00:00:00
Speaker 1: The following episode will be discussing themes of sexual assault. If you or anyone you know is a victim of sexual assault or abuse, call RAINN's Sexual Assault Hotline at 1-800-656-HOPE.
00:00:12
Speaker 2: That's 1-800-656-4673.
00:00:13
Speaker 1: Hi, guys.
00:00:17
Speaker 3: Welcome back to another episode of Dirty Rush. I am Jen Fessler, joined today by my friend, Alisa Donovan.
00:00:23
Speaker 4: Hi, Jen. Hi, Jen.
00:00:24
Speaker 3: Hi, Lisa. Lisa and I actually share another podcast called Killer Thriller that is about true crime and the world of Greek life and true crime seem to have come intertwined. Unfortunately, they've aligned. And we have been following the disturbing allegations, disturbing to say the least, surrounding the Cornell 7. So today we are going to bring in an expert to get some more information about this case because it is developing, it seems, quickly. every minute there is more and more information coming our way. So first we're going to bring in Anna Schechter, who is a reporter with CBS. Anna, thank you so much for joining us. We're thrilled to have you.
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Speaker 2: Good to be with you.
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Speaker 3: So, you know, for listeners who are just now hearing about the Cornell 7 case, can you just give us, I know there's so much new information and you guys have done such a good job of gathering it and sharing it, but just for listeners that don't know a really quick summary of what Jane Doe alleges happened that night and how the seven men are connected to the case.
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Speaker 4: So in a civil lawsuit filed in September, Jane Doe alleges that all seven were involved in an assault, a sexual assault. Now she, her lawyer has clarified that four of the seven men she's accusing of rape and three of the seven were there and abusing her, but they, he's clarified that she's not accusing them of rape. Um, she's also filed a lawsuit against the university, the fraternity, her own sorority and a bar where she says she was served alcohol. But of course the most explosive allegations are against, uh, these seven men. And really in particular, two of the men stand out in the lawsuit as, uh, having conducted themselves in a particularly egregious way when you read the details of all of the allegations.
00:02:28
Speaker 2: And of course, all seven men in.
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Speaker 4: Various ways, either through their lawyers more recently during their Title IX interviews in the past, or what we've gleaned from either audio recordings that have been put out into the public realm or text messages that we've obtained, they have all denied wrongdoing. And they have said that the sexual encounter was consensual and And one of the men says that he just walked in. He did not have sex with her. He did not do ketamine that night at all or do ketamine off of her body, which is the allegation.
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Speaker 2: So if there's really a range.
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Speaker 4: Or there is a lot of nuance, I think it's really important that we are very specific about which allegations are for which man. And to note that at this point, they have all denied wrongdoing and having reviewed the transcripts of six of the men, it's really clear that from their perspective and when they were interviewed during the Title IX investigation, their whole point is even if they felt shame or regret over the night, that they were not aware that she was intoxicated to the point of not being able to give consent. And from their perspective, she was consenting during all of these interviews Encounters which happened over the course of many hours from, you know, late Saturday night into Sunday morning.
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Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah.
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Speaker 5: Gosh, I have so many questions and so many things that I will try to curtail my personal questions. You know, this has just been so deeply, deeply, deeply upsetting, I think, to every female and any male who has a conscience and a proper moral barometer of any kind. But my question to you right now is what piece of evidence or information has stood out to you the most throughout their reporting? Is there anything specific?
00:04:33
Speaker 4: For me, having read the full report, text exchanges or what appear to be the full text exchanges between Jane Doe and we'll call them males one and two. Those are the first two that she's accusing in her lawsuit.
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Speaker 3: Are those the two there, I'm sorry, the rape or the other two that she's accusing?
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Speaker 2: Yes, no, those two are accused of rape.
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Speaker 4: One was found responsible for sexually assaulting her and was expelled. The other one was also expelled and was found responsible of sexual assault as well. And those are two of the men who posted to the Snapchat group chat that about 50 men had access to. Not all of them responded. Some of them responded. Male number two was the one who sort of advertised that this woman was available for sex and male number one posted into the chat something very vulgar, but essentially also encouraging frat members to go in.
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Speaker 2: Now, in these text exchanges that.
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Speaker 4: Start a day or two, depending on which man, after the encounters, you really feel like there is kind of an.
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Speaker 4: Friendship with male number two, and kind of an intimate bond that she's feeling, like she's reaching out, she's consoling both of them. It's really fascinating to see this, and you then watch her shift her understanding of things, and you kind of watch them trying to control, trying to maintain communication and contact with her in an apparent effort to kind of take back control of this narrative because from their perspective, from my read of the text messages, it appears that they're getting worried that she's now starting to accuse them of.
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Speaker 2: Potentially of a sexual assault.
