Donna Rotunno: “No Due Process” in the “Cornell 7” Case

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Full Transcript:

Guy Benson: Joining us now is Donna Rotunno, a Fox News contributor. She’s a criminal defense attorney and host of the Fox News True Crime podcast, Crime and Justice with Donna Rotunno. Donna, welcome back to the show.

Donna Rotunno: Guy, thanks for having me.

Guy Benson: So the country is abuzz about this absolutely sickening story out of Cornell, an incident that occurred in 2024, all of it coming to light more publicly much more recently, and people taking sides. There’s very much a political angle to this now.

I want to talk about the legal side, which is your bread and butter. As a lawyer, as a defense attorney, as someone–and a woman, frankly–looking at the facts of this case, I want to know how you’re feeling about it broadly, because it is morally appalling in multiple ways. It turns my stomach.

There’s also the distinction between those feelings of revulsion and the legal implications here and potential liabilities, whether criminal or civil. It’s a complicated picture, with emotions running very high. How do you view this?

Donna Rotunno: So I think you’re spot on in everything that you have just laid out. Here’s the way I look at this.

First of all, there is a big difference between sins and crimes. I think there is no doubt about the fact that sins were committed that night. First of all, the behavior by all involved not only needs to be questioned and looked at, but it needs to be a learning moment for anyone in college, going to college, or a young person who’s thinking about decisions that they make.

So that’s number one. In terms of the criminal aspect of this, what do you have to look at? You look at a variety of things.

You look at the delay in reporting. This happened at the beginning of October. There was not a report made until the beginning of November. So there’s this period of time where there’s a lot of communication between the parties involved.

And what does this come down to? This comes down to a consent issue. I don’t think there’s any argument about the fact that the behavior was horrendous for everyone involved, but I think you have to look at whether or not these were consenting adults who decided to engage in this activity.

Then you have to look at the law in New York, and the law in New York talks about voluntary intoxication. If you are voluntarily intoxicated, you still can give consent. As long as you are coherent and able to speak and have conversations, then you are entering into actions knowingly.

So you have to look at all of those aspects. And when we look at the investigation that took place initially, you have to ask yourself, did they do things the right way?

I know that there’s a lot of communication now that the campus police did not give everything to the D.A. But then I have to say, well, why didn’t the D.A. ask for everything? I mean, if the only thing the D.A. got was a six-page statement, the D.A. himself should have done some more digging.

Obviously, all of that needs to be looked at when we’re determining whether or not there should be criminal charges brought.

My problem with this is that now we’re looking at a civil lawsuit, and this 2026 story that is being told in the civil lawsuit seems to be quite different from what was told in 2024. It also seems to omit a lot of the circumstances that were in play in 2024, and it decides to just sort of conveniently leave those things out.

So, you know, we have to be careful about looking at any of these pieces of information in a vacuum. They need to be looked at in the totality of the circumstances to make the right decision.

But what we have now is, you know–let’s remember the Duke lacrosse players back 20 years ago. This is now a situation where these kids, their names are out there. They’re being dragged through the mud. And should they be? We don’t know.

There’s a rush to judgment. There’s been no due process. There had been a Title IX investigation that was done, and that came to a conclusion that everybody was drinking and drugging and doing things that were outside of the lines of the proper policies and codes of conduct and behavior.

But beyond that, we really don’t know all of the facts. So this rush to judgment, where you have people on both sides just screaming as loud as they can, is very dangerous. And frankly, the information the lawyers are putting out, I think, is also very dangerous because they’re all telling one side, and we don’t have the whole picture. We just don’t.

Guy Benson: Speaking of communications between the parties involved–and there was a lot of it, as you pointed out–I just saw an ABC News report earlier. They obtained a recording of a phone call that took place between the woman involved, the alleged victim, if you want to call her that, that’s certainly how I think some of the evidence would suggest she was, and one of the fraternity brothers that was allegedly involved in this, who initially had invited her. She met up with him, and things started to sort of spiral from there.

This was shortly after the incident in question. ABC News sort of chopped up the audio, starting here in cut 29.

ABC News: ABC News has obtained a recording of a phone call between Jane Doe and the fraternity brother she went to see the night she was allegedly attacked. The call appears to show that he was trying to convince her he meant no harm, and she consented.

Student: Want me to give my recollection of the entire night?

ABC News: Three weeks after her traumatic night at the Chi Phi house, a then-Cornell student, now known as Jane Doe, called Matthew Ingalls, the friend who invited her to the fraternity that night, recording the entire conversation.

She told him she spent time in the emergency room and in therapy because “there’s so much damage on my body and my brain.” She said, “If I wanted to take this somewhere, what y’all did would be classified as gang rape. You already knew when I came in, I was 10 shots deep.”

