'Cornell 7' Member Turns Accusations Around, Says He Was the Victim and Jane Doe Was the Perpetrator
Matthew Ingalls, one of the Cornell University students named in the Chi Phi sexual assault case, told university investigators he was too intoxicated to consent and suggested that Jane Doe assaulted him, rather than the other way around, according to school records reviewed by ABC News.
The network reported the claim Monday in a story built on Cornell’s internal file, police records, text messages, and a recorded phone call.
Ingalls and other members of the fraternity have denied wrongdoing and have not been criminally charged.
Police records said Ingalls invited Doe to the Chi Phi fraternity house on Oct. 19, 2024, according to ABC.
Nearly three weeks later, on Nov. 8, Doe, then a Cornell junior, went to the Cornell University Police Department and reported she had been raped by eight to 10 men at the house.
The same day, Cornell suspended the Chi Phi chapter. The university’s investigation ran from November 2024 through May 2025 and ended with two men expelled and others suspended, ABC News reported.
Doe’s account, as described to police and later to campus authorities, was that a visit to a friend at the house became a sexual encounter with two men that grew to include others while she was given alcohol and drugs.
In a 2024 statement to campus police, she said parts of the night “felt like coercion.” She later told one of the men, on a recorded call, “What y’all did would be classified as gang rape.”
Ingalls’ account to the university was the reverse on the question of consent. During Cornell’s investigation, he said he was too intoxicated to consent and suggested Doe assaulted him, school records reviewed by ABC News showed.
The New York Post reported that the records described him as intoxicated from alcohol and ketamine.
The day before she went to campus police, Doe called Ingalls and told him, “The only way for me to heal is to know what happened,” according to a recording ABC News obtained. She said she was trying to piece the night together and was confused.
On that call, Ingalls told her, “You did tell me you were sober, by the way,” and “You did, you said you hadn’t been anywhere.”
Doe answered, “That is not true. I never would have said that.”
Other outlets that reviewed the same reporting quoted her saying she had been “10 shots deep” when she arrived.
She asked him how other men entered the bedroom. He said the door had been unlocked, the party was crowded, and there was nowhere else to go, according to the recording.
ABC News reported that he did not mention Snapchat messages, later given to university investigators, in which he wrote to a group of nearly 60 members, “Like you can walk in and whip it out,” and “Boys come whip it out.”
The civil complaint described a related chain in which one brother wrote that there was “free p***y.”
At another point on the call, he said, “It’s possible that both of us, like, remember this and it’s not true.”
Doe said she remembered looking up and thinking there were too many people in the room. At a 2025 campus hearing, she said, “I felt like bait,” according to a university report ABC News reviewed.
In the days after the sexual incident, Doe stayed in contact with some of the men she later accused, ABC News reported.
In a message to Ingalls, she wrote that the episode was “ruining my life temporarily,” that her reputation was destroyed, and that she was ashamed that so many people knew.
After she reported the case, the fraternity brothers exchanged texts about whether to call her. “F***. Should I call [Jane]?” one wrote on Nov. 8.
The chapter president told him to wait while the executive board figured out what it was doing. A friend of Doe later told campus authorities the men tried to contact her almost every day “to keep them on her good side.”
Tompkins County District Attorney Matthew Van Houten said Doe’s original statement suggested the sex and drug use were consensual, and that his office declined to review additional interviews beyond her six-page statement to campus police.
Gov. Kathy Hochul then removed him from the case and named state Attorney General Letitia James to take over the criminal investigation.
Cornell said an outside law firm would review the university’s handling of the allegations.
The criminal case remains open under that new assignment, and the civil suit is separate.
Advertise with The Western Journal and reach millions of highly engaged readers, while supporting our work. Advertise Today.
Truth and Accuracy
We are committed to truth and accuracy in all of our journalism. Read our editorial standards.
