An attorney for the woman at the center of the Cornell rape investigation say she is now receiving threats and being pressured to drop her lawsuit, as New York’s attorney general is tapped to oversee a renewed probe into her sexual assault allegations. Jane Doe’s attorney said the local distr ict attorney failed to subpoena crucial evidence back in 2024. He also said there are lots of folks trying to reveal his client’s identity — and that they have found the wrong people, resulting in death threats being sent to people unrelated to the case. Gov. Kathy Hochul has appointed New York Attorney General Letitia James to oversee the investigation. Critics, including President Trump, have said James cannot be impartial. “Well, I think Tish James, at least what her office has told to me, is they’re reaching out to outside people to get involved, because the attorney general’s office doesn’t typically investigate crimes of this sort,” Thomas Giuffra told CNN’s “State of the Union” Sunday. “So it sounds to me that people are being brought in who are experienced in crime and investigating crime. So, I think there will be impartiality. I think there will be fairness.” Cornell University’s president also spoke publicly for the first time this weekend about the 2024 allegations. “What happened to Jane Doe in 2024 is deeply disturbing,” Michael I. Kotlikoff said in a video posted on the school’s website. “It raises heartbreaking and troubling issues about sexual assault, dehumanization and aspects of party culture, alcohol and drug use.” Jane Doe voluntarily gave a sworn statement to Cornell University Police 26 days after the alleged assault. In it, she detailed a night when she initially agreed to a threesome, but she said she felt increasingly incapacitated as the night went on and that she had gaps in her memory. Her complaint names seven Chi Phi fraternity brothers who she claims sexually assaulted her. Giuffra now says there may have been more than seven fraternity members involved. “Frankly I’m not even sure we have everybody who participated in this assault because my client was blacked out during periods of time and that’s reported in these statements,” he told CNN. “The people we have are the people we definitively know. If you ask me, I believe there were more.” As the case continues to draw attention, a separate wave of social media posts has surged in support of the plaintiff. Countless women — and some men — have posted that they were Jane Doe, backing the young accuser. She used that name to file a lawsuit against Cornell University and seven fraternity members she accuses of raping her. For many, claiming the name came along with sharing personal accounts of being sexually abused and assaulted. Some said the posts were also meant to offer the accuser protection in the digital age, in response to people trying to identify her real name online. They hoped the flood of “I am Jane Doe” posts would confuse online algorithms. “These moments … are encouraging more women to speak up and tell their stories,” Emma Davidson Tribbs, founding director of the National Women’s Defense League, told The Associated Press. “They are giving people a level of bravery and comfort to come forward and speak their truth. And they can be incredibly catalyzing for change.” Wendy Lea Brewer, a singer, told the AP she posted “I am Jane Doe” and “It’s time to speak” captions on Instagram after hearing about the Cornell case. “We are all right here feeling the same thing, and we have had enough,” Brewer said. Kelsey Combe, a photographer in the Midwest, told the AP she made her “I am Jane Doe” post to confuse AI models and stand in solidarity with Doe. She also told the AP that AI later linked her as the actual Jane Doe, saying it was Combe that sued Cornell. “It was an interesting situation, because the second that I sounded the alarm about it … a lot of people were replying, ‘Well, you asked for this. You participated in this. What did you think was going to happen?’ And I was like, ‘Well, look at that.’” Combe was able to get it removed, but not without getting a taste of what public critique can be like. The use of pseudonyms like Jane Doe in lawsuits has grown in recent decades, according to Diana Simon, a professor of law at the University of Arizona. She told the AP that there can be situtations where remaining anonymous could be in a person’s best interest. The Associated Press contributed to this story. This story was originally reported for broadcast by NBC New York. AI tools helped convert the story to a digital article, and an NBC New York journalist edited the article for publication. ...read more read less