Ingalls responded with a different recollection.

Student: You did tell me you were sober, by the way. You did. You said you hadn’t been anywhere.

Guy Benson: So they’re having this disagreement sort of in real time in the he-said, she-said aftermath of all of this. The ABC report continued in cut 30.

ABC News: Jane Doe said she was 100% sure she told him she had been at a bar for a sorority event.

Jane Doe: And I never lie.

ABC News: She asked him how they ended up in a threesome with one of his frat brothers.

Student: So you come in, say hi. We start dancing for like maybe three to five minutes, and then I pop the question. You say yes. Then I remember, like, we didn’t know who else to bring, so I go up to , who was on the dance floor too, and I pop the question, and he’s like, “Yo,” and we go upstairs.

ABC News: Jane Doe then asked for his help to identify all of the men, saying she remembered four in the bed and more standing around the room. Ingalls seemed to suggest both of their memories may not be accurate.

Guy Benson: And then this last piece, Donna, cut 31.

Student: I have racked my brain for this mystery. You know, it’s possible that both of us, like, remember this and it’s not true.

ABC News: Jane Doe pushed back, saying, “No, because I remember looking up and being like, that is too many people.” She then asked, “Do you remember how any of these guys walked in?”

Student: The party was sort of crowded, so people started building up the balcony just because there was nowhere else to go.

ABC News: Ingalls did not mention that during the incident he posted to a group on Snapchat a photo of her in bed and an invitation to his fraternity brothers, saying, “Boys, come whip it out.”

Guy Benson: So, Donna, obviously, this is hard to listen to. And that last piece, I think, that last clip is pretty incriminating, certainly morally and potentially legally as well, for this frat brother whose voice you heard there.

He was expelled by the university, by the way, where they’re trying to piece this together. She’s accusing him. He’s getting defensive and saying, “No, you told me this.” She remembers it differently.

And when they’re trying to remember who was in the room, and she’s trying to figure out why there were so many people in the room at that point, he’s saying, “Oh, I can’t really remember,” and not mentioning what we know he did, which was putting that online message to a group of frat brothers on Snapchat saying, “Hey, look who we have here. Come on in and basically get ready to go.”

That is, I think, a very, very disturbing fact against him.

Donna Rotunno: Yeah, I agree with you. It’s an awful fact, and it could end up being something that charges are brought because of.

But I also think that that phone call–and I’m just going to say this to everybody listening–you better make sure before you record a phone call, whatever jurisdiction you live in, because where I live, that’s a crime. So she got lucky that it wasn’t a crime to record that phone call.

So the bottom line is, part of me is wondering if that phone call was a setup, right? Like, she knew that she wanted to get some information. She knew she had to sort of couch this in a specific way because, remember, at the same time, there’s this back-and-forth going on about whether or not she’s getting invited to a Halloween party.

And she was upset that she was disinvited to this Halloween party at the frat house, and she wanted to come back to the Halloween party. So part of me is wondering, right after all of this had happened–

Guy Benson: Right after all of this had happened, right? She really wanted to go back for another party.

Donna Rotunno: Yes, yes. And it happened at the beginning of October, and now we’re talking about Halloween. And so you kind of have to remember the context, where I think she, in some ways, is trying to get herself back in these good graces and maybe thinking that if she puts these things out there and makes these threats, it’s going to be beneficial to her.

At the same time, you’re absolutely right. The fact that they did not mention that this Snapchat went out is absolutely horrific.

And you would hope that every parent out there is going to have a conversation with their sons about this is not the way to act. And frankly, hopefully every parent is going to have a conversation with their daughter and say, “Do not go to frat houses if you’ve had too much to drink.”

So, at the end of the day, I think hopefully this becomes a learning experience regardless of what happens on the legal side. But I do caution everybody to kind of take a breath here and wait to let all this play out before everybody starts making massive judgments on either side.

Guy Benson: Yeah, I think that’s fair. And, you know, part of this, I look at this and, as a new father of a daughter, I just feel sick at the way this woman was treated, even if there was a lot of consent.

And I think there’s quite a bit of evidence that she consented to some or much or all of it. It’s kind of unclear in the finger-pointing after the fact, back and forth. And as the father of a son, I would never, ever, ever want him to think anything like this is okay or close to okay.

And then there’s also, coming back to the key point in your realm, the legal realm, the question of whether or not any of this would have been prosecutable because of discrepancies.

And again, I’ve laid out some of the really, I think, damning elements of this for the guys, but at the same time, there are discrepancies between what she told authorities and was telling people and the way she was behaving when this happened versus this new story, very sensational and even worse, being told in the civil lawsuit.

