ames appears to have already drawn her own conclusions about this incident, without gathering all the facts,  said City Councilman Frank Morano (R-Staten Island).

 I don't know how anyone could expect her to be fair and objective. 

Council Minority Leader David Carr said James  has a well-documented history of making highly charged public statements about people she is investigating and prosecuting.

3 The case became national news when a  Jane Doe  defendant filed a lawsuit in Manhattan Supreme Court last month accusing seven fraternity brothers of raping her at the Cornell's Phi Chi fraternity house in October 2024. Lone Pine Press for NY Post

 That is exactly the wrong background for a special prosecutor in a case where impartiality is everything,  said the Staten Island Republican.

 She was publicly characterizing this case before she was even appointed. The allegations deserve to be investigated aggressively, but the accused also deserve due process. 

Melissa DeRosa, a former top aide to ex-Gov. Andrew Cuomo who has accused James of leading an unfair sexual harassment probe that spurred her Democratic boss' 2021 resignation, also questioned the appointment.

 I think Kathy Hochul was trying to come up with a political solution to a media storm,  DeRosa said Friday on Fox and Friends.

 Tish James is known to be highly political. Her track record in general is highly political, and I would argue in this instance in particular you need to go the other way and make sure what is being done is not about headline grabbing and not about politics but true to the law. 

Joe Giacalone, a retired NYPD sergeant and an adjunct professor at John Jay College of Criminal Justice, said he has  zero faith  in James  using discretion and using just the law to investigate the case.

 I think an independent outsider should have been appointed to do this,  he said.  That Facebook post was ridiculous. 

Hochul's office did not return messages on Saturday, and James ducked questions about her role in the case during an unrelated Bronx event.

But Hochul on Friday told reporters she has  every confidence  in James  to do what she has always done: look at the facts, examine the record and draw the proper conclusions. 

 That's exactly what's going to happen in this case,  she said.

The case became national news when a  Jane Doe  defendant filed a lawsuit in Manhattan Supreme Court last month accusing seven fraternity brothers of raping her at the Cornell's Phi Chi fraternity house in October 2024.

The 101-page lawsuit alleges the men plied her with alcohol and ketamine and subjected her to an hours-long sexual assault.

While she was being assaulted, one of the men allegedly sent a message to a 50-person fraternity Snapchat group called  Chi Phi Actives,  declaring there was  free p-sy  in the house.

All of the Cornell Seven have denied wrongdoing.

Cornell conducted an internal probe at the time via the Title IX investigative process, which involved 12 hearings. Doe's lawsuit claims her alleged attackers only got a slap on the wrist - with just two of the seven expelled from the university.

The case was never prosecuted further, and it was revealed that not all of Doe's statements and evidence in the case were sent to the local prosecutor.

- Additional reporting by Tina Moore