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Speaker 4: And that, so those two text chains are the ones that really stand out to me. It's also the most recent documentation directly related to the case that our team has obtained. And so it's probably fresh in my mind. Of course, all of these documents are really, it's chilling. It's upsetting to read all of these documents. The first one being the six-page document that she signed that the investigators gave to the district attorney. Even that has a disturbing account of it.
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Speaker 2: But what you.
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Speaker 4: Take away is the impression that those six pages gives is that she was able to consent. There are a lot of quotes that, you know, they asked her if it was okay and she said yes. And then when you read the actual transcript, there's different language where she's saying, I can say with 100% confidence that I was raped.
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Speaker 2: Right.
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Speaker 5: So they took the, it's my understanding, correct me if I'm wrong, that the university police or committee, whoever made these decisions, took an over 100 page statement and cut it down to six pages, correct? When they gave it to the district attorney.
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Speaker 2: That's right.
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Speaker 4: Her interview happened over the course of two days. I'd have to go look at the page count of how many pages, but Yeah, it's probably about 100 pages because the entire document of all the transcripts is about 565 pages. So that sounds about right. And yes, it was distilled down. And notably, there is no quote, I was raped in that. Now, in the transcript, she is very honest about her willingness to go there. She's honest about her... drinking prior to go to the frat. So she's not hiding any of that. I think she wanted to give investigators a full picture of everything that happened. That's my read having read all of this.
00:09:04
Speaker 3: So Anna, when you look at, um, what, what you guys have put out most recently, right. I'm wondering what stands out the most, right. What is sort of the new piece of information that stands out the most. And also you mentioned that she, uh, something shifted, right. She was, um, she had a certain type of relationship with, uh, man one and man two, and you, you know, described it as, I don't know. Uh, I don't remember the word that you use, but it seemed that she had a, um, friendly relationship and then something shifted. And the way that it's been, I've heard that it's been represented, it had to do with the Halloween party. Is that still, is that what you think? Was that when the shift took place or do you see it differently?
00:09:58
Speaker 4: There's another moment where she's to look, she started to hear what people were talking about because word got out on campus and in the fraternity and sorority and Greek life that this had happened. And some of her friends were talking to her and saying, well, wait a minute, that doesn't sound consensual. And then she went and looked at an online Greek life forum. And there was one quote that she saw, you know, referring to Kai Phi as having gang banged a sophomore, essentially. And she herself tells investigators like that was the first time that she had seen it framed like that. And that had a big impact on her. So it took her a couple of weeks for her to shift, for this to shift in her mind. Now, with respects to a party at Kai-Fi, another party later on, because this happened mid-October. And then a couple of weeks later, there's going to be another big party at Kai-Fi. And she.
00:11:14
Speaker 4: Comes to understand that she's not invited and she's texting with male one about this. And then he says, no, no, no, wait a minute. You're definitely invited. Let me sort this out. I'm going to make sure that you're invited. But I think it was very hurtful for her. She then expresses in those text messages, well, of course, typical, the woman gets cut off and that's very upsetting for her. And all of this is evolving in this bigger context of she's talking to friends. She's starting to understand things differently. She's now on kind of a fact-finding mission where she's calling the males one and two. It's clear from the documentation that she spoke to both of them. We actually have a recording of her. and male one, and a recording of her and another man who she also accused of sexual assault. And these calls, for the most part, when you hear them, they are mostly kind of supportive language until it shifts.
00:12:25
Speaker 2: And then you hear it shift.
00:12:28
Speaker 3: Yeah. On the phone call, you mean not just literally on one of these phone calls, you hear a shift happen?
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Speaker 4: You hear a shift happen and it might be that there's another phone call with male one and he tells her everything was consensual and I did not know that you were intoxicated. Everything was consensual. So you piece it together that it starts to evolve in her mind how she perceives how the night went and then her communications with These men also starts to shift. She's recorded some of these phone calls. Those calls were part of an investigation that was going on in tandem with the Title IX investigation. And that's some great reporting that came out of ABC News. They obtained those phone calls. And Jane Doe's attorney confirmed to us that those were authentic phone calls. We have been reaching out to all of the men's attorneys and we've only been able to engage with two or three of them. They have all, the ones that have engaged with us have vigorously denied wrongdoing, vigorously denied that anything was not consensual. And one of the men who is accused of partaking in ketamine and doing ketamine off of her body, his lawyer says that never even happened. He took a hair follicle test.
00:14:01
Speaker 2: It showed it did not test for ketamine.
00:14:04
Speaker 4: And he's actually filed a lawsuit, his own lawsuit. And it's actually from that lawsuit that we at CBS News were able to pull a redacted version of the Title IX findings. It's a 99-page document. Much of it is redacted, but there is a lot of detail in there. related to this one man's case. So anything related to his case is not redacted, including the fact that he was found responsible by the Title IX investigation to have been responsible for attempted sexual exploitation. And his lawyer saying that needs to be expunged from his record because he didn't even do ketamine.