That disconnect, at least to me as a non-expert in this sordid, awful matter, seems like it should be a problem and should not be just dismissed away because people have their biases or their political opinions or whatever it might be.

Donna Rotunno: Sure, of course. And remember, any time a civil lawsuit is filed, what are you seeking in a civil lawsuit? Money.

So you always have to look at that skeptically when you’re wondering what the motivation is. So you have to remember that as well.

And the really ironic part is that the civil lawsuit complaint could actually be used against her if she were to testify in a criminal case because of the different statements made there. She swears to those, even though it’s signed off by her lawyer. You swear to those as a client.

Guy Benson: And that could very well be reasonable doubt, because if you’re looking at this at this time, then you said this other thing at another time when you’re seeking money. Like, that’s why I think tapping the brakes, taking a breath, trying to follow the evidence on the legal side of things is, of course, the correct course of action.

And right now, a lot of people are not doing that.

Donna, I want to resume with a quick soundbite. This was from this week on ABC, Michelle Cottle of The New York Times. She tried to turn this into some sort of referendum on the morality of President Trump. Here’s how she tried to shoehorn in that point, cut 28.

Michelle Cottle: It’s a fundamental disrespect for women. You can’t send those messages, no matter how drunk you are as a frat boy, without having some kind of misunderstanding about what women are there for and whether this is a real person you’re dealing with.

And that, I think, starts–you know, we can go to the president for this one. I mean, we are in a moment in this culture where the glorification of being thuggish and swaggering and mistreating women is kind of making you a cool kid.

Guy Benson: So the shot there being taken at President Trump, and then the internet noted that actually the incident happened when Joe Biden was president. So I think that is a partisan, dumb take. And there’s been quite a few of those across the board in this case.

Then there’s the impartiality question because Governor Kathy Hochul has appointed her attorney general, Letitia James, who’s infamous for all sorts of reasons. She’ll be like the lead investigator now for the state of New York, with all the pressure building.

I played this clip on Friday, Donna. I’ll play it again. Here’s a very good question from a reporter, then the response from these two officials, Hochul and then James, cut 26.

Interview: Attorney General, on your Facebook page three days ago, you wrote, “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.”

But why did you affirm her allegations as fact without doing your own fact-finding investigation? And why did you appoint an official who made a public statement affirming those allegations as a fact as someone who’s supposed to be doing an investigation?

Kathy Hochul: I will answer that. 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.

Attorney General?

Letitia James: I will not comment on a Facebook post.

Guy Benson: So, Donna, from your perspective, yeah, Hochul’s just kind of talking right past what Letitia James publicly posted, which seems very much to be pre-biased for political reasons. And then James declines to comment on the Facebook post, even though it’s her Facebook post.

Donna Rotunno: Correct. She acts as if it’s almost like somebody else posted it. “Oh, why would you even question me about a Facebook post? How ridiculous.”

It’s so maddening to me that these two women could stand up there and act as if they could be impartial. I mean, Tish James is known for her partiality. I mean, that’s what she ran–she ran on a platform that she was coming after President Trump before there was any evidence of any crime.

So, I mean, this is what she is known for. And I’ll tell you, I have zero confidence that this will be a fair and impartial investigation.

I can tell you that I trust that these kids are going to be charged, and it is going to be politically motivated. It is going to be culturally motivated.

And, you know, as a woman, I listen to this constant push that women want true equality. And I believe that we do, and I believe we should have it. But in order to have true equality, you have to assume equal risk.

And when we listen to women go on and on about how women deserve more and women deserve respect and women deserve to be treated better, well, then, if you want equality, that goes for men too.

It’s not this one-sided thing where women are elevated over men and some 20-year-old guy is supposed to decide that a 20-year-old girl has had too much to drink.

How about everybody involved needs to learn how to make better choices? And if you want true equality, you need to assume equal risk.

Guy Benson: Donna Rotunno, very quickly, how does this play out? This could be a long, messy process, yes?

Donna Rotunno: I think it is going to be long, and I think that Tish James is going to let it drag on because she wants to make it seem as if she’s spending this time and it is going to be impartial, but I do think that they’ve made up their minds.

But I do think ultimately we will see charges for some or all of the people involved here, and then this case will work its way through the criminal justice system.

And frankly, the only way these kids–all of them, you know, alleged victim and all these guys–get any type of due process is to let it play out. Because otherwise, all you now have is your name being dragged through the mud, and she has the benefit of anonymity at this point and these young men do not.

Guy Benson: Donna Rotunno is a Fox News contributor. She’s a criminal defense attorney. You can listen to her true crime podcast, Crime and Justice. Donna, thank you.

Donna Rotunno: Of course, Guy. Thank you.