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A man named in the highly publicized “Cornell 7” civil lawsuit has been dropped.
“A defendant has been dropped from Jane Doe’s civil lawsuit with prejudice,” Los Angeles Magazine’s Lauren Conlin reported Tuesday. “Orazio Petito, identified in the original complaint as president of Cornell’s Chi Phi fraternity at the time of the alleged October 2024 assault, has been dismissed from the case.”
Petito was named in the suit brought by accuser “Jane Doe,” though his attorney previously said he was not serving as fraternity president at the time of the alleged incident. The suit accused Petito of failing Doe by neglecting to shut down the alleged sordid behavior within the fraternity.
A court filing signed by Doe’s attorney, Thomas Giuffra, on Tuesday effectively removed Petito from the suit.
Eric Bernstein, Petito’s attorney, told ABC News the change was the “right outcome.”
“My client deserved to be released from this case,” he said. “They had the wrong … guy and justice was served as far as Mr. Petito was concerned.”
Doe has accused seven male students of being involved in her alleged sexual assault in 2024, but Tompkins County District Attorney Matthew Van Houten declined to bring charges at the time, citing insufficient evidence. Her recently filed civil lawsuit brought renewed attention to the case, and Van Houten said its allegations differed sharply from her original account.
All seven accused men have denied the allegations and maintain their innocence. At least three of the accused men say it was Doe who was the aggressor and that she did not obtain their consent. One of the men, Matthew Ingalls, says Doe sexually assaulted him, but the university did nothing about his allegations.
Text messages reported by The Daily Wire show that two days after the alleged gang rape, Doe told one of the men she now accuses of raping her that she loved him and described the sexual activity as “not illegal,” adding, “our body our choice.”
In a message to defendant Jonathan Newell, Doe wrote, “If you have any regrets or anything you want to talk about I am always here to talk about it cause I that was a lot. I really do love u and Matt (Ingalls) and I promise I won’t get quiet and weird w u like I did last time 4.”
Last week, New York Justice Phaedra Perry-Bond, who is handling the civil suit, denied a gag order request from defendant Diego Sarabia, ruling that the proposed restrictions on public statements were not justified. Perry-Bond called the request a “side show” intended to “muddy the waters.” She left the protection of the defendants from threats, harassment, and doxxing up to their attorneys.
No criminal charges have been filed against the accused men.
Related: Cornell Accuser Faces New Legal Fight Over What She Can Say
