Moonies Bar & Nightclub denies serving alcohol to the underage plaintiff in a Cornell fraternity rape lawsuit and has asked a New York court to dismiss every claim against it.
The downtown Ithaca club, run by Zareen Enterprises LLC, answered the suit in New York Supreme Court and told reporters the underage-service allegation is false. Fox News reported the bar’s formal denial landed as Cornell faced campus protests and a faculty push for a no-confidence vote over its handling of the sexual assault claims.
Jane Doe’s 101-page complaint, filed Sept. 16, names Moonies along with seven former Chi Phi fraternity brothers, Cornell University, Chi Phi entities, and Tri Delta sorority. The bar’s court answer denies it sold or furnished alcohol to anyone under 21 or to any visibly intoxicated person, and it asks the court to throw out the complaint against it in full.
That filing specifically rejects the paragraph claiming Doe was served despite underage hand marks. Moonies also denies that any act or omission on its part caused her alleged injuries and asserts she cannot prove an unlawful sale caused those injuries.
On the night in question, Oct. 19, 2024, Moonies hosted a private Tri Delta event from about 9 p.m. to 11 p.m. The bar said roughly 185 guests attended, including about 150 people 21 or older and 35 underage guests.
Moonies told Fox News on Tuesday that underage patrons received an “X” mark on each hand while guests 21 and older got wristbands. In its statement, the bar said Doe’s claim she was served alcohol was “completely inaccurate,” and that employees “strictly followed the rules and did not serve alcohol to any underaged guests.”
"No alcohol was served to anyone who had mark on their hands,"
the club stated. It further said that when Doe later worked at Moonies from February to March 2025, she discussed the October 2024 incident and did not say she had been intoxicated there or served by its bartenders.
Fox News contacted Doe’s attorney for a response to the bar’s account; no reply appears in the reporting.
The lawsuit alleges a very different sequence. According to the complaint, a Moonies bouncer placed an “X” on each of Doe’s hands because she was then 20, yet she was still served and drank at least one alcoholic beverage inside the bar.
Doe’s filing says she began the evening drinking vodka at her Tri Delta house, then a housemother went with her to Moonies. She later went to another Ithaca bar, left alone around 11 p.m., and walked to the Chi Phi house to meet a friend who was a member.
By the time she reached Chi Phi, the complaint states, she was visibly intoxicated and had consumed roughly 10 standard drinks over three hours. Inside, she alleges she was given another beer, then two members pressured her to snort what they called ketamine, a drug she says she had never taken, along with marijuana and high-proof liquor before sexual activity began.
Doe alleges other fraternity members became involved as the night went on and that she eventually became “completely incapacitated.” Seven former Chi Phi brothers are accused in the suit of sexual assault and rape. The men have denied wrongdoing; some say any sexual activity was consensual, and others say they did not take part. No criminal charges have been filed against them.
Background on how fraternity messages and early statements later collided with the civil case appears in coverage of Cornell fraternity chats after the claims.
Tompkins County District Attorney Matthew Van Houten initially declined to bring charges. He pointed to a six-page sworn statement his office received from Cornell University Police in 2024. That statement, as he described it, did not allege Doe was drugged against her will or gang-raped. It characterized her participation in drug use and sexual conduct as “voluntary, conscious, and consensual.”
"voluntary, conscious, and consensual."
Van Houten also said his office never received a fuller transcript of Doe’s November 2024 police interviews. CBS New York later obtained that transcript, which included statements in which she distinguished the initial encounter from later activity and told investigators she had been raped.
Gov. Kathy Hochul later appointed the New York Attorney General’s Office as special prosecutor. Attorney General Letitia James has been described as leading an “active criminal investigation.” The shift from the local DA to Albany is detailed in reporting on how Letitia James took over the Cornell probe.
Political pushback over that handoff has continued, including warnings that the suspects may not get a fair shake with the attorney general running the case, as noted when Trump addressed the James-led investigation.
On Monday, thousands of students rallied on campus at Ho Plaza over the university’s handling of the sexual assault allegations. Faculty senators have been pushing a no-confidence resolution aimed at Cornell’s central administration.
The pressure on administrators sits alongside the civil claims and the open criminal inquiry. Cornell’s own public response to the fallout is covered in reporting on how the Cornell president said the university must improve.
Outside political voices have also weighed in on the campus narrative. One prominent clash between activist framing and the prosecutor’s earlier review is examined in coverage of how Ocasio-Cortez’s account diverged from the record.
Moonies remains one defendant among several. Its court papers stick to a narrow defense: the club says it followed New York alcohol rules, marked underage guests, did not serve them, and bears no causal link to the injuries claimed in the suit. The bar wants the claims against it dismissed entirely while the larger case and the special prosecutor’s investigation continue.
Allegations this serious demand evidence, not pressure campaigns. When a local prosecutor cites a police statement describing voluntary conduct, and a named business puts its ID checks and court denials on the record, due process still has to come before the mob and the microphones.
