Moonies Bar and Nightclub in Ithaca, New York, has rejected claims made in a lawsuit by a former Cornell University student, known as Jane Doe, that its staff served her alcohol despite marking her as underage, hours before she says she was gang raped by members of the Chi Phi fraternity.
A bar in Ithaca, New York, has strongly denied claims that it served alcohol to an underage Cornell University student shortly before she alleges she was gang raped at a fraternity house. Moonies Bar and Nightclub was named in a civil lawsuit filed by a woman using the pseudonym Jane Doe, who alleges staff marked her hand to indicate she was underage, then went on to serve her the equivalent of ten drinks in under three hours. Jane Doe claims she subsequently made her way to the Chi Phi fraternity house, where she says she was sexually assaulted by seven members over several hours in October 2024. None of the men she has accused have been criminally charged, and all deny any wrongdoing.
The bar’s response
In a statement to the Daily Mail, Moonies rejected the allegations outright, insisting it had never “unlawfully sold, furnished or assisted in procuring alcoholic beverages to any person under the legal drinking age.” The bar said: “Our bartenders strongly followed the rules and only served guests who had wristbands on their hands. No alcohol was served to guests who had mark on their hands.” The bar’s owner further claimed that Jane Doe had previously worked briefly at another of his establishments, during which time she “openly discussed the details” of her allegations but “never mentioned being intoxicated or served alcohol by Moonies’ bartender.”
Jane Doe’s allegations
According to her lawsuit, Jane Doe, who was 20 at the time of the alleged assault, says Moonies bouncers marked her hand to signify she was underage, but that bartenders nonetheless served her alcohol “to the point of visible intoxication.” She claims she then made her way alone to the Chi Phi fraternity house, where she alleges she was gang raped by seven fraternity members over a prolonged, hours-long ordeal. In her civil lawsuit, filed last month, she further alleges that she was pressured to snort ketamine and was sexually assaulted over a period of around seven hours.
The men named in Jane Doe’s lawsuit are Matthew Ingalls, Jonathan Newell, Winston Lee, Gillio Lopes, Diego Sarabia, Scott Norris and Scott Kretzschmar. None have been arrested or criminally charged in connection with the allegations.
Recorded phone call reveals conflicting accounts
Audio obtained by ABC News captured a phone call, recorded by Jane Doe, between her and Matthew Ingalls, one of the accused fraternity brothers, in which the two gave differing accounts of the night. In the recording, Ingalls is heard telling Jane Doe: “You did tell me you were sober, by the way,” while maintaining he did not believe she had been intoxicated when they had sex. Jane Doe, however, told him he “already knew I was 10 shots deep” when he and six others allegedly assaulted her, adding: “If I wanted to take this somewhere, what y’all did would be classified as gang rape.” She also told Ingalls she had required treatment in the emergency room and subsequent therapy due to “so much damage on my body and my brain.”
In the same call, Ingalls described how the encounter began, telling Jane Doe: “So, you come in, say hi, and we start dancing for maybe like three to five minutes… And then I pop the question, you say yes.” He said the pair “didn’t know who else to bring” into what began as a threesome, so he approached another man on the dancefloor who agreed to join them before they went upstairs.
Jane Doe alleges that several additional fraternity brothers subsequently joined the encounter at intervals, and claims in her lawsuit that the men advertised “free p***y” in a Snapchat group chat. In the recorded call, she told Ingalls she could not recall the identities of all the men involved, describing four men in a bed at one point with others standing nearby. Ingalls responded: “I have racked my brain for this mystery. You know, it’s possible that both of us, like, remember this and it’s not true.” Jane Doe pushed back, saying: “No, because I remember looking up and being like, ‘That is too many people.'”
According to Jane Doe’s lawsuit, Ingalls did not disclose during the call that he had allegedly texted the fraternity’s group chat during the assault, sending a photo of Jane Doe along with the message “Boys come whip it out.”
University and criminal investigations
Following an internal university investigation, Ingalls and one other student were expelled from Cornell, while two further students were suspended. Two others were found not to have been involved, and one individual had already graduated, meaning the university was unable to take disciplinary action against him.
Despite the university’s findings, Tompkins County District Attorney Matthew Van Houten ultimately declined to bring criminal charges, stating there was “insufficient evidence to support criminal charges” and that investigators had determined the sexual activity inside the fraternity house was consensual. Van Houten also said Jane Doe’s account in her civil lawsuit differed “dramatically” from the statement she originally gave to police two years earlier.
DA defends decision not to prosecute
As scrutiny over the decision not to pursue criminal charges has grown, Van Houten issued a statement last month defending his handling of the case, saying public reaction had been shaped by “incomplete” information. He maintained that Jane Doe’s sworn statement to investigators in November 2024 “did not allege that she was drugged against her will or gang raped,” and that she had instead described her actions that night as “voluntary, conscious, and consensual.” According to Van Houten, Jane Doe’s original account to police indicated she had consented to sex with two of the men but said she became increasingly incapacitated as the night progressed and additional men allegedly joined.
