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

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.

Angelina Katsanis/Reuters

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.”

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.”

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.”

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.”

一个月前，这位现在被美国称为康奈尔大学“简·多伊”的女子，和成千上万其他怀揣梦想的二十多岁年轻人一起生活在纽约市，试图进入酒店行业，开创新的生活。她的律师托马斯·吉弗拉说道。

但自从她对康奈尔大学和其他方面提起诉讼，声称自己在 2024 年于兄弟会宿舍遭到强奸后，该计划就搁浅了。

吉弗拉说，多伊周三忙着用胶带把父母家的窗户遮起来，因为她害怕有持枪歹徒袭击她。他还说，周二晚上，警方持枪闯入多伊家，这起事件让她心有余悸。

吉弗拉周三在接受 CNN 电话采访时表示，他的委托人约翰·多伊越来越担心自身安全，并详细描述了在一系列暴力威胁不断升级后，他的委托人精神状态的恶化。

他说，周二晚上，警方接到虚假举报称“有人在房子里杀人”，随后用枪指着简·多伊的男友、她的兄弟和她的父亲。

吉弗拉补充说，他的客户还受到了死亡威胁、人肉搜索和网上铺天盖地的愤怒指责。

“我觉得她现在处境不太好，”吉弗拉说。“她很害怕。”

她的指控引发的公众舆论震动了美国顶尖学府之一。该大学、其校园警察部门以及汤普金斯县地方检察官办公室都因其最初对她指控的调查方式而受到审查。周三，在纽约州伊萨卡校区举行的静坐示威活动中，学生们的愤怒情绪显而易见。

安吉丽娜·卡特萨尼斯/路透社

吉弗拉告诉 CNN，多伊本人一直在关注有关她案件的媒体报道和社交媒体帖子。他描述了一个家庭如何从一场突如其来的、可怕的磨难中恢复过来，这场磨难彻底打破了他们的安全感。

“（本周之前）这只是一小撮疯子的行为，你可以不予理会，”他说。“现在有人真的在采取实际行动伤害你，这太可怕了。”

周二晚上 7 点，Doe 家乡的一名警官接到一个令人不安的报警电话：一名男子枪杀了自己的母亲，然后又把枪口对准了自己的妹妹。

这条信息是假的。但据 CNN 获取的警方报告显示，这名警官认为发生了枪击事件，于是赶到约翰·多伊的家中，看到一辆车正从车道上倒车出来。

当他逮捕车里的两名男子——后来证实他们是简·多伊的哥哥和男友——时，另一个人从屋门口走了出来。“我是孩子的爸爸。发生什么事了？”据报道，他大声喊道。这名男子告诉警方，他的女儿就是康奈尔案中的简·多伊，而且他们一家“正受到许多身份不明的人的威胁”。

这起虚假报警事件是本周一系列威胁简·多伊人身安全的事件中的又一升级，这些威胁已经让她的家人备受煎熬。“虚假报警”指的是向执法机构提供虚假线索，意图让武装警察前往某人的住所或办公场所。

“幸运的是，她哥哥当时在车里，他举起了双手，”吉弗拉周三告诉CNN，讲述了当晚发生的事情。“（简·多伊的）男友被按倒在地，”据吉弗拉说，她的父亲也被“枪指着头”。“如果遇到一个动不动就开枪的警察，或者有人做了错事，就可能有人丧命，”他说。

据吉弗拉称，警方正在调查这起虚假报警事件，联邦调查局也在调查此事。

据 Doe 的律师和 CNN 查阅的两份警方报告称，Doe 接到一个自称与她在民事诉讼中提到的七名男子之一同名的电话后不久，警方就赶到了现场。

根据她在报告中向警方的描述，Doe接到电话时“开始惊慌失措”，因为“她的手机一直响个不停”。在警方接到举报称有人恶意报警后前往她家时，她向警方讲述了之前接到的那个电话。

当晚未过，吉弗拉的妻子告诉他，她也接到了威胁电话。“这些人对（约翰·多伊）做了大量的调查，”吉弗拉说。目前尚不清楚警方报告中提到的这些威胁是否有关联。

吉弗拉说，他周三与简·多伊及其家人取得了联系。他说，她的父母很生气，她本人则非常害怕。

这位律师向CNN提供了一段录音，他说录音内容是周三下午有人打到他办公室的电话。录音中，一名男子自称是“给你的客户打电话的人”。

该男子还说道：“我直说了吧，我认为你们应该建议你们的委托人撤诉。否则会有人流血。”