00:14:51
Speaker 2: He walked into the room and left, essentially.
00:14:57
Speaker 5: First of all, doesn't it track for victims of sexual violence to have a shift in their understanding because of the actual event itself and the way that they can emotionally metabolize what's happening? So are they trying to make it seem as though those text messages suggest that she just now changed her mind because she didn't get invited to a party?
00:15:25
Speaker 2: I know what you're saying.
00:15:26
Speaker 4: And having read all of this and digested a lot of it, I think there are two things can be true at the same time where she was there and was extremely intoxicated, was drunk, was encouraged to do ketamine, did ketamine.
00:15:43
Speaker 2: At one point she.
00:15:43
Speaker 4: Says in her transcript, in her interview, she was thinking, gosh, if I just do more ketamine, maybe I'll pass out and then they can be accused of rape. she tells an investigator that that was going through her mind and that these men who were also intoxicated, some of them also had done ketamine, did not in that moment understand what was going through her mind, that she was so uncomfortable at times and was not consenting. Particularly, there's a shift where she and one of the men, male one, go upstairs to an office, and another man joins, and at that point, she's done ketamine twice, she says. She only really remembers the second time. She is feeling like her eyeballs are spinning the wrong way. She's feeling really just disconnected, and another sexual encounter ensues, and I think as she's starting to piece this all together, she's like, well, she seems to express, she really didn't want to do that. She, but she always acknowledges that initially she was consenting to that initial sexual encounter with males one and two.
00:16:59
Speaker 2: Right.
00:16:59
Speaker 5: But that, and that's the whole, that seems to be very clear, right? There is this question of voluntary intoxication and consent. And let's, can you talk a little bit about that?
00:17:12
Speaker 4: This is, Very interesting point, because in New York State, if you voluntarily consume alcohol or drugs and become intoxicated, the law in New York State, which I predict will likely change potentially in part as a result of this case, you cannot, essentially, you can't say that you didn't consent because you consented to becoming intoxicated. So I know this is really alarming for a lot of people to hear. I think this is an important point, but I actually think at the heart of the matter is you still need to take every single person involves account and take all of that into account as you decide what happened. And also we all need to understand that different people had different perspectives of what happened that night.
00:18:12
Speaker 2: And you read that in these transcripts.
00:18:14
Speaker 3: Do you feel like these boys, they're sort of being lumped together and they all definitely, I mean, that's what I'm hearing from you. You tell me if I'm hearing what you're saying.
00:18:23
Speaker 5: But aren't they, shouldn't they be lumped together? My big question isn't fraternity culture, partly rape culture.
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Speaker 2: That is what it is.
00:18:34
Speaker 5: It is like this incestuous way of thinking about their masculinity and the bro code and all of this stuff. Isn't it in some way, how can, I don't know how we can talk about this without acknowledging that in some regard.
00:18:49
Speaker 4: I think right now in America, there should be a big conversation about Greek life in general and what you're describing fraternity culture. And I also think that every young person who goes away to college needs to have that in their mind as they're walking through their days.
00:19:13
Speaker 2: It's really important.
00:19:15
Speaker 4: There's been so much incredible reporting on this issue for years.
00:19:20
Speaker 3: Yes.
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Speaker 4: This case coming years after multiple other stories have bubbled.
00:19:27
Speaker 2: Up about this.
00:19:27
Speaker 3: Yeah.
00:19:28
Speaker 2: And it's a decades old issue.
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Speaker 3: Yeah. It's not just, it's kids. I just read today about a kid who is now brain dead from being hazed and what's going on in Greek life. And again, here at work, this podcast is called Dirty Rush. And we talk about, you know, some of the joys of being not just in Greek life, but in sororities and the friendships that form and, um, the fun that can be had. And then there's this side of it. Obviously there is a disconnect here. This side of it is, is not at all like what we usually talk about. And I, I know very clearly it exists.
00:20:06
Speaker 4: Yeah.
00:20:17
Speaker 3: How do you think they should be treated? As a group or individually?
00:20:21
Speaker 2: Well, first, I think you were saying tried.
00:20:24
Speaker 4: I would not say as a journalist just covering this issue and looking at every document and then piecing it together and interviewing as many people who are close to it as possible. I mean, I would never make a judgment on whether someone should be tried or not.
00:20:41
Speaker 2: I would say that 100%.
00:20:46
Speaker 4: Each person has to be taken individually. And there's journalism, and then there's the Title IX system, and then there's the criminal justice system. All those three things are completely different. Journalism is not about indicting someone. It's about shining a light on what happened and trying to get to the heart to understand the entire picture. So that's why I think it is important to have the nuance and separate out every person's conduct and have the context of the whole night.
