Federal Agents Hunt the Ketamine Behind Cornell’s Chi Phi Case

Federal drug agents are hunting who supplied ketamine at Cornell’s Chi Phi house, people with knowledge of the inquiry said on October 14. A DEA representative declined to comment, and no supplier has been named.

The powder is already in the campus file. A Title IX decision recorded a ketamine overdose at the house on or about October 18, 2024. Campus police made a drug arrest there the next morning, then the chapter still threw a registered party that night, when a 20-year-old student later identified in court as Jane Doe says she was assaulted. New York Attorney General Letitia James is now the special prosecutor on the sex-crime side. A supply case would be a different file, with different proof.

Who Supplied the Ketamine at the Chi Phi Party?

People with knowledge of the inquiry said the Drug Enforcement Administration is working with local law enforcement to identify the source of the ketamine used at the October 19, 2024, gathering. They said neither agency has tracked that person down. The agency declined to comment when asked about the work.

The DEA has said that when it takes a ketamine case, the work is about diversion from pharmacies or illicit distribution, not simple personal use. That line matches the facts already sitting in Cornell’s own records: an overdose, an arrest, and later logs of possible thefts from a campus veterinary stock. It does not require a jury to settle every disputed minute of a long night of sex, alcohol, and powder.

Jane Doe’s civil complaint in New York Supreme Court, dated September 14 and filed September 16, 2026, says she was pressured to snort ketamine for the first time, then sexually assaulted by seven Chi Phi members while too intoxicated to consent. The 101-page filing says brothers also snorted ketamine off her body. She told investigators that she snorted it off one of them as well. All seven men have denied wrongdoing. None has been charged with a crime.

WHAT WE KNOW

• The house: Chi Phi’s Xi chapter occupied 107 Edgemoor Lane, a university-owned property, and was closed in 2024; it remains barred from campus.
• The drug file: A Title IX decision states ketamine was used by multiple people in the house, including a person who overdosed on or about October 18, 2024.
• The arrest: Cornell University Police made a drug-related arrest at the house between 1:03 a.m. and 1:41 a.m. on October 19, 2024, and referred someone to student conduct.
• The state track: Gov. Kathy Hochul named James special prosecutor on October 1, 2026, after saying she had lost faith in Tompkins County District Attorney Matthew Van Houten.

WHAT IS UNCONFIRMED

• The supplier: No person, dealer, or campus stock has been publicly tied to the powder used that night.
• The federal file: The DEA has not confirmed an open case, and a representative declined to comment.
• The thefts: University crime logs recorded two reports of ketamine potentially stolen from Cornell’s veterinary medical center in a single August; those reports have not been shown to feed the Chi Phi party.
• Charges: James has said she will gather evidence and prosecute if warranted. No indictment has been announced.

Jane Doe’s lawyer, Thomas Giuffra, has said authorities failed to run a thorough inquiry and leaned too hard on her first written account. Van Houten has said that November 2024 statement described drug use and sexual conduct as voluntary, conscious, and consensual, and that it did not allege she was drugged against her will or gang-raped.

An Overdose, a Drug Arrest, Then the Party

The federal question starts before Jane Doe walked in. Ketamine was already in the house, according to Cornell’s own hearing record, and campus police had already been through the door.

DRUG CALLS AT CHI PHI BEFORE THE ALLEGED ASSAULT

1. On or about October 18, 2024: A Title IX decision states ketamine was used by multiple people in the Chi Phi house, including a redacted person who had overdosed.
2. October 19, 2024, 1:03 a.m. to 1:41 a.m.: Campus police respond to 107 Edgemoor Lane, make a drug-related arrest, and refer someone to the Office of Student Conduct. The crime log does not name the drug.
3. October 19, 2024, about 11 p.m.: Jane Doe arrives after drinking, the lawsuit says about 10 drinks in three hours, then going to downtown bars. She says she was pressured into ketamine, marijuana, and high-proof rum.
4. October 20, 2024, about 5:45 a.m.: The span of the alleged assaults ends in the complaint. She reported the night to campus police on November 8, 2024, 20 days after the arrest. Chi Phi was then suspended.