周二发生的这起“钓鱼执法”事件，标志着自上个月提起诉讼以来，Doe面临的潜在危险进一步升级，但她的律师表示，这远非她收到的唯一威胁。

Giuffra 估计，自 9 月中旬以来，她的客户已经受到了数十次威胁。当时，他的客户提交了一份 101 页的投诉，声称她遭到康奈尔大学 Chi Phi 兄弟会 Xi 分会的几名成员的性侵犯和强奸。

原告Doe对大学、兄弟会、七名兄弟会成员及其他人员提起民事诉讼。诉讼称，2024年10月，兄弟会成员对她下药并进行性侵犯，还在一个群聊中邀请其他兄弟会成员参与其中。诉讼还指控学校未能保护她，也未能对涉案学生进行充分惩罚，所有涉案学生均否认有任何不当行为。

吉弗拉向 CNN 详细描述了另一起威胁：周一发到约翰·多伊手机上的一条短信，其中包含三个枪支表情符号。

与此同时，一些拥有大量粉丝的网络名人发起了一场运动，试图揭开这位在法律文件中被隐去姓名的“简·多伊”的身份。其中一位在9月下旬通过X平台向34.7万粉丝写道：“如果您碰巧知道这位康奈尔大学的‘简·多伊’是谁，请与我联系，我很乐意公布她的姓名和身份信息。”

他后来声称已经确认了她的身份，并表示他在网上分享了她的身份信息，之后删除了帖子。这种行为被称为“人肉搜索”，即未经他人许可在网上分享他人的个人信息或身份。

这场诉讼令原告约翰·多伊感到恐惧，难以接受诉讼带来的影响。这场诉讼引发了公众的愤怒，人们开始审视大学及其私人警察部队最初是如何调查她的指控的。

吉弗拉说，周三，多伊“在她一辈子居住的房子里用纸把窗户封起来，这样人们就看不到她家里的情况，也就无法向她开枪了。”

“我很少会受到惊吓，但这件事让我很震惊。我不想手里拿着一具尸体，”他说。

“这位父亲……很担心他的女儿。他无法相信女儿只是想维护自己的权益、表达自己的意见，却会发生这样的事，”吉弗拉补充道。

“但这对父母都是非常坚强的人，他们一定会保护自己的女儿。”

据吉弗拉称，多伊曾在康奈尔大学著名的诺兰酒店管理学院学习酒店管理，就读该校一直是她的“梦想”。她的诉状称，她横跨美国来到这所学校，怀着与其他高中毕业生一样的“希望、期待和忐忑不安”。

但两年前发生那起涉嫌性侵事件后，她便离开了该项目，未能毕业。据她的律师称，今年早些时候，Doe原本打算在纽约市开始新的职业生涯，但在提起诉讼后——“一切都乱了套”——她却回到了家中，和男友住在一起。

“梦想破灭了，”吉弗拉告诉 CNN，她指的是自己希望在酒店业工作的愿望。

相反，Doe一直躲在父母家中，密切关注着媒体对她案件的密集报道。

“很难完全放下它，”吉弗拉说。“她这一代人非常依赖社交媒体。” 应简·多伊律师的要求，CNN没有透露她家的具体位置。

吉弗拉说，她偶尔会出去散步，但大部分时间都待在室内。她还和一些在康奈尔大学结识的朋友保持联系。

“她有点多疑，”吉弗拉谈到他的委托人时说。“如果她离开了家人的安全区，似乎就无法正常生活。” 他说，一些家人朋友知道她已经回家，并一直在照顾她，而简·多伊的母亲也请了假来帮忙照顾女儿。

据吉弗拉称，多伊也知道自从提起诉讼以来，她收到了来自世界各地的许多支持信息。

根据活动传单显示，康奈尔大学最近任命美国前代理司法部长萨莉·耶茨调查该校对性侵指控的处理情况，周三，该校举行了一场长达七小时的静坐示威，以示“声援简·多伊”。

周一，在与康奈尔大学研究生和专业学生大会的一次会议上，校长迈克尔·科特利科夫承认，随着有关约翰·多伊 2024 年指控的更多细节和疑问浮出水面，校园内日益增长的沮丧情绪也随之而来。

“我们都很愤怒。我理解这种愤怒，”科特利科夫对康奈尔大学独立学生报纸《康奈尔每日太阳报》说。“人们想要一个简单的答案。”

该校校长此前发布了一段视频声明，承诺将对该案件进行进一步审查，称该案件凸显了“有关性侵犯、非人化以及派对文化、酒精和毒品使用等方面的令人心碎和不安的问题”。

“康奈尔大学的学生们给予了极大的支持，这真是太好了，”吉弗拉说。“他们正努力做出改变，并将几代人以来一直存在的问题公之于众。”