00:21:30
Speaker 2: And ask a question.
00:21:33
Speaker 4: Why was there ketamine in a bag in the fraternity house? How, how did that happen?
00:21:39
Speaker 2: Well, guess what?
00:21:40
Speaker 4: That's extremely common on college campuses across the country. Ketamine has a dissociative effect on the body. So if Jane Doe is being encouraged to do ketamine, and then later in the night, she's saying she's being pushed to do ketamine, that's a big question. Now, she chose to drink alcohol, but she did not choose to be in the situation that she found herself in. So we just have to.
00:22:10
Speaker 2: Lay all of that out.
00:22:13
Speaker 4: It's unclear to me about the choice with the ketamine. It seems to me like she was intoxicated and chose to do that once, although it's even murky to me having read everything, if she actually did ketamine that first time.
00:22:30
Speaker 2: She then is pushed.
00:22:32
Speaker 4: Encouraged by... one of the men to do it a second time. And that's when she says, oh, I remember I must have done it the first time because I'm feeling like I'm going to do it the second time. That's the level of intoxication that we are talking about. Right.
00:22:48
Speaker 5: Doesn't that in and of itself state there is no consent?
00:22:54
Speaker 2: This is where it's really tricky.
00:22:55
Speaker 4: When she's describing and when she's giving her interviews, it is not clear to me And it doesn't appear that it was clear to her if when or if she was unconscious, fully unconscious at any point. And I think that is tricky. And that's tricky to deal with. She very well might have been. But when you're unconscious, you don't know. So this is such a difficult case because there are moments that we can't fully know because we're taking her account and then we're taking... Only six of the seven men, because remember, male one declined to be interviewed for the Title IX investigation. So there is no interview for him. Right.
00:23:44
Speaker 3: I appreciate you're talking about the effects of ketamine because I haven't seen too much of that in the news. And I have been thinking and wondering about how is it different from other drugs?
00:23:54
Speaker 4: It also has the effect of making it hard to remember.
00:23:59
Speaker 2: Wow.
00:24:01
Speaker 4: So she's taking it, but then the other men are taking it. The Title IX investigation also, of course, took into account these Snapchat messages, which carries another level. Now, remember, let's go back to that man who did do a hair follicle test. It came back negative for ketamine. His lawyer acknowledges that he wrote something stupid and immature in that group chat on Snapchat. But his lawyer says, but that is different than carrying out a criminal act.
00:24:36
Speaker 5: That may be true, but also this idea of de-escalate, you know, sort of making it something silly. What were the words you used? Juvenile or inappropriate or something. That can encompass a whole host of things. And to me, everything that has been made public anyway about those texts are despicable. So, you know, if we're using adjectives to describe things, then it starts to become kind of just your opinion of something when it loses the point of the entire thing, which is that group mentality, that herd fraternity thing, which is, it's misogynistic and it's outrageous. Like anybody that was a part of that string, I just, And it was sent to over 50 people and not one of them said, hey guys, this isn't so great. This is pretty gross. Like no one had, not one person was able to say that. And that is the part that really deeply upsets me.
00:25:46
Speaker 4: I'm going to add some more gray in there because the very man who sent the initial snap message that member, that initial message, which is, yes, in her lawsuit, as you read all of the documents, he's involved in the initial sexual encounter, a subsequent one, um, involved in the taking of ketamine and her taking of ketamine, uh, off of his body actually. And she texts about that, um, He is the one who later comes in and shuts it down and says, I don't, you know, whatever the F is happening in here, like we're shutting this down. So there are layers of gray.
00:26:36
Speaker 3: Do you think that has to do with the fact that he all of a sudden it hit him? I've done some disgusting, despicable things here and I'm about to get in trouble.
00:26:45
Speaker 4: I can't pass judgment because there's not enough from the transcript.
00:26:51
Speaker 2: To that gets at that.
00:26:53
Speaker 4: I would want to go back to his multi-page transcript of his interview.
00:26:58
Speaker 2: Some of them do express shame.
00:27:01
Speaker 3: For even being- I would certainly hope so.
00:27:03
Speaker 4: The situation, and it was beneath them. That's like one of them said that in his, a different one, not male one or two.
00:27:10
Speaker 3: Well, we're so grateful. And we have still so many questions. I hope that you'll come back as this case develops. It is such an emotional, difficult- case.
00:27:20
Speaker 4: You're hitting the nail on the head by looking at greek life in general i think that's a really important conversation good
00:27:28
Speaker 5: Good thank you so much anna we really appreciate your time good to be with you
Speaker 1: The following episode will be discussing themes of sexual assault. If you or anyone you know is a victim of sexual assault or abuse, call RAINN's Sexual Assault Hotline at 1-800-656-HOPE.
