plaintiff Doe sustained injuries, including but not limited to severe emotional and psychological distress, humiliation, fright, dissociation, anger, depression, anxiety, severe shock to her nervous system, physical pain and mental anguish, and emotional and physiological damage. Information and belief, some or all of these injuries are of a permanent and lasting nature. Plaintif has and or will become obligated to expend sums of money for treatment. That's a necessary thing to say in terms of damages.

0:25:13 Lydia: House was on its campus. Yeah. Right.

0:26:00 Thomas: Pages uh now we're at causes of action negligence that's surprising we're only on page 34 well

0:26:13 Lydia: Know, it's the lively case ruined us. Yeah,

0:26:16 Thomas: Yeah but there's still a hundred pages what's after that is

0:26:18 Lydia: I guess. Huh. Mean, well, how many causes of action does she have? Like, it could be a lot. So.

0:26:23 Thomas: See do they do something where it's like more um goes back to storytelling after that kind of thing let's oh no it's just really so the first cause of action is 20 pages so okay so it's just very long causes of action yeah

0:26:36 Lydia: Yeah. Yeah, because page 88 is the sixth cause of action.

0:26:39 Thomas: So truly just there that long all right I

0:26:41 Lydia: It's literally causes of action until the very end

0:26:43 Thomas: Right uh if the first cause is, this is kind of weird, it's a little different than complaints we've read in the past because the causes are like the majority of it. The rest this, of you ish pages left is all the causes but I'm not sure how much storytelling there is in it just says like at all relevant times at all relative times that all relevant relevant times for like everything um it's because there's so many defendants maybe they're spelling out well well you know that could be if you remember the group pleading problem that have maybe it is like you is maybe how it is supposed to be done when you have that many defendances you are are making making sure to spell out how each one is responsible at each time for each thing

0:27:15 Lydia: Yeah I am curious about Because this first cause of action is negligence. And I think we can understand like how, company you that owns Mooney's, you with that regard, we kind of understand Cornell, you University for their negligence in this. But I wonder, because it isn't within the heading who she is applying this negligence too and if she is applying negligence to each one of the parties um right

0:27:38 Thomas: Well guess it's as she goes she does defendant cornell um as a direct approximate result of the wrongful acts and omissions of defendant cornelle

0:27:46 Lydia: That would still be cornell's negligence so

0:27:49 Thomas: That's cornell then it goes to the side chapter talks about the duties they breached so that'S the pattern that gets to as a direct approximate Proximate result of all the wrongful acts and omissions of defendant side chapter, uh, defendants, you Ingalls, Newell, Lee, all those people were able to use their positions to sexually abuse. Then, yep. And then, so it is pretty repetitive. Yeah. So it's doing the Chi Phi national.

0:27:51 Lydia: Chapter and and the the phi right right right chi phi national alpha beta chapter mm

0:28:13 Thomas: There's not much different here other than like failing to exercise reasonable care and training its agents and employees to supervise, you knows, like it's pretty much what you would think with that. So I don't, I'm I'm not sure we'll, continue we'll to look through here. One I don'T get is the, so I kind of want to read actually the alpha beta chapter.

0:28:28 Thomas: So let's see what it says there. Cause I wasn't entirely sure other than like, oh, she was able to drink in the, was she able to have that first drink or something? Is that what it is?

0:28:36 Lydia: It said that she drank

0:28:36 Thomas: Let's see.

0:28:36 Lydia: In the house even though there was a policy that they weren't going to have alcohol in the house. All relevant times, defendant Alpha Beta Chapter had a duty to take reasonable steps to protect plaintiff Doe from foreseeable harm when plaintiff was in its care, custody, and control, including when plaintif was a full -time undergraduate student of defendant Cornell and was utilizing its facilities, locations, and equipment, including the Alpha Beta chapter sorority house on Cornell's campus and its social event held at Mooney's Bar and

0:29:01 Thomas: And then there's also, I'M sure people have heard this a million times, but there's the sue everyone and let God sort it out. You not necessarily your responsibility to know exactly who was responsible for what it's you sue everybody that might be involved and sometimes they just figure it out amongst themselves too like they if you win you know that kind of thing um it looks like okay uh train its designated house mother it's reminds me like like game of thrones or something um to investigate complaints and concerns about member behavior uh including recognizing signs that she was intoxicated and drinking alcohol under the age of 21 years old yep pretty much what you expect there so uh we get tri -delta national kind of a similar thing again I do think this is trying to to just get everybody that you can, which is how you do it. It's normal.

