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Sunny Hostin is pivoting from comments she made Tuesday (September 29) about the Cornell University sexual assault case, saying Thursday (October 1) that she would have prosecuted the case under Washington, D.C., law, while calling the case “morally repugnant” and “grotesque.”
Hostin, a former sex crimes prosecutor, previously defended the Tompkins County district attorney’s 2024 decision not to prosecute seven Cornell fraternity members accused of sexually assaulting a former student.
She argued that the woman’s 2024 statement and New York’s law on voluntary intoxication prevented prosecutors from bringing a case.
“There is no way, according to her statement in 2024, that any prosecutor would have brought forth a case,” Hostin said Tuesday. She also said the men, who have not been criminally charged, were being treated “unfairly” and that the case was being reported “inaccurately.”
On Thursday, Hostin struck a different tone while discussing the case on The View.
“I always look at this as a former sex crimes prosecutor,” she said. “In D.C., this case would have gone to trial. I would have prosecuted this case, like I prosecuted a lot of sex crimes.”
Hostin said she felt “terrible about how this happened” and questioned why no one intervened.
“Why are these kids, why do they have ketamine?” she said. “Why is there no upstanding, an upstander, you know?”
Hostin maintained that New York’s voluntary intoxication law was the central legal barrier in this case, arguing prosecutors would have to show that someone was “unconscious or involuntarily drugged, like slipped a drug” to bring a case under the current standard.
“That is why it wasn't charged in 2024,” she said.
Hostin then criticized New York lawmakers for not changing the law after years of advocacy.
“For eight years, advocates in New York have tried to change this law,” she said.
She specifically called out New York Assemblymember Pat Burke, a Buffalo Democrat, over reports he previously referred to legislation aimed at closing the loophole as the “ruining drunk sex bill.”
“Shame on him. Shame on the legislators that have not changed this law, and they need to change it now,” Hostin said.
Burke has since said he would support changing the law, according to Hostin.
“But to claim that this would ruin drunk sex is repugnant and grotesque,” Hostin said.
The Tompkins County district attorney has since reopened the investigation and said evidence will be presented to a grand jury. The seven men have not been criminally charged.
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