Newly released bodycam footage shows Cornell police telling a fraternity member accused in a sexual assault lawsuit that he is no longer allowed on the university’s grounds. ABC News first shared the video, which was released with audio of a call between the alleged victim and Chi Phi member Matthew Ingalls, recorded days after the alleged assault in October 2024.
The woman is identified in court documents only as Jane Doe. No one named in her lawsuit has been arrested or charged with a crime.
What the bodycam footage shows
The video shows a Cornell Police Department officer speaking to one of the accused students after the university’s investigation into the alleged incident. The student’s identity is obscured.
‘Take a look at that,’ the officer says. ‘Per the suspension, he is barred from any of the grounds owned, operated, maintained by Cornell University.’
The footage captures the point where the university’s discipline became a physical restriction on where the student could go. It does not show what led to the suspension, and it does not say which of the accused men is on camera.
The recorded phone call
Jane Doe recorded a call with Ingalls in the days after the night in question. ABC News released the audio alongside the bodycam video.
Early in the call, Ingalls says: ‘You did tell me you were sober, by the way.’
Jane Doe disputes that. She tells him he ‘already knew I was 10 shots deep’ when he and six others allegedly sexually assaulted her.
In one message to Ingalls she wrote: ‘If I wanted to take this somewhere, what y’all did would be classified as gang rape.’
She also told him she had spent time in an emergency room and in therapy afterwards, because there was ‘so much damage on my body and my brain.’
Ingalls maintained his innocence. He told her she had convinced him she was not intoxicated and ‘hadn’t been anywhere’ that night. Jane Doe disputed that as well.
Two accounts of the same evening
Jane Doe asked Ingalls to walk her through the night, including how a threesome began in his fraternity house.
Ingalls described it this way: ‘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 two of them ‘didn’t know who else to bring’ into the room, so he found another man on the dance floor who agreed, ‘and then we go upstairs.’
Jane Doe told him she did not remember who all of the men were. She recalled four men on a bed at one point, with more standing around them.
Ingalls answered: ‘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.’
She pushed back: ‘No, because I remember looking up and being like, ‘That is too many people.’
Ingalls can be heard trying to ease Jane Doe’s distress during the call. According to her lawsuit, he did not mention that he had texted the fraternity’s group chat while the alleged assault was happening.
What the lawsuit alleges
Jane Doe filed her civil lawsuit in September. It claims she was sexually assaulted in the Chi Phi fraternity house in 2024 over a period of seven hours, and that she was pressured to snort ketamine.
The filing alleges that Ingalls posted a photo of her to the group chat with a message urging other members to join. It also alleges that one of the men posted in the fraternity’s active-members Snapchat group that a woman was available upstairs, in crude terms. The filing includes an image of the purported chat. The Daily Mail has not independently verified it.
Alongside Ingalls, the lawsuit names Jonathan Newell, Winston Lee, Gillio Lopes, Diego Sarabia, Scott Norris and Scott Kretzschmar. The allegations against all seven are unproven, and the audio released so far does not address most of them.
Her earlier statement and the district attorney’s decision
Jane Doe first gave investigators a sworn statement. In it she said she consented to sex with two of the men, but felt increasingly incapacitated as the night went on and more men allegedly joined.
The local district attorney investigated at the time and dismissed the case. The office said there was ‘insufficient evidence to support criminal charges.’
That decision ended the criminal route. The civil lawsuit uses a different process, and Jane Doe is using it to seek a ruling on what happened in the house.
How Cornell disciplined the students
Cornell’s own investigation reached different results for the men involved. Ingalls and one other student were expelled. Two others were suspended. Two were found not to be involved. One had already graduated, so the university could not punish him.
The bodycam video fits the suspension stage. Under Cornell’s process, a suspended student can be barred from every property the university owns, operates or maintains, which is what the officer tells the student on camera.
What happens next
The lawsuit is pending, and the material released so far gives no hearing dates. The audio and video are the first public look at how the accused and the accuser spoke about the night within days of it, and they show the two sides disagreeing on whether she was sober and on how the night began.
Readers should keep in mind that the recorded call was made by Jane Doe, that Ingalls has said he is innocent, and that none of the seven men has been charged. Court filings and any responses from the defendants will show how each side describes the night under oath.
