Santul Nerkar and Hurubie Meko
NEW YORK – The woman who has accused multiple men of raping her at a Cornell University fraternity house in 2024 can remain anonymous as she pursues her lawsuit against them, a judge in Manhattan ruled on Oct 23.
In an eight-page ruling, Judge Phaedra Perry-Bond of state Supreme Court in Manhattan ordered that the woman would continue to be identified as Jane Doe, instead of by her legal name.
None of the men accused by Jane Doe have been charged with a crime, and they have all denied wrongdoing. They, along with their lawyers, are barred from discussing Jane Doe’s identity publicly.
In the order on Oct 23, the judge said that a statement provided to the court by Jane Doe, along with the fact that no defendant opposed her using a pseudonym, was sufficient reason to grant her anonymity.
Thomas Giuffra, a lawyer for Jane Doe, said in a statement that his client was “relieved” by Perry-Bond’s decision.
“Jane Doe is very appreciative that the judge recognised the dangers posed by the attempts to identify threaten, harass online and at her home,” Giuffra said.
The ruling is the latest development in an ongoing fight to protect the identifying details of the people involved in the lawsuit from being disclosed by an online mob.
According to a report by the online analytics company Gudea, conducted at the request of The New York Times, more than 25,000 posts were made on the social platform X purporting to name the accuser, just one week after an X user implored his followers to “discover the Cornell girl”.
Threats have also been directed at a man completely unrelated to the case who had the same name as a defendant, after Jane Doe’s lawyers mistakenly served him with court papers and put his identifying information in public filings.
In response to those threats, Perry-Bond ordered Giuffra to refile those documents with the personal addresses of the defendants redacted.
On Oct 23, she invited the lawyers in the case to file a proposal that would provide “all involved parties with some degree of protection regarding their sensitive personal information”.
Courts do not automatically allow people who say they are victims of sexual assault to remain anonymous as they pursue civil claims, Perry-Bond said.
Judges must weigh concerns of privacy and the public interest, while “preventing prejudice to defendants,” she said.
Perry-Bond also warned that people who threatened the accuser, or anyone involved in the case, could be charged with a federal crime, writing that “some people of the public have made it their mission to try and identify Jane Doe”. NYTIMES
This article originally appeared in The New York Times.