'The View' Host Sunny Hostin Faces Backlash Over ‘Cornell 7’ Defense as New Details Emerge

Sunny Hostin’s defense of how the “Cornell 7” case was handled is drawing backlash as new reporting raises questions about what prosecutors knew when they declined to bring charges. The View co-host argued that the accuser’s 2024 police statement did not support a criminal case against the seven fraternity members.

Now, a separately reported interview transcript includes an explicit allegation of rape—one the district attorney says was not provided to him.

On The View’s September 29 episode, Hostin held up what she identified as Jane Doe’s six-page statement. “There is no way, according to her statement in 2024, that any prosecutor would have brought forth a case,” she said.

Doe, a former Cornell University student, alleges in a lawsuit filed this month that seven Chi Phi fraternity members drugged and sexually assaulted her for hours in October 2024. Attorneys representing some of the accused members have denied the allegations.

To date, no arrests have been made in the case.

Hostin, a former prosecutor who handled sex crimes, also challenged how the accused men were being portrayed online. “The pictures of these young men who have not been charged, not been adjudicated, are being plastered all over the internet,” she said.

But the latest reporting adds another account to the record. On Wednesday, September 30, CBS News obtained a transcript of Doe’s two-day interview with Cornell campus police in November 2024. In it, she reportedly said, “I can say with 100% confidence, I was raped,” and described being “completely and totally incapacitated.”

Tompkins County District Attorney Matthew Van Houten told CBS he never received the full transcript. “If she had said those words, we certainly would want to have explored that more,” he said. “Like I said, that wasn't provided to me.”

The disclosure follows Van Houten’s September 28 explanation of why his office initially declined charges. He said prosecutors reviewed a signed statement that described voluntary drug use and consensual sexual activity, and determined that its contents did not establish a crime under New York law.

His analysis addressed the state’s definitions of lack of consent, mental incapacitation and physical helplessness. Van Houten has since reopened the investigation and assigned an experienced sex-crimes prosecutor to prepare a grand jury presentation.

Cornell had not responded to press inquiries at the time of publication.