Police were sent to the family home of the Cornell student suing the university over an alleged sexual assault after a false emergency call on Tuesday evening. According to a police report obtained by CNN, the call claimed that a man had shot and killed his mother before turning the gun on his sister.
In mid-September, the woman, identified in court filings as Jane Doe, sued Cornell University, a fraternity and seven of its members, alleging they sexually assaulted her in 2024.
The false report was an instance of swatting, in which someone makes a false emergency report to prompt an armed police response. Doe’s attorney, Thomas Giuffra, described the incident to CNN on Wednesday.
Police arrive at Doe’s family home
An officer saw a car backing out of the driveway and stopped the two men inside. They turned out to be Doe’s brother and boyfriend, according to the police report. Her father then came to the door. He told police the family was “being threatened by numerous unknown people.”
Giuffra said officers pointed their weapons at Doe’s brother, boyfriend and father. “If you had a trigger-happy cop, or somebody had done the wrong thing, somebody could have ended up dead,” he said. Police are investigating the swatting attempt, and Giuffra said the FBI is also looking into it.
CNN reviewed two police reports indicating that officers arrived moments after Doe received a separate call. Giuffra said his wife also received a threatening call later that night. Neither police report establishes whether the calls were connected or who made them. Nothing in the reports links any of the accused students to the call.
Another threat reached Giuffra’s office on Wednesday afternoon. He shared a recording of the call with CNN. In it, a man identifies himself as “the person who called your client” and says, “I’m telling you guys simply, I think you should advise your client to withdraw the case. Otherwise blood will be shed.”
Doe’s complaint runs 101 pages. It alleges members of the Xi chapter of Chi Phi at Cornell drugged and assaulted her in October 2024. It also says the school failed to protect her and did not adequately punish the accused students. All of them deny wrongdoing.
Giuffra estimates that Doe has received dozens of threats since mid-September. One came in a text message on Monday featuring three gun emojis. Several online personalities have also tried to identify her. One of them, with 347,000 followers on X, later deleted a post in which he claimed to have named her. A former South Park writer has also claimed to have information about the seven students accused in the case.
Giuffra said the threats have become more concerning. “Before (this week), it was just a lunatic fringe, which you can be dismissive of,” he said. “Now it’s somebody taking real steps to harm you, and that’s pretty frightening.”
Doe is staying at her parents’ home with her boyfriend. On Wednesday, Doe was “taping paper over windows in the house she’s lived at her whole life,” Giuffra said, “so people can’t see into her house to take a shot at her.” CNN is withholding the home’s location at her lawyer’s request. “I don’t think she’s in a good spot now,” Giuffra added. “She’s scared.”
Doe attended Cornell’s Nolan School of Hotel Administration but did not finish her degree. Earlier this year, she moved on to pursue a career in New York City’s hospitality industry. After filing the lawsuit, she returned to her family home. “The dream is lost,” Giuffra told CNN.
Cornell’s Board of Trustees appointed Sally Yates, a former U.S. deputy attorney general, to review its handling of sexual misconduct complaints. Students held a seven-hour sit-in on campus Wednesday. On Monday, university President Michael Kotlikoff told a student assembly, “We’re all angry. I understand that anger,” according to the Cornell Daily Sun.
Published: Oct 10, 2026 09:17 am