Cornell’s Jane Doe is ‘terrified’ after police swarmed her home in a swatting incident, her lawyer says

By Rob Picheta, CNN

(CNN) — One month ago, the woman now known to America as Cornell’s Jane Doe was living in New York City among thousands of other aspirational twentysomethings, attempting to break into the hotel industry and build a new life, according to her attorney, Thomas Giuffra.

But that plan has been derailed since she filed a lawsuit against Cornell University and others, alleging she was raped at a frat house in 2024.

Instead, Giuffra said, Doe spent Wednesday taping up paper to obscure the windows of her parents’ home out of fear that a gunman could attack her, and reeling from a swatting episode that he said prompted police to swarm their home Tuesday night with weapons drawn.

Doe is increasingly scared for her own safety, Giuffra said in a phone interview with CNN on Wednesday as he detailed his client’s deteriorating mental state after an escalating series of violent threats.

Officers pointed weapons at Jane Doe’s boyfriend, her brother and her father after receiving a bogus tip that “someone was killing people in the house” on Tuesday evening, he said.

Death threats, doxxing attempts and an outpouring of anger online have also been levied at his client, Giuffra added.

“I don’t think she’s in a good spot now,” Giuffra said. “She’s scared.”

The public fallout from her allegations have rocked one of the country’s leading educational institutions. The university, its campus police force and the Tompkins County District Attorney’s office have each faced scrutiny over how they initially investigated her claims. Anger among students was palpable during a Wednesday sit-in on the Ithaca, New York, campus.

Doe herself has been following media reports and social media posts on her case, Giuffra told CNN as he described a family reeling from a sudden and terrifying ordeal that punctured their sense of safety.

“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’s parents are furious after a fake tip to police, lawyer says

At 7 p.m. on Tuesday evening, a police officer in Doe’s hometown was dispatched to respond to a disturbing call: A man had shot and killed his mother and then turned the gun on his sister.

The information was bogus. But the officer, believing an active-shooter situation was unfolding, rushed to Doe’s home, where he saw a car backing out from the driveway, according to a police report from the incident obtained by CNN.

As he apprehended the two men in the vehicle – later revealed to be Doe’s brother and her boyfriend – another figure emerged from the home’s doorway. “I’m the dad. What’s going on?” he yelled, according to the report. The man told police his daughter is Jane Doe of the Cornell case and that the family was “being threatened by numerous unknown people.”

The swatting incident was an escalation in a series of threats to Doe’s safety that have roiled her family this week. The term “swatting” refers to false tips made to law enforcement agencies with the intention of having armed officers deployed to somebody’s home or place of business.

“Luckily the brother was in his car, (he) put his hands up,” Giuffra told CNN on Wednesday, relaying the events of the night. “(Doe’s) boyfriend got thrown on the ground,” and her father also had “guns put in his face,” according to Giuffra. “If you had a trigger-happy cop, or somebody had done the wrong thing, somebody could have ended up dead,” he said.

Police are now investigating the swatting attempt, and the FBI is also looking into the events, according to Giuffra.

According to Doe’s lawyer and two police reports reviewed by CNN, police arrived moments after Doe received a separate phone call from somebody claiming to share a first name with one of the seven men she named in her civil complaint.

According to her account to officers in the reports, Doe “began panicking” when she received the call, “because (her phone) wouldn’t stop ringing.” She informed officers about that previous call while they were at her house following the swatting tip.

Before the night was over, Giuffra’s wife told him that she, too, had received a threatening phone call. “These people have done so much research into (Doe),” Giuffra said. It is not clear whether the separate threats cited in the police reports were connected.

Giuffra said he was in contact with Doe and her family on Wednesday. Her parents are angry and she is terrified, he said.

The lawyer shared with CNN an audio recording of a call he says was placed to his office on Wednesday afternoon. In the recording, a man identifies himself as “the person who called your client.”

The man also is heard saying: “I’m telling you guys simply, I think you should advise your client to withdraw the case. Otherwise blood will be shed.”

