A second defendant named in Jane Doe’s lawsuit alleging forcible drugging and gang rape at a Cornell University fraternity house is asking a judge to remove New York Attorney General Letitia James from the case.
Winston Lee joined fellow Chi Phi fraternity brother Gillio Lopes in seeking James’ removal as special prosecutor.
Lee argued the attorney general and Gov. Kathy Hochul “have together created a blatant appearance of impropriety” and James herself “has already publicly prejudged the guilt” of the subjects of her investigation.
“This public political stunt by the Governor and the AG to make repeated public statements, remove the case from the elected county prosecutor, and prejudge guilt in a criminal investigation for political advantage a month before election day is unethical and in violation of the law,” Lee’s attorney, Teny Geragos, said in a court filing Friday. “The AG is unquestionably biased, as her own public statements show.”
The woman at the center of the case, an undergraduate student identified only as Jane Doe, told Cornell campus police in November 2024, three weeks after the incident occurred, that she had been raped by eight to 10 men at the campus’ Chi Phi fraternity house. Each of the men has denied wrongdoing to investigators, in public statements, or through their lawyers.
Hochul last week appointed James to investigate the case.
In Friday’s court filing, Geragos cited a social media post by James in which the AG said, “What this young woman has been forced to endure is horrific and unacceptable. I’m holding her in my heart and in my prayers. To her, and to all survivors: you’re not alone. We stand with you.”
“It is the height of unfairness that an uncharged person like Mr. Lee, presumed to be innocent, should be investigated by anyone — much less the AG — who has already publicly endorsed the purported victim and concluded the accused are guilty,” Geragos said.
In a statement, a spokesperson for the New York attorney general’s office said, “In this and every investigation, the Office of the Attorney General is committed to conducting a comprehensive review of nothing but the facts, the evidence, and the law.”
James, asked Thursday evening about her comments on social media, said, “Those comments demonstrate empathy, and what we need now more than ever in our body politic is more empathy. The governor of the great state of New York, Gov. Kathy Hochul, assigned me to analyze this case and to judge it and to do it without bias. She’s requesting an unbiased investigation and a thorough investigation, and we will do that based on the facts and based on the evidence.”
“Politics stops at the door in my office,” James said. “I can assure New Yorkers that we will engage in a thorough investigation, which will be based on the facts and the law, and guided by the evidence.”
Hochul, following James’ social media post, said, “I have every confidence in our attorney general to do what she has always done: look at the facts, examine the record, and draw the proper conclusions. That’s exactly what’s going to happen in this case.”
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