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The “Cornell 7” Jane Doe dropped a man from her lawsuit whom she wrongly identified as president of the school’s Chi Phi fraternity — whose members she claims gang raped her.
Doe, who has accused seven Chi Phi brothers of sexually assaulting her at a party in October 2024, initially named Orazio Petito in her civil lawsuit, which she filed last month.
Petito, who was mistakenly identified as the chapter’s president, was not accused of sexual assault.
He has now been dropped from Doe’s complaint, according to a notice of discontinuance filed Tuesday.
The actual identity of Chi Phi’s chapter president at the time remains unclear.
“We’re pleased with the dismissal of the case against my client, and justice was served,” Petito’s attorney, Eric Bernstein, told Newsday.
It comes as Doe released a new letter blasting Cornell University’s president, Michael Kotlikoff, for his response to her alleged assault.
She claimed that after she reported the alleged attack in November 2024, Kotlikoff spoke with her sorority president, asking, “Why did she wait so long to report it?” according to her letter, which was obtained by the New York Times.
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Doe branded Kotlikoff’s alleged initial response “an expression of doubt in the veracity of my story,” according to the letter, dated Oct. 14.
She said that when Tri Delta’s then-president told her, she “felt unsupported and disbelieved by President Kotlikoff,” the letter states.
Doe added that the experience had further tarnished her views of Cornell, which she described as her “dream school.”
Kotlikoff acknowledged missteps in the Ivy League school’s handling of the case as he faced angry faculty members at a meeting last Wednesday.
But the under-fire president defended his leadership, as the university’s faculty Senate debated a no-confidence resolution in his administration.
Describing the problems brought up by the Cornell 7 case as “not easy,” Kotlikoff insisted that replacing him as president would harm Cornell’s reputation.
He also left open the possibility of sweeping restrictions on Greek life, saying that Cornell needed to determine whether fraternities could safely operate.
Doe alleges that she was sexually assaulted or exploited by Chi Phi brothers Matthew Ingalls, Scott Kretzschmar, Winston Lee, Gillio Lopes, Jonathan Newell, Scott Norris, and Diego Sarabia at a fraternity party when she was a 20-year-old sophomore.
All seven men have denied wrongdoing, arguing either that the interactions were consensual or that they weren’t involved.
None of the fraternity brothers have been criminally charged, while the Chi Phi chapter at Cornell was shut down in the wake of the incident, which also saw two of the seven expelled.
A Cornell spokesperson told The Post that they had received legal correspondence from Jane Doe’s lawyer, but challenged her account of the school’s initial handling of the case.
“The Dean of Faculty received legal correspondence claiming to be from a law firm representing Jane Doe, which he subsequently turned over to the General Counsel to verify and to share with the Independent Review,” the spokesperson said.
“The second-hand account of the question asked by President Kotlikoff in a January 2025 meeting in the letter is incorrect, based on a documented first-hand account,” they added.
“The question ‘Why did it take so long for the assault to be reported?’ was directed at bystanders who did not use Cornell’s anonymous tip line, despite ongoing social media activity about the incident in October 2024. He was not questioning Jane Doe’s reporting,” the spokesperson said.
Doe’s attorney did not respond immediately to requests for comment.