Doxxing attempts also have taken their toll

Tuesday’s swatting attack was an escalation of the potential dangers facing Doe since she filed her lawsuit last month, but it was far from the only threat she’s received, her lawyer said.

Giuffra estimated that dozens of threats have been made against her since mid-September, when his client filed a 101-page complaint alleging she had been sexually assaulted and raped by several members of the Xi chapter of Cornell’s Chi Phi fraternity.

Doe’s civil suit was filed against the university, the fraternity, seven fraternity members and others. It alleges that members of the frat drugged and sexually assaulted her in October 2024 and invited other fraternity members in a group chat to join the assault. The suit also alleges the school failed to protect her and adequately punish the accused students, who all deny wrongdoing.

Giuffra detailed to CNN another threat: a text message, sent to Doe’s phone on Monday, with three emojis depicting guns.

Meanwhile, a handful of online personalities with large followings have led a campaign to uncover the identity of Doe, whose name was redacted in legal documents. One wrote on X to 347,000 followers in late September: “If you happen to know who this Cornell ‘Jane Doe’ is, get in touch and I would be happy to publish her name and identifying information.”

He later claimed to have identified her and said he shared that identity online before deleting his post. Such behavior is known as doxxing, or sharing someone’s personal information or identity online without their permission.

It has left Doe frightened and struggling to come to terms with the impact of the lawsuit, which has prompted outrage and scrutiny of how the university and its private police force initially investigated her claims.

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.”

“I don’t get shook up very easily, but this shook me up. I didn’t want to have a body on my hands,” he said.

“The dad is … concerned for his daughter. He can’t believe this has happened out of something where she’s just trying to stand up for herself and be heard,” Giuffra added.

“But the parents are really strong people, and they’re going to protect their daughter.”

Her career dream is ‘lost’

Doe had studied hotel administration at Cornell’s prestigious Nolan School of Hotel Administration, and it had been her “dream” to attend the school, Giuffra said. Her complaint says she traveled across the country and arrived at the school with the same “hopes, expectations and trepidations of other high school graduates.”

But she left the program without graduating after the alleged assault took place two years ago. Doe initially attempted to begin a career in New York City earlier this year, but after filing the lawsuit – “when everything hit the fan” – she instead returned to her family home, where she has been staying with her boyfriend, her lawyer said.

“The dream is lost,” Giuffra told CNN, referring to her hopes of working in the hospitality industry.

Instead, Doe has been hiding out at her parents’ home, where she has been following the intense media coverage of her case.

“It’s kind of hard to switch it off,” Giuffra said. “She comes from a generation of people who are focused on social media.” CNN is not specifying the location of Doe’s family home at her lawyer’s request.

She has been going on walks but otherwise spends much of her time indoors. She remains in contact with some of the friends she made at Cornell, Giuffra said.

“She’s a little paranoid,” Giuffra said of his client. “If she’s out of (the) safety zone of her family, she just doesn’t seem to function well.” A few friends of the family know she has returned home and have been providing support, and Doe’s mother has taken time off from work to help look after her daughter, he said.

Doe is also aware of the many messages of support that she has received from around the world since filing the lawsuit, according to Giuffra.

Cornell, which recently appointed former acting US Attorney General Sally Yates to investigate the school’s handling of sexual assault claims, was the site of a seven-hour sit-in on Wednesday to show “solidarity with Jane Doe,” according to flyers for the event.

During a meeting with Cornell’s Graduate and Professional Student Assembly on Monday, university President Michael Kotlikoff acknowledged the mounting frustration across campus as more details and questions emerge about Doe’s 2024 allegations.

“We’re all angry. I understand that anger,” Kotlikoff said, according to the independent student newspaper the Cornell Daily Sun. “People want easy answers to this.”

The school’s president previously released a video statement promising further review of the case, saying it highlights “heartbreaking and troubling issues about sexual assault, dehumanization, and aspects of party culture, alcohol, and drug use.”

“The students up there (at Cornell) have been overwhelmingly supportive, and it’s wonderful,” Giuffra said. “They’re trying to effect change, and bringing out to the light something that’s been going on for generations.”

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