00:00:12
Speaker 2: That's 1-800-656-4673.
00:00:13
Speaker 1: Hi, guys.
00:00:17
Speaker 3: Welcome back to another episode of Dirty Rush. I am Jen Fessler, joined today by my friend, Alisa Donovan.
00:00:23
Speaker 4: Hi, Jen. Hi, Jen.
00:00:24
Speaker 3: Hi, Lisa. Lisa and I actually share another podcast called Killer Thriller that is about true crime and the world of Greek life and true crime seem to have come intertwined. Unfortunately, they've aligned. And we have been following the disturbing allegations, disturbing to say the least, surrounding the Cornell 7. So today we are going to bring in an expert to get some more information about this case because it is developing, it seems, quickly. every minute there is more and more information coming our way. So first we're going to bring in Anna Schechter, who is a reporter with CBS. Anna, thank you so much for joining us. We're thrilled to have you.
00:01:05
Speaker 2: Good to be with you.
00:01:07
Speaker 3: So, you know, for listeners who are just now hearing about the Cornell 7 case, can you just give us, I know there's so much new information and you guys have done such a good job of gathering it and sharing it, but just for listeners that don't know a really quick summary of what Jane Doe alleges happened that night and how the seven men are connected to the case.
00:01:28
Speaker 4: So in a civil lawsuit filed in September, Jane Doe alleges that all seven were involved in an assault, a sexual assault. Now she, her lawyer has clarified that four of the seven men she's accusing of rape and three of the seven were there and abusing her, but they, he's clarified that she's not accusing them of rape. Um, she's also filed a lawsuit against the university, the fraternity, her own sorority and a bar where she says she was served alcohol. But of course the most explosive allegations are against, uh, these seven men. And really in particular, two of the men stand out in the lawsuit as, uh, having conducted themselves in a particularly egregious way when you read the details of all of the allegations.
00:02:28
Speaker 2: And of course, all seven men in.
00:02:29
Speaker 4: Various ways, either through their lawyers more recently during their Title IX interviews in the past, or what we've gleaned from either audio recordings that have been put out into the public realm or text messages that we've obtained, they have all denied wrongdoing. And they have said that the sexual encounter was consensual and And one of the men says that he just walked in. He did not have sex with her. He did not do ketamine that night at all or do ketamine off of her body, which is the allegation.
00:03:05
Speaker 2: So if there's really a range.
00:03:07
Speaker 4: Or there is a lot of nuance, I think it's really important that we are very specific about which allegations are for which man. And to note that at this point, they have all denied wrongdoing and having reviewed the transcripts of six of the men, it's really clear that from their perspective and when they were interviewed during the Title IX investigation, their whole point is even if they felt shame or regret over the night, that they were not aware that she was intoxicated to the point of not being able to give consent. And from their perspective, she was consenting during all of these interviews Encounters which happened over the course of many hours from, you know, late Saturday night into Sunday morning.
00:03:57
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah.
00:03:59
Speaker 5: Gosh, I have so many questions and so many things that I will try to curtail my personal questions. You know, this has just been so deeply, deeply, deeply upsetting, I think, to every female and any male who has a conscience and a proper moral barometer of any kind. But my question to you right now is what piece of evidence or information has stood out to you the most throughout their reporting? Is there anything specific?
00:04:33
Speaker 4: For me, having read the full report, text exchanges or what appear to be the full text exchanges between Jane Doe and we'll call them males one and two. Those are the first two that she's accusing in her lawsuit.
00:04:50
Speaker 3: Are those the two there, I'm sorry, the rape or the other two that she's accusing?
00:04:54
Speaker 2: Yes, no, those two are accused of rape.
00:04:57
Speaker 4: One was found responsible for sexually assaulting her and was expelled. The other one was also expelled and was found responsible of sexual assault as well. And those are two of the men who posted to the Snapchat group chat that about 50 men had access to. Not all of them responded. Some of them responded. Male number two was the one who sort of advertised that this woman was available for sex and male number one posted into the chat something very vulgar, but essentially also encouraging frat members to go in.
00:05:47
Speaker 2: Now, in these text exchanges that.
00:05:50
Speaker 4: Start a day or two, depending on which man, after the encounters, you really feel like there is kind of an.
00:06:01
Speaker 4: Friendship with male number two, and kind of an intimate bond that she's feeling, like she's reaching out, she's consoling both of them. It's really fascinating to see this, and you then watch her shift her understanding of things, and you kind of watch them trying to control, trying to maintain communication and contact with her in an apparent effort to kind of take back control of this narrative because from their perspective, from my read of the text messages, it appears that they're getting worried that she's now starting to accuse them of.
00:06:44
Speaker 2: Potentially of a sexual assault.