0:29:43 Lydia: Yeah, because like if she just went after the Alpha Beta chapter specifically and not Tri Delta Alpha Beta chapter could have been like, no, it wasn't our fault. It's actually, you know, corporate, you know, they hold our feet to the fire kind of thing.

0:29:52 Thomas: And you just, right, and you just go after, because who knows who has what money or what insurance, and yeah. Then Mooney's, because she was able to, you extra drink there when she was under 21.

0:30:03 Lydia: Unsurprising, but also so depressing to like you bouncer did like their due diligence to mark that she She should not be allowed to drink. And somehow she still was able to drink and I'm just saying like it's unsurprising unsurprising that that happened underage drinkers out in the world, but also, you depressing that that's also happening just anyway. I

0:30:22 Thomas: I don't really understand. Be interesting to to talk to a lawyer about this part like it is a little weird to be the one like uh uh I snuck a drink therefore it's your fault just like a kind of a weird position I mean I guess it makes sense mean they do have a duty to do that and then because of that she was too intoxicated to yeah I don't know yeah I

0:30:40 Lydia: My my guess is that someone who is over 21 got drinks at the bar and brought it over and she you know was drinking it and they didn't have security inside the facility to monitor if the people were you know that kind of thing no

0:30:51 Thomas: It's yeah it's it's not that hard to get away with that so it just strikes me as something that's like it's also just weird I'm trying to think this might be nothing thing but is it weird to say that they're at fault for letting her drink if the thing that happened was these gang rapists does that imply that you that mean that had she not been drunk like like if she said no then does it matter that she was drunk you know what I mean like it's I'm not sure if there's anything there but it's kind of interesting it's It's like it's it's normal in the law to.

0:31:18 Lydia: What what is their culpability in the downstream you know impact yeah is

0:31:26 Thomas: Especially when when have no idea. This is another lawyer thing. Like, what's the negligence thingy there? Like, depends on by state if there's comparative or whatever. And it's not like if Mooney's is like, well, it sounds like she got one drink from there. Right.

0:31:37 Lydia: It is it just one that she had there I'm

0:31:39 Thomas: Was that just the one? Well, either way, I can't remember. But if it was, you know, like one or whatever, and she said she had had 10 by that time and then is snorting ketamine all night. Like how much can this one drink responsible for? Like, you Know, so who knows?

0:31:40 Lydia: I'm not sure yeah ketamine main right right it's

0:31:53 Thomas: Kind of the least important part of all this, but it is just interesting. Yeah. Faculty, I mean, this, honestly might just mainly this over and over. So the, the, think it's important though, that they actually spell all this out, unlike, you know, Friedman, where it's like they is spelling out, you exactly what each of these defendants are responsible for. She's not suing the student defendants for negligence, you kind of like Friedman just sued everybody for every single cause or whatever.

0:31:55 Lydia: Just interesting yeah yeah right

0:32:17 Thomas: All of the negligence claims are saying that because of this, these students were able to use their positions to sexually abuse her. So it's it's a specifically written complaint. It's just, it's amazing how long and repetitive this is to a degree that I don't know that we've seen in another thing. I'm not sure why that is.

0:32:32 Lydia: Right well when it's not being done for PR, right because like we have seen long complaints but it's because the introduction in quotes ended up being you know 90 pages or whatever of this and this is really like flipping it on the other side where it's we get a short you of events of what occurred and what what injuries were sustained and stuff. We get the story, but then the vast majority of it is proper pleading.

0:32:55 Thomas: Is, you know, I do want to ask about this because it is crazy how long this repetitive part is when, when we've talked to lawyers, including New York lawyers in the past, they're like, yeah, this, this whole complaint should be like 20 pages. And yet just the causes of action in this one that are just like, know if I'd say boilerplate, but kind of like it repeats the same pattern forever. Just that is like 65 pages without anything else. So it's, I dunno if this, I dunno if that means this is written weirdly or if we're, you know, we're missing something, we'll, we thing to add to the list for lawyers. Okay. So, um, well no, I guess I take it back. So maybe she is including each of the students in the negligence thing as well. Sorry, I shouldn't have said that. At all relevant times, she's saying defendant, you know, Ingalls breached the foregoing duties by failing to exercise reasonable care in supervising defendants of the fraternity. That's kind of weird.

0:33:41 Lydia: Don't know that a person has a duty to you as another person.