The house had been registered to host a party on October 18 beginning at 10:30 p.m. It was still allowed to host a second registered party on October 19, on university property, after the arrest that morning. Cornell’s social-event rules bar illegal drugs at chapter events and allow an interim suspension when a violation poses a health and safety risk. The university did not place the chapter on that interim pause before the second party. A spokesperson, asked how fast student conduct is told about a campus arrest, said, “No comment.”

University files later obtained in the civil fight run to more than 1,000 pages. The word ketamine appears hundreds of times. Witnesses described a social set where the powder was easy to find. Crime logs also recorded two reports, in one August, of ketamine potentially stolen from the veterinary medical center, which keeps the drug as an animal anesthetic. That is the kind of diversion path federal agents actually work. It is not proof those vials reached Edgemoor Lane.

New York’s Rape Statute Puts a High Bar on Intoxication

James now owns the criminal sex-assault file. Hochul assigned her after Van Houten first declined charges, then said he would reopen the matter and prepare it for a grand jury once the lawsuit landed. Hochul said she had lost faith in his ability to oversee the case fairly. Two of the civil defendants, Gillio Lopes and Winston Lee, have asked a judge to remove James, citing public comments they call bias. James has said she will judge the facts without bias.

The legal problem on that track is older than the lawsuit. New York’s rape law makes it hard for a person who knowingly got intoxicated to prove they could not consent. Van Houten has said that each time Jane Doe asked to stop, the sexual conduct stopped, based on the first statement his office reviewed. Jane Doe later told campus investigators she could say with 100 percent confidence she was raped. She also told them, “Whenever the ketamine went down, I would say, is when things really start becoming a problem.”

A roommate told Title IX interviewers she overheard Jane Doe tell one of the men, “You had penetrative sex with me. I had so much ketamine, my eyes were crossed, and you still had sex with me.” In a May 2025 hearing she said she “felt like bait” and that the men were “like lions around me.” Four of the seven men, in later accounts of the university files, acknowledged sexual contact and called it consensual. The others denied taking part in sex. Jeremy Saland, the lawyer for Scott Kretzschmar, has said his client did not assault her and was not aware she was in distress.

That clash is why a drug-distribution case sits on a different track. A supply charge turns on who possessed and passed a Schedule III controlled substance. It does not need a jury to agree on every text Jane Doe sent in the days after the party, or on what each man thought he saw.

I am deeply sorry for the harm Jane Doe suffered in 2024, and appalled that this act of sexual violence occurred within our Cornell community.

Michael I. Kotlikoff, President, Cornell University statement, October 13, 2026

Kotlikoff’s letter treats the night as sexual violence. The men still have no criminal charges. Both things are true on the present record.

What a Schedule III Charge Can Carry on Campus

Ketamine is a dissociative anesthetic. The DEA says it distorts sight and sound, can cause sedation, immobility, pain relief, and amnesia, and has been used to facilitate sexual assault. It is legal in clinics as a short-acting anesthetic for people and animals, and as esketamine (Spravato) for treatment-resistant depression. Passed around a frat bedroom, it is a federal drug.

Congress placed ketamine in Schedule III in 1999. A first offense of distribution, or possession with intent to distribute, can bring up to 10 years in prison and a $500,000 fine for an individual. If death or serious bodily injury results, the cap rises to 15 years. Simple possession can bring up to one year and a minimum $1,000 fine. A separate statute adds a floor of not less than one year for distributing within one thousand feet of a university. Chi Phi’s house sat on Cornell property. That geography is not a technicality in a federal charging memo.

FEDERAL KETAMINE PENALTIES

James cannot bring those counts. She is a state special prosecutor. A DEA case would run to federal prosecutors. The two offices can share facts and still charge different crimes. One file can stall on consent. The other can still ask who brought the vial.