00:06:47
Speaker 4: And that, so those two text chains are the ones that really stand out to me. It's also the most recent documentation directly related to the case that our team has obtained. And so it's probably fresh in my mind. Of course, all of these documents are really, it's chilling. It's upsetting to read all of these documents. The first one being the six-page document that she signed that the investigators gave to the district attorney. Even that has a disturbing account of it.
00:07:29
Speaker 2: But what you.
00:07:30
Speaker 4: Take away is the impression that those six pages gives is that she was able to consent. There are a lot of quotes that, you know, they asked her if it was okay and she said yes. And then when you read the actual transcript, there's different language where she's saying, I can say with 100% confidence that I was raped.
00:07:52
Speaker 2: Right.
00:07:53
Speaker 5: So they took the, it's my understanding, correct me if I'm wrong, that the university police or committee, whoever made these decisions, took an over 100 page statement and cut it down to six pages, correct? When they gave it to the district attorney.
00:08:11
Speaker 2: That's right.
00:08:11
Speaker 4: Her interview happened over the course of two days. I'd have to go look at the page count of how many pages, but Yeah, it's probably about 100 pages because the entire document of all the transcripts is about 565 pages. So that sounds about right. And yes, it was distilled down. And notably, there is no quote, I was raped in that. Now, in the transcript, she is very honest about her willingness to go there. She's honest about her... drinking prior to go to the frat. So she's not hiding any of that. I think she wanted to give investigators a full picture of everything that happened. That's my read having read all of this.
00:09:04
Speaker 3: So Anna, when you look at, um, what, what you guys have put out most recently, right. I'm wondering what stands out the most, right. What is sort of the new piece of information that stands out the most. And also you mentioned that she, uh, something shifted, right. She was, um, she had a certain type of relationship with, uh, man one and man two, and you, you know, described it as, I don't know. Uh, I don't remember the word that you use, but it seemed that she had a, um, friendly relationship and then something shifted. And the way that it's been, I've heard that it's been represented, it had to do with the Halloween party. Is that still, is that what you think? Was that when the shift took place or do you see it differently?
00:09:58
Speaker 4: There's another moment where she's to look, she started to hear what people were talking about because word got out on campus and in the fraternity and sorority and Greek life that this had happened. And some of her friends were talking to her and saying, well, wait a minute, that doesn't sound consensual. And then she went and looked at an online Greek life forum. And there was one quote that she saw, you know, referring to Kai Phi as having gang banged a sophomore, essentially. And she herself tells investigators like that was the first time that she had seen it framed like that. And that had a big impact on her. So it took her a couple of weeks for her to shift, for this to shift in her mind. Now, with respects to a party at Kai-Fi, another party later on, because this happened mid-October. And then a couple of weeks later, there's going to be another big party at Kai-Fi. And she.
00:11:14
Speaker 4: Comes to understand that she's not invited and she's texting with male one about this. And then he says, no, no, no, wait a minute. You're definitely invited. Let me sort this out. I'm going to make sure that you're invited. But I think it was very hurtful for her. She then expresses in those text messages, well, of course, typical, the woman gets cut off and that's very upsetting for her. And all of this is evolving in this bigger context of she's talking to friends. She's starting to understand things differently. She's now on kind of a fact-finding mission where she's calling the males one and two. It's clear from the documentation that she spoke to both of them. We actually have a recording of her. and male one, and a recording of her and another man who she also accused of sexual assault. And these calls, for the most part, when you hear them, they are mostly kind of supportive language until it shifts.
00:12:25
Speaker 2: And then you hear it shift.
00:12:28
Speaker 3: Yeah. On the phone call, you mean not just literally on one of these phone calls, you hear a shift happen?
00:12:34
Speaker 4: You hear a shift happen and it might be that there's another phone call with male one and he tells her everything was consensual and I did not know that you were intoxicated. Everything was consensual. So you piece it together that it starts to evolve in her mind how she perceives how the night went and then her communications with These men also starts to shift. She's recorded some of these phone calls. Those calls were part of an investigation that was going on in tandem with the Title IX investigation. And that's some great reporting that came out of ABC News. They obtained those phone calls. And Jane Doe's attorney confirmed to us that those were authentic phone calls. We have been reaching out to all of the men's attorneys and we've only been able to engage with two or three of them. They have all, the ones that have engaged with us have vigorously denied wrongdoing, vigorously denied that anything was not consensual. And one of the men who is accused of partaking in ketamine and doing ketamine off of her body, his lawyer says that never even happened. He took a hair follicle test.
00:14:01
Speaker 2: It showed it did not test for ketamine.
