Former Diddy Case Prosecutor to Lead Cornell Rape Investigation

A former federal prosecutor named Jacqueline Kelly will lead a criminal investigation into rape allegations at Cornell University in New York. New York Attorney General Letitia James announced the appointment on Wednesday. The investigation was sparked by a lawsuit filed by a former Cornell student who says she was raped at a fraternity party in October 2024. Kelly is known for her work on major sex crimes cases, including the case against music mogul Sean "Diddy" Combs.

Kelly is a graduate of Cornell University and Columbia Law School. She is now a partner at a law firm called Boies Schiller Flexner. Before joining the firm, she spent nearly a decade as a prosecutor in the Manhattan U.S. Attorney's Office. There, she led a unit focused on civil rights, sex crimes, voting rights violations, and hate crimes.

Kelly and a team of lawyers and investigators will gather evidence, interview witnesses, and study police records. They will also look at the facts and the laws that apply to the case. Everything they find will be reported to Attorney General James. James said the investigation will likely take several months to complete.

The former Cornell student, known in court papers as Jane Doe, says several men raped her at a fraternity party. She says some of the men pressured her to use drugs like ketamine and marijuana. She also says she drank alcohol that left her unable to make decisions for herself. A few weeks after the incident, she reported it to campus police and the university's Title IX office, which handles complaints about sex discrimination at schools.

New York Governor Kathy Hochul appointed James as a special prosecutor on October 1. Hochul said she lost trust in the local prosecutor, Tompkins County District Attorney Matthew Van Houten, who chose not to bring charges in 2024. Van Houten later said he would reopen the investigation after Jane Doe filed her lawsuit. A lawyer for Jane Doe said Van Houten was planning to bring the case to a grand jury within two weeks.

Separately, two men named in Jane Doe's lawsuit are asking a judge to remove James from the investigation. They argue that James is biased because she posted a message on social media supporting the accuser before she was even appointed to lead the probe. A judge has not yet made a decision on that request.

Kelly has handled many serious criminal cases during her career. As a federal prosecutor, she helped bring cases against a former brain doctor who abused patients and a music teacher who sexually abused five students. She also prosecuted a dozen members of the Lucchese crime family, a well-known organized crime group. At her current law firm, she works on criminal investigations and helps victims of sexual assault.

The case has raised big questions about how universities handle reports of sexual assault. Cornell hired former U.S. Deputy Attorney General Sally Yates last month to review how the school deals with sexual assault complaints and how campus police respond. Attorney General James has used outside lawyers to help with investigations before. In 2021, she hired two outside lawyers to investigate sexual harassment claims against then-Governor Andrew Cuomo, which eventually led to his resignation.