Seven Defendants Still Face No Criminal Charges

The complaint names Matthew Ingalls, Johnathan Newell, Winston Lee, Gillio Lopes, Diego Sarabia, Scott Norris, and Scott Kretzschmar, all then tied to Chi Phi, along with Cornell, the national fraternity, the local chapter, Jane Doe’s sorority, Delta Delta Delta, and an Ithaca bar accused of serving a visibly drunk underage patron. Four of the men are accused of rape in that filing. The claim against Kretzschmar is that he snorted ketamine from her body, which Saland denies.

Cornell’s Title IX process ran 50 interviews with 32 witnesses and a 12-day hearing in May 2025. The panel’s 99-page decision is dated August 18, 2025. It did not find that every man Jane Doe accused had sexually assaulted her. It did find it more likely than not that she had consumed ketamine around an initial sexual encounter that the panel treated as consensual, a split that still sits inside the university’s own record.

Campus sanctions, later summarized from discipline records, split the seven this way: two were expelled, two were suspended, and three received lesser penalties. Among the named outcomes, Lee received a two-year suspension with probation after allegations he inhaled ketamine off her body and forced oral sex. Lopes received a three-semester suspension and two years of probation after an allegation of sex without consent. Sarabia, who had already graduated, was barred from campus for three years after an allegation of a forcible kiss. Norris and Kretzschmar were ordered to have no contact with Jane Doe, complete training, and write reflection papers. All seven have denied criminal wrongdoing.

From 2018 to 2024, Cornell logged 1,216 Title IX complaints, with 4 percent ending in a finding that an accused person was responsible, 14 suspensions, and 7 expulsions or dismissals. Kyle Kimball, vice president for university relations, said any claim that the school imposed only light consequences in this case is false. Jane Doe left Cornell. Giuffra has said she wanted to get out and heal.

Cornell Suspended Fraternity Parties Through the Academic Year

On October 13, 2026, Kotlikoff halted the party calendar that was still running two years after Chi Phi was already gone. All parties and social events in Interfraternity Council houses are suspended for the remainder of the 2026-2027 academic year, with emergency suspension for any chapter that hosts one anyway. He also said Cornell would bring in trauma-informed criminal investigators, give New York State Police a role in campus sex-crime inquiries, add a case manager in the Office of Civil Rights, and let former acting U.S. Attorney General Sally Yates review how the university handled Jane Doe’s report.

WHAT CORNELL CHANGED ON OCTOBER 13

• Party ban: IFC house parties and social events are stopped through the rest of the 2026-2027 academic year.
• Zero tolerance: An in-house party in violation brings immediate emergency suspension of the chapter.
• Outside police: State Police investigators, independent of Cornell, are to take a role in sex-crime reports.
• Outside review: Yates’s team is to examine whether Cornell followed its own rules in 2024 and 2025.
• Chi Phi: The Xi chapter was closed in 2024 and remains barred; the new ban reaches every other IFC house that is still open.

Hochul has also pointed to changing New York’s voluntary-intoxication rule. Cornell has said it supports that effort. None of those moves names the person who brought ketamine into 107 Edgemoor Lane. James has said her office will review the facts, gather evidence, interview witnesses, and, if warranted, pursue prosecutions. Federal agents, if they are truly on the powder, are asking a narrower question. Two days after Kotlikoff’s letter, that question still had no public answer.

Disclaimer: This article is news reporting and analysis of a civil lawsuit, campus discipline records, and an unfolding criminal inquiry. It is informational only and is not legal advice, a finding of guilt, or a substitute for reading the court file. Readers who need advice about a criminal investigation, a Title IX matter, or a civil claim should consult a licensed attorney in the relevant jurisdiction. Names, charges, sanctions, and the status of any federal or state probe reflect the public record described here and can change as prosecutors, courts, and the university act.