00:14:04
Speaker 4: And he's actually filed a lawsuit, his own lawsuit. And it's actually from that lawsuit that we at CBS News were able to pull a redacted version of the Title IX findings. It's a 99-page document. Much of it is redacted, but there is a lot of detail in there. related to this one man's case. So anything related to his case is not redacted, including the fact that he was found responsible by the Title IX investigation to have been responsible for attempted sexual exploitation. And his lawyer saying that needs to be expunged from his record because he didn't even do ketamine.
00:14:51
Speaker 2: He walked into the room and left, essentially.
00:14:57
Speaker 5: First of all, doesn't it track for victims of sexual violence to have a shift in their understanding because of the actual event itself and the way that they can emotionally metabolize what's happening? So are they trying to make it seem as though those text messages suggest that she just now changed her mind because she didn't get invited to a party?
00:15:25
Speaker 2: I know what you're saying.
00:15:26
Speaker 4: And having read all of this and digested a lot of it, I think there are two things can be true at the same time where she was there and was extremely intoxicated, was drunk, was encouraged to do ketamine, did ketamine.
00:15:43
Speaker 2: At one point she.
00:15:43
Speaker 4: Says in her transcript, in her interview, she was thinking, gosh, if I just do more ketamine, maybe I'll pass out and then they can be accused of rape. she tells an investigator that that was going through her mind and that these men who were also intoxicated, some of them also had done ketamine, did not in that moment understand what was going through her mind, that she was so uncomfortable at times and was not consenting. Particularly, there's a shift where she and one of the men, male one, go upstairs to an office, and another man joins, and at that point, she's done ketamine twice, she says. She only really remembers the second time. She is feeling like her eyeballs are spinning the wrong way. She's feeling really just disconnected, and another sexual encounter ensues, and I think as she's starting to piece this all together, she's like, well, she seems to express, she really didn't want to do that. She, but she always acknowledges that initially she was consenting to that initial sexual encounter with males one and two.
00:16:59
Speaker 2: Right.
00:16:59
Speaker 5: But that, and that's the whole, that seems to be very clear, right? There is this question of voluntary intoxication and consent. And let's, can you talk a little bit about that?
00:17:12
Speaker 4: This is, Very interesting point, because in New York State, if you voluntarily consume alcohol or drugs and become intoxicated, the law in New York State, which I predict will likely change potentially in part as a result of this case, you cannot, essentially, you can't say that you didn't consent because you consented to becoming intoxicated. So I know this is really alarming for a lot of people to hear. I think this is an important point, but I actually think at the heart of the matter is you still need to take every single person involves account and take all of that into account as you decide what happened. And also we all need to understand that different people had different perspectives of what happened that night.
00:18:12
Speaker 2: And you read that in these transcripts.
00:18:14
Speaker 3: Do you feel like these boys, they're sort of being lumped together and they all definitely, I mean, that's what I'm hearing from you. You tell me if I'm hearing what you're saying.
00:18:23
Speaker 5: But aren't they, shouldn't they be lumped together? My big question isn't fraternity culture, partly rape culture.
00:18:31
Speaker 2: That is what it is.
00:18:34
Speaker 5: It is like this incestuous way of thinking about their masculinity and the bro code and all of this stuff. Isn't it in some way, how can, I don't know how we can talk about this without acknowledging that in some regard.
00:18:49
Speaker 4: I think right now in America, there should be a big conversation about Greek life in general and what you're describing fraternity culture. And I also think that every young person who goes away to college needs to have that in their mind as they're walking through their days.
00:19:13
Speaker 2: It's really important.
00:19:15
Speaker 4: There's been so much incredible reporting on this issue for years.
00:19:20
Speaker 3: Yes.
00:19:21
Speaker 4: This case coming years after multiple other stories have bubbled.
00:19:27
Speaker 2: Up about this.
00:19:27
Speaker 3: Yeah.
00:19:28
Speaker 2: And it's a decades old issue.
00:19:31
Speaker 3: Yeah. It's not just, it's kids. I just read today about a kid who is now brain dead from being hazed and what's going on in Greek life. And again, here at work, this podcast is called Dirty Rush. And we talk about, you know, some of the joys of being not just in Greek life, but in sororities and the friendships that form and, um, the fun that can be had. And then there's this side of it. Obviously there is a disconnect here. This side of it is, is not at all like what we usually talk about. And I, I know very clearly it exists.
00:20:06
Speaker 4: Yeah.
00:20:17
Speaker 3: How do you think they should be treated? As a group or individually?
00:20:21
Speaker 2: Well, first, I think you were saying tried.
00:20:24
Speaker 4: I would not say as a journalist just covering this issue and looking at every document and then piecing it together and interviewing as many people who are close to it as possible. I mean, I would never make a judgment on whether someone should be tried or not.
00:20:41
Speaker 2: I would say that 100%.