0:33:43 Thomas: He was the president. Who was the –

0:33:45 Lydia: He's not. Well, she does it for each of them, too. She says, defendant Newell breached the foregoing duty, yada, as a human.

0:33:47 Thomas: Because she's suing each I don't know about that. I don't know that you can sue each of them for preventing the others and for what they did. Well, again, we'll add to the list of questions. I've never seen this to this degree where it's like, you're maybe this is why this is so long. You're doing like, it's exponential once you're like, they didn't prevent them and they didn't prevent them. You know, it's kind of interesting. Interesting that a duty of reasonable care to prevent himself along with defendants from sexually abusing so who had the duty to prevent whom whomst they all had a duty to protect themselves and each other and they're all each getting sued for each of those things yeah be I'll Be honest I thought they were just going to be in the other cause of action and goes to show you know again we'll get real lawyers so that'll be interesting all right so So that's what's happening for a bunch of pages is just that combination that we just talked about, where it's each student defendant didn't prevent themselves or others from, you her, which is really interesting. OK.

0:34:39 Lydia: I Harming her. Yeah. That gets us to the second cause of action. Negligent retention, supervision and or direction.

0:34:48 Thomas: Like it's going to be the same thing again, probably.

0:34:50 Lydia: So those are all the like the corporation type of things. Right. Cornell, Right. Cornell, Alpha Beta, Tridel,

0:34:55 Thomas: Tell me it does the student defendants too, okay okay, interesting

0:34:56 Lydia: Chi Phi. No, no, no. And then it ends with Mooney's. Mooney's is the other one that's being held to account in that one. Cause of action, breach of contract.

0:35:06 Thomas: Okay, sense for Cornell probably Probably.

0:35:08 Lydia: Yeah. And that's just at Cornell. All

0:35:10 Thomas: Violation of New York State human rights law. Okay, that makes a bit more sense to I think it's going to be just justice because she's a woman, I'm guessing, right?

0:35:18 Lydia: I'm basically like asserting that New York courts have repeatedly held that colleges and universities qualify as places of public accommodation. So they are subject to this anti -discrimination provision. And then further that an educational institution denying the use of its facilities to any person otherwise qualified or to permit the harassment of any student or applicant, yada, yadda, yedda, that that's a problem as well. Well. Saying that Cornell Cornell is subject to this additional law and are in violation of it.

0:35:46 Thomas: Yeah, and it does say, you know, being that she's female is what it says, so that's the angle it's going on. So sixth cause of action, and actually, I think they had a fifth that they skipped, I want want to say um

0:35:58 Lydia: Yeah. Where'd the fifth one go?

0:36:00 Thomas: Yeah bit of shoddy craftsmanship here um they there's no they had the fifth apparently and must have edited out or something because it goes from fourth to sixth um is sexual assault oh

0:36:11 Lydia: Assault. So this is going to be on the student defendants, I imagine, and not Cornell.

0:36:16 Thomas: That's a corporation or people are are they I mean in this in this country are corporations rapists too I don't maybe Maybe. Maybe we read the specific thing in terms of the assault because

0:36:25 Lydia: Committing and threatening to commit the sexual assault described herein, student defendants had the real and apparent ability to cause imminent harmful or offensive bodily contact to plaintiff and intentionally did a menacing act which threatened such contact to Plaintiff when Plaintiff was within the Sidechi fraternity house on Cornell's campus. The sexual assault and exploitation and threatened sexual assault and exploitation by student defendants caused apprehension of such contact in plaintiff. The alleged conduct constituted sexual assault. The alleged contact constituted a violation of New York penal law, subsection 130.52, .55, .60, and .65.

0:37:00 Thomas: Seventh cause is a sexual battery and it pretty much just says in committing the sexual assault described herein so alleged conduct yeah sexual battery a violation of those same subsections mostly that you just said and oh

0:37:06 Lydia: They committed sexual battery and then eighth cause of action yeah

0:37:16 Thomas: Okay yeah intentional affliction emotion Emotional distress. There you go. Always get that one. That's, I mean, we've seen that a lot. That's usually one you put on there.

0:37:23 Lydia: And the language really isn't giving us any additional information beyond like they they are kind of stating yeah exactly the the elements of the okay

0:37:28 Thomas: It's kind of boilerplate. And then negligent infliction of emotional distress. All right. The one where it can't be both, right? It Tenth cause of action, the Dramshop Act. Yeah well, that was, didn't I have a bar question that was that? Yeah, Yeah. Dram shop law.

