“We are done!” Lawmakers push to close the intoxication loophole.
by Natalia Barbican
Lawmakers, prosecutors and sexual assault survivors rallied on the steps of the Bronx County Courthouse on Thursday, demanding the State Assembly vote on a bill that would make it easier to prosecute sexual assaults when the victims are those who were voluntarily intoxicated. The bill was introduced by Assemblymember Jeffrey Dinowitz, D-Bronx, in 2019, but a recent gang rape case at Cornell University has made the matter urgent.
“We must pass this immediately in January,” said Assemblywoman Linda Rosenthal, D-Manhattan.
“No more excuses. Women. Are. Done,” Rosenthal said.
The bill’s sponsor, State Senator Nathalia Fernandez, D-Bronx, encouraged the crowd to chant “Intoxication is not consent.”
The woman at the center of the Cornell case, identified in a civil lawsuit as Jane Doe, alleges she was gang raped by seven men at the Chi Phi fraternity house in 2024 after being pressured into drinking alcohol and taking what she thought was ketamine, yet none of the men has been charged.
Under current state law, those who voluntarily drank or took drugs cannot be considered mentally incapacitated. The bill would let prosecutors pursue cases in which a victim was too intoxicated to consent, however they became impaired, if the accused knew or reasonably should have known.
“If you are voluntarily intoxicated, you will not get justice in New York,” Dinowitz said.
When asked whether colleges that receive state funding should be held to a higher standard, Dinowitz responded: “We presumably have high standards. The question is whether these colleges adhere to those standards”. Taking into consideration that he did not have all the facts, Dinowitz said Cornell appeared to have “virtually looked the other way. They took no action. They didn’t want to be embarrassed”,
He agreed the law had “tied the district attorney’s hands,” but added that authorities “should have at least gathered evidence, interviewed witnesses. It doesn’t appear that they did any of that stuff”.
Governor Kathy Hochul, who was not present at the rally, called for an outside review of Cornell and named Attorney General Letitia James a special prosecutor.
“I am deeply disturbed by Cornell University’s police and how they handled this,” said Hochul during her press conference in Manhattan Friday. She added that this is “exactly why we’re here today and why I took the action last night.” Hochul said she found the information regarding the initial investigation “very contradictory and conflicting.”
Rosenthal said the state should withhold funding from Cornell “until they clear this sh*t up.”
The Senate has passed versions of the bill at least five times since 2019, but it has never reached the assembly floor, which is controlled by Speaker Carl Heastie, D-Bronx. On Wednesday, Heastie announced a working group to review the state’s sexual assault laws.
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Bronx District Attorney Darcel Clark, who made the same demand at the very same steps more than a year ago, said “today, we are here again asking to close that same gap because it still remains”.
Assemblywoman Grace Lee, D-Manhattan, said the failures reach beyond one campus.
“From Cornell to Columbia, survivors have too often been silenced, retaliated against, and had to fight against the institutions that should have been protecting them,” said Lee, a Columbia graduate.
She called the university’s handling of former OB-GYN Robert Hadden, who was convicted of sexually abusing patients, a “cover-up” at a press conference outside Columbia’s gates in March.
Dani Bensky, a survivor of Jeffrey Epstein’s abuse, said in an interview to Bronx Bulletin that her advice for “the next generation of Jane Does,” and for anyone who has not yet come forward, was to talk to someone.
“That power lives in secrecy”, she said. “Even if you’re not ready to talk to authorities, if you just talk to anyone, you remove that power of secrecy. We have to keep bringing it out of the shadows”.
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The Legislative Push: Lawmakers are actively pushing to close what is commonly referred to as the “intoxication loophole” in legal or regulatory statutes.
Growing Frustration: Backed by statements like “We are done!”, proponents of the legislative change argue that existing legal definitions or defenses tied to voluntary intoxication are outdated, overly permissive, or exploited to evade accountability.
Context and Focus: The push emphasizes strengthening accountability measures, closing policy gaps, and reforming legal frameworks to ensure that individuals or entities cannot easily bypass responsibility under the cover of intoxication-related exemptions.
This piece highlights a growing legislative and public frustration with legal gray areas that complicate accountability. When lawmakers signal a firm stance—encapsulated by expressions like “We are done!”—it usually points to mounting pressure from constituents and advocacy groups to fix loopholes that have historically frustrated prosecutors, victims, or regulators. Closing such gaps is often seen as a necessary step to modernize laws and restore public trust in the justice and regulatory systems.
