New report of alleged sexual assault at University of Chicago frat house after Cornell 7 ‘gang rape’ case

New report of alleged sexual assault at University of Chicago frat house after Cornell 7 ‘gang rape’ case Woman was ‘not fully conscious’ when friends burst in to find her partially undressed in bathroom with alleged perpetrator, according to report - Bookmark Become an Independent member to bookmark this article Already a member? Log in A group of men cheered as a 21-year-old woman was sexually assaulted in the bathroom of a University of Chicago frat house this past weekend while her two friends frantically tried to pick the lock to rescue her, according to reports. The woman, 21, reported that she was sexually assaulted by a man at the Alpha Epsilon Pi house at 5625 S. University Ave., around 2 a.m. Sunday, the Chicago Police Department confirmed to The Independent. Two of her friends told police that a group tried to stop them from entering the bathroom after the men were seen “cheering and appearing to encourage the activity inside,” according to a police report obtained by the Chicago Sun-Times. University of Chicago, one of the U.S.’s top colleges, told The Independent that “a person of interest has been identified.” No arrests have been reported, and the individual has not been publicly identified. There has been a nationwide reckoning over sexual assault on college campuses after a civil lawsuit was filed last month by a Jane Doe alleging that she had been gang-raped by seven fraternity members at Cornell University in Ithaca, New York, in October 2024. According to the new Chicago police report, a group of men outside the bathroom at Alpha Epsilon Pi told the woman’s friends that she was not inside, according to the police report. Her friends continued to push and try to enter the bathroom. A man grabbed one of the women by their hair as the other picked the bathroom lock, the report said. When her friends finally made it into the bathroom, the woman was “not fully conscious” and both the man and woman were partially undressed, the report noted. The report says that when one of the women’s friends told the man to get off her, he “responded that everything was ‘cool,’ as though nothing had occurred.” The woman and her friends confronted the man outside the frat house who said they “had identified the wrong person.” He pointed them in another direction and ran off, per the report. One of the friends tried to chase him, but ran into a police officer and reported the alleged assault, according to the report. The 21-year-old was then hospitalized, police confirmed to The Independent. The woman is not a student at the University of Chicago, according to the Chicago Sun-Times. She did not return the newspaper’s request for comment, but one of her friends told the paper she was “obviously shaken up” and worried about her name getting out. The Chicago Maroon, the university’s student newspaper, published an article Tuesday describing a video shared to TikTok that appears to show the alleged perpetrator. Police said the man is 5 feet 7 inches tall with curly hair. He was wearing a black, short-sleeve shirt with black pants at the time of the alleged assault, according to the police report. An alert from the University of Chicago said the suspect is not affiliated with the school. He was not named in the alert because he has not been charged with a crime. “This identification has been corroborated by key witness statements and video evidence from University cameras and license plate readers, all of which has been shared with [the Chicago Police Department] by the Department of Safety & Security,” the university alert said. The university’s chapter of Alpha Epsilon Pi said in a statement on Instagram that no one affiliated with the fraternity was “involved or complicit with this incident.” The chapter says it is working with authorities. The Independent has contacted the fraternity’s national chapter for comment. Cornell’s Jane Doe lawsuit alleges she was drugged and gang-raped by seven members of the now-defunct Chi Phi fraternity house in Ithaca, New York, in October 2024. None of the men have been criminally charged. All have denied wrongdoing. Cornell announced this week that it has banned fraternity parties for the rest of the year. Earlier this month, the Ivy League school appointed former Deputy Attorney General Sally Yates to lead an independent investigation into how the school handles sexual assault cases. New York Governor Kathy Hochul has also assigned state Attorney General Letita James to the case as special prosecutor in a criminal investigation. After Doe reported the alleged rape in 2024, Cornell began an investigation, which involved multiple hearings and resulted in the suspensions and expulsions of some of the students involved. The Chi Phi fraternity was also shut down. “Any suggestion that the University did not impose consequential punishments for those involved is false,” the university said in a previous statement. “A continuation of the false narrative that there were minimal consequences in this case is irresponsible, will make survivors feel less safe and supported, and will perpetuate the underreporting of sexual assault.”