0:37:39 Lydia: Yeah dram shop I want to know know about this. Is the dram shop? Don't listen to podcasts.

0:37:46 Thomas: Yeah. And it was years ago. It's just over serving or whatever.

0:37:52 Lydia: What is dram?

0:37:53 Thomas: Forget dram shop is like, it was like a term for, I did this exact thing. It's like an old timey.

0:37:55 Lydia: Alcohol? Is dram. A small drink of whiskey. Interesting.

0:38:01 Thomas: Dram shop, 18th century English pubs. A small unit measurement. I think so pretty much.

0:38:06 Lydia: Every state have dram shop laws or is it only if your your state's old enough oh

0:38:11 Thomas: I think they pretty much all California does. So yeah. Um, right. That's the end of that. So I I thought there would be more in the later parts. That's amazing to have that many pages that doesn't really have anything but right, well, we got through that lawsuit. I mean, I'll be honest in the end, I expected more substance, uh, out of 101 page complaint. Weird that it ended up being that repetitive thing that seemed like more repetitive boiler plate than we've ever seen in a, in in a complaint. We will get on the phone. We will get on the interwebs and and lawyers and get a get a guest on because I don't know what's going on there and I'm very curious um the next episode it may be that it may also be there's a lot coming out that I think we should talk about that her story and the investigation how that went I'm frustrated because I've been waiting for somebody to just put the papers out there so we could actually read all of them um but there is enough out there in the different coverage of, you who have these papers and all that, that I think we should probably talk about how things went down and the investigation went down on what she said at the time and kind of get that all together and then, you talk about the bad faith arguments against her. And I many answers myself, and I hope that would be helpful if anyone's, you out there seeing this person be smeared. So that's kind of the plan, probably for the next episode. And, we'll, uh, uh. Talking

0:38:49 Lydia: A friend. Yeah.

0:39:33 Thomas: To a lawyer after that. Yeah. Got, We, I have so many questions about this complaint. The end, getting like more attention to this case really only help at this point.

0:39:39 Lydia: From there. Oh, yeah. I these names in the history books. You know, I think that this is really, really important. And on the reaction side, too, right? Right. Like the more that we can kind it so people can't hide in the future.

0:39:51 Thomas: You know we talked about you mentioned the matt matt walsh one or I don't know if we actually read it but you know it's very just victim blaming and like what's

0:39:53 Lydia: Matt Walsh. Yeah. He's done a couple actually at this point. But

0:40:00 Thomas: Probably get into his reactions but I don'T even know if his are worth it because it's just all it is is rape apology it's just uh is only happening because women want to just be able to get men in prison for anything, anytime. It was just fucking nonsense. I had a thought where I was like, man, there used to be a time not all that long ago when you didn't have to fucking see that shit, you know? And like, I don't know. Thing is, I do not know that this particular problem has gotten better or worse in of terms the sexism of our society and the patriarchy of our society. Like, I dont know. You know, it is weird. Would Like imagine after Me Too and all all that. Know we saw a huge backlash to that, but I do think it's gotten a little better in ways and, contradict that with the fact that like, go back to 2010 or something or, you know, like 15, 20 years ago, you didn't used to have to see the shittiest fucking takes, rape apology takes that much all the time.

0:40:51 Lydia: In your face constantly.

0:40:52 Thomas: Yeah. And it just normalizes it. Now Now, they were still around, obviously, but like wasn't the Internet where it's like, that's just what you'll get served up. Like can just get served out the biggest fucking rape apology, asshole, misogynist take. It has this air of legitimacy because of Trump and MAGA and all that, that would it have been a little bit more marginalized, I think, back in the day. At the same time, I mean, that sexism has always been there. So maybe I'm wrong about that, but I either way. It just doesn't feel fucking good at all that this is what happens that this shit happens awful like this and then we just get to hear from like oh do you want to hear you know satan's take on it and satan is like yeah here we go all right and he gets on his keyboard yeah it's like this as a society we don't get to because the attention economy means everyone wants to see that the people agree with it the people disagree with it all everybody's mad about it or happy about it it and that just means we all see it and that shouldn't fucking exist and it's part 17,000 of my talk which is algorithmic content should be banned and we should not have algorithmic social media it should not exist all right

0:41:32 Lydia: We don't get to opt out. Yep.

0:41:58 Thomas: We're all agreed all right well thanks Cavalinos and we'll see you next time still so much to talk about with this

0:42:04 Lydia: Can't wait. Fucking go like