An active-duty U.S. Marine with no connection to Cornell University says he and his family have been hit with harassment and death threats after their home address was mistakenly linked to one of the men named in the explosive “Cornell 7” sexual assault lawsuit.
The Marine, Matthew Ingalls, happens to share the same name as one of the defendants in the high-profile civil case involving Cornell University and seven former students.
But according to his attorney, Elliot A. Hallak, the service member is an entirely different person who has never attended Cornell and had nothing to do with the allegations now drawing national attention.
Hallak told a New York judge in an October 6 court filing that the mistake has had frightening real-world consequences for Ingalls and his relatives.
The attorney said Ingalls was stationed at a military base in North Carolina at the time of the alleged October 2024 incident at Cornell and has “absolutely no connection or involvement” with the case.
The trouble apparently began with paperwork filed in the civil lawsuit in September.
According to Hallak’s letter to Justice Phaedra F. Perry-Bond, a Request for Judicial Intervention filed by attorneys for the woman identified as Jane Doe listed an address belonging to the unrelated Marine’s family alongside the name Matthew Ingalls.
The woman’s attorneys later acknowledged that the address was incorrect and filed amended paperwork with a different address for the Matthew Ingalls who is actually named as a defendant, according to the filing.
By then, Hallak claims, the damage had already been done.
He told the court that the Marine and his family had become targets of “continued and ongoing harassment,” including death threats from members of the public.
The filing alleges that telephone numbers belonging to relatives were also circulated, resulting in threatening calls to people who have no connection to Cornell or the accusations contained in the lawsuit.
Hallak said the family is now afraid for its safety.
The situation allegedly became serious enough that law enforcement officers were present at the family’s address for protection.
Hallak is asking the judge to remove the original filing containing the incorrect address from the public court record or, at minimum, redact the Marine family’s information.
He argued that continuing to make the incorrect information available through New York’s electronic court system is creating a severe hardship for an active-duty member of the U.S. military and his relatives.
The extraordinary mix-up comes as the underlying Cornell case continues to attract nationwide scrutiny.
A former Cornell student identified in court papers as Jane Doe filed a civil lawsuit in September accusing seven men associated with Cornell’s Chi Phi fraternity of sexually assaulting her in October 2024 after she allegedly consumed drugs and alcohol.
The claims remain allegations and have not been proven in court. Some of the men named in the lawsuit have denied wrongdoing or disputed portions of the allegations.
No criminal charges had been announced against the seven men as of October 7.
The controversy has nevertheless triggered renewed scrutiny of how Cornell and local authorities handled the woman’s original allegations.
New York Gov. Kathy Hochul appointed Attorney General Letitia James as a special prosecutor to oversee the renewed criminal investigation, while Cornell has brought in former U.S. Deputy Attorney General Sally Yates to conduct an independent review of the university’s response to sexual misconduct and campus safety.
Cornell’s Chi Phi chapter was previously shut down following the university’s investigation into the events surrounding the allegations.
The Marine caught in the mistaken-address controversy, however, is not accused of participating in any of those events.
His attorney maintains that his only connection to the case is sharing a name with one of the defendants.
Hallak is now asking the court to prevent that coincidence from continuing to put an innocent family at risk.
For Ingalls and his relatives, the filing suggests that what began as a clerical mistake quickly turned into something far more serious — with strangers allegedly directing threats at a U.S. service member who was never part of the Cornell case in the first place.
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Devil Dog, if the LEO’s cannot control the situation, use the skills you were taught.
Praying for God to send angels to protect them. This is the problem with our society everyone wants to take the law into their own hands. So many have so much hatred toward their other human beings. They forget one is innocent until proven guilty and can’t wait for an arrest, a trial and a verdict. Instead of humans becoming more civilized some are behaving worse than the wildest animals do toward each other.