A lawyer for one of the former Cornell fraternity members named in a sex assault case says Attorney General Letitia James should step aside after she publicly stood with the accuser before taking the special prosecutor role.
Attorney Andrew Miltenberg is pressing New York Attorney General Letitia James to get off the Cornell Chi Phi investigation, arguing she already signaled a side before Gov. Kathy Hochul handed her the case.
Fox News reported that Miltenberg represents a former Chi Phi member named in a civil lawsuit over alleged sexual assault at the Ithaca campus fraternity house overnight on Oct. 19, 20, 2024. Hochul appointed James’s office as special prosecutor on Oct. 1 after Tompkins County prosecutors declined to file charges.
Days before that appointment, James’s official account posted about the accuser, Jane Doe, in language that treated the central claim as settled. Miltenberg says that post makes an independent probe impossible to trust.
On Sept. 28, James’s official X account posted about Doe and linked to coverage of the allegations.
James wrote:
"What this young woman has been forced to endure is horrific and unacceptable. I’m holding her in my heart and in my prayers. To her, and to all survivors: you’re not alone. We stand with you."
Hochul then named James’s office to run a new investigation. James later vowed her office would investigate “fully and fairly.”
Miltenberg drew a hard line between ordinary sympathy and a prosecutor’s public posture.
He said:
"It's OK to offer compassion and be empathetic to survivors of sexual assault, or any violent crime or any crime whatsoever, for that matter. But when that compassion is from a person who is now tasked with an independent investigation, her words, I think, are reasonably read as she's accepted a central factual premise of the allegations, and that person should not be tasked with an independent investigation."
He added that his objection is not personal or partisan. “Several days before her appointment, Letitia James made some comments on X, and those comments are such that I think it's fair to look at them and say it appears that the person making those comments [is] biased,” Miltenberg said.
The appointment followed a local decision not to charge. Tompkins County District Attorney Matt Van Houten said prosecutors reviewed a six-page sworn statement signed by Doe that carried more than 20 of her handwritten notations.
Van Houten posted that the statement “provides a different narrative and set of facts of the events of October 19, 2024 than those alleged in the lawsuit,” especially on the legal meaning of “lack of consent.” Prosecutors declined charges on that record.
Reporting later described more explicit claims from Doe’s police interview. Van Houten said those reports changed his view of the case. S1 does not show later criminal charges filed against the seven former members named in the civil suit.
Doe first reported the incident to university police on Nov. 8, 2024. Cornell suspended the fraternity, ran a six-month investigation with dozens of witnesses, held nearly two weeks of hearings, and issued a 100-page decision that went through appeals. Miltenberg’s client served a one-year suspension and remains a Cornell student.
The lawsuit names seven former Chi Phi members, the fraternity and related entities, Cornell, Doe’s sorority, and a local bar accused of serving her underage.
Miltenberg has not denied that something serious is alleged. He has rejected the idea that his client forced anything.
He said:
"He was 50% of that consent, and she was 50% of that consent. They had a mutual sexual interaction, mutually consented to."
He also said Doe kissed his client first, and that his client did not see her drinking alcohol or using drugs that night. He called the allegations terrible and said Doe “deserves to be treated with respect and dignity,” while insisting the accused deserve the same process.
Legal analyst Mehek Cooke, appearing on Fox & Friends, called James’s appointment “unprofessional” and “a violation of professional responsibility.” Cooke asked viewers to picture defending a case after the lead prosecutor has already said she “stands with” the accuser, and urged recusal with federal prosecutors taking over.
One of the seven, Gillio Lopes, has gone beyond a public ask. NBC News reported that Lopes filed an Article 78 petition in Albany County Supreme Court, a New York state filing used to challenge government action, seeking to block James from serving as special prosecutor.
The petition argues James “unequivocally demonstrated a bias and presumption of guilt against the defendants named in the Civil Case,” citing the Sept. 28 post that framed Doe as a survivor before any special-prosecutor work began. Hochul had appointed James after dissatisfaction with the local handling of Doe’s claims of alcohol-facilitated gang rape at the Chi Phi house in October 2024.
James defended the assignment. “My office enforces our state’s laws to protect all New Yorkers. I am committed to leading a comprehensive investigation they can trust, guided only by the facts, the evidence, and the law,” she said.
The New York Post reported Miltenberg’s institutional ask in plain terms: “I believe the better institutional course is for Attorney General James to voluntarily recuse herself from this particular investigation.” He said compassion for someone alleging sexual assault is fine, but James’s words “could reasonably be understood as expressing a view about what occurred.” None of the seven fraternity brothers has been criminally charged; some have acknowledged sexual contact and said it was consensual.
Hochul and James attended a press event tied to the new probe. Campus activists held a Justice for Survivors rally at Ho Plaza drawing thousands. None of that resolves the core due-process problem Miltenberg is raising: the state’s top lawyer announced solidarity with one side, then received power to investigate the other.
A special prosecutor’s job is to follow evidence, not to ratify a narrative already posted under an official account. When the local district attorney already flagged a sworn statement that undercut the lawsuit’s consent theory, the demand for a clean slate should have been obvious.
James can still show respect for alleged victims without having declared, in advance, that she stands with one party to a live dispute. Putting that statement on the record and then taking the case is the conduct under fire, not the existence of an investigation itself.
Fair process is not a courtesy reserved for popular defendants. If New York wants a probe the public can trust, it starts with a prosecutor who has not already picked a team.