00:20:46
Speaker 4: Each person has to be taken individually. And there's journalism, and then there's the Title IX system, and then there's the criminal justice system. All those three things are completely different. Journalism is not about indicting someone. It's about shining a light on what happened and trying to get to the heart to understand the entire picture. So that's why I think it is important to have the nuance and separate out every person's conduct and have the context of the whole night.
00:21:30
Speaker 2: And ask a question.
00:21:33
Speaker 4: Why was there ketamine in a bag in the fraternity house? How, how did that happen?
00:21:39
Speaker 2: Well, guess what?
00:21:40
Speaker 4: That's extremely common on college campuses across the country. Ketamine has a dissociative effect on the body. So if Jane Doe is being encouraged to do ketamine, and then later in the night, she's saying she's being pushed to do ketamine, that's a big question. Now, she chose to drink alcohol, but she did not choose to be in the situation that she found herself in. So we just have to.
00:22:10
Speaker 2: Lay all of that out.
00:22:13
Speaker 4: It's unclear to me about the choice with the ketamine. It seems to me like she was intoxicated and chose to do that once, although it's even murky to me having read everything, if she actually did ketamine that first time.
00:22:30
Speaker 2: She then is pushed.
00:22:32
Speaker 4: Encouraged by... one of the men to do it a second time. And that's when she says, oh, I remember I must have done it the first time because I'm feeling like I'm going to do it the second time. That's the level of intoxication that we are talking about. Right.
00:22:48
Speaker 5: Doesn't that in and of itself state there is no consent?
00:22:54
Speaker 2: This is where it's really tricky.
00:22:55
Speaker 4: When she's describing and when she's giving her interviews, it is not clear to me And it doesn't appear that it was clear to her if when or if she was unconscious, fully unconscious at any point. And I think that is tricky. And that's tricky to deal with. She very well might have been. But when you're unconscious, you don't know. So this is such a difficult case because there are moments that we can't fully know because we're taking her account and then we're taking... Only six of the seven men, because remember, male one declined to be interviewed for the Title IX investigation. So there is no interview for him. Right.
00:23:44
Speaker 3: I appreciate you're talking about the effects of ketamine because I haven't seen too much of that in the news. And I have been thinking and wondering about how is it different from other drugs?
00:23:54
Speaker 4: It also has the effect of making it hard to remember.
00:23:59
Speaker 2: Wow.
00:24:01
Speaker 4: So she's taking it, but then the other men are taking it. The Title IX investigation also, of course, took into account these Snapchat messages, which carries another level. Now, remember, let's go back to that man who did do a hair follicle test. It came back negative for ketamine. His lawyer acknowledges that he wrote something stupid and immature in that group chat on Snapchat. But his lawyer says, but that is different than carrying out a criminal act.
00:24:36
Speaker 5: That may be true, but also this idea of de-escalate, you know, sort of making it something silly. What were the words you used? Juvenile or inappropriate or something. That can encompass a whole host of things. And to me, everything that has been made public anyway about those texts are despicable. So, you know, if we're using adjectives to describe things, then it starts to become kind of just your opinion of something when it loses the point of the entire thing, which is that group mentality, that herd fraternity thing, which is, it's misogynistic and it's outrageous. Like anybody that was a part of that string, I just, And it was sent to over 50 people and not one of them said, hey guys, this isn't so great. This is pretty gross. Like no one had, not one person was able to say that. And that is the part that really deeply upsets me.
00:25:46
Speaker 4: I'm going to add some more gray in there because the very man who sent the initial snap message that member, that initial message, which is, yes, in her lawsuit, as you read all of the documents, he's involved in the initial sexual encounter, a subsequent one, um, involved in the taking of ketamine and her taking of ketamine, uh, off of his body actually. And she texts about that, um, He is the one who later comes in and shuts it down and says, I don't, you know, whatever the F is happening in here, like we're shutting this down. So there are layers of gray.
00:26:36
Speaker 3: Do you think that has to do with the fact that he all of a sudden it hit him? I've done some disgusting, despicable things here and I'm about to get in trouble.
00:26:45
Speaker 4: I can't pass judgment because there's not enough from the transcript.
00:26:51
Speaker 2: To that gets at that.
00:26:53
Speaker 4: I would want to go back to his multi-page transcript of his interview.
00:26:58
Speaker 2: Some of them do express shame.
00:27:01
Speaker 3: For even being- I would certainly hope so.
00:27:03
Speaker 4: The situation, and it was beneath them. That's like one of them said that in his, a different one, not male one or two.
00:27:10
Speaker 3: Well, we're so grateful. And we have still so many questions. I hope that you'll come back as this case develops. It is such an emotional, difficult- case.
00:27:20
Speaker 4: You're hitting the nail on the head by looking at greek life in general i think that's a really important conversation good
00:27:28
Speaker 5: Good thank you so much anna we really appreciate your time good to be with you
