U of A student reports being sexually assaulted at fraternity house

According to a search warrant filed by a University of Arizona Police Department detective in Pima County Superior Court Sept. 9, a UA student said she was sexually assaulted by two men at Sigma Phi Epsilon in the early morning hours of Aug. 26. She said she had a bruise on her throat that police described as a “possible sign of strangulation.”

Two days after the incident, investigators and the UA student had a “one-party consent call” with one of the two men she said had sexually assaulted her, who denied the presence of a second man and said she consented to having sex, the court document said. He also said he had been drunk and was “fuzzy” on what happened, the document said.

No arrests have been made in the investigation, and no one has been charged.

The search warrant was issued for UAPD to look for any video and surveillance footage from the fraternity house.

Mitchell Blair, the president of the Sigma Phi Epsilon chapter at the UA, told the Arizona Daily Star late Friday in a text message: “We are fully cooperating with authorities in the ongoing investigation and have no further comment.”

The Star also left a message for the national headquarters of Sigma Phi Epsilon late Friday and did not immediately hear back.

Nicholas Prevenas with UA communications said Friday: “The University of Arizona does not comment on the specifics of an active investigation.”

The UAPD is investigating the incident, and UAPD and UA officials have refused to disclose any details or specifics, saying they can’t do so in an “active investigation.”

But the UAPD did release a list of UAPD cases to the Star through a public records request involving fraternities at the UA starting Jan. 5, 2026, through Oct. 13. The list shows there is an active investigation into a “sexual assault/forcible rape” at Sigma Phi Epsilon, 1614 E. First St., that was reported on Aug. 26.

Chrissy Lieberman, the UA’s dean of students, and the Dean of Students Office did not respond to the Star’s repeated requests for information or comments on the case.

Sigma Phi Epsilon was previously placed on probation by the UA in July for hazing allegations. The probation is due to last until May 2027.

According to the search warrant return, the UA student said the incident began when she “consensually made out” with one UA fraternity member in a bathroom inside the fraternity house, while a second fraternity member “opened the door and attempted to film them.”

She next remembered waking up in a dark room without her pants or underwear on, “laying on a bed on her back with her legs hanging off.”

As she awoke, she was being sexually assaulted by one of the men, she told police.

While she said she didn’t remember the chronological order of subsequent events, she said she was also sexually assaulted by another man who she said was “unknown.”

She told police she “thought she said, ‘please stop’ and shook her head,” but later told police she was “unsure” and was trying to lift her head but wasn’t able to. She “does not remember being asked or consenting to sexual activity,” the document said.

She reported having “a tequila soda, two shots of tequila and sharing a cup of tequila with her friends.”

She said one of the men, who she said sexually assaulted her, woke her up at about 6 a.m. when she still only had her top on and he was “fully naked.” She said to him, “we have to go,” and they walked to her sorority house together, the document said.

She remembered feeling something on her throat, which she “later discovered was a bruise” that caused her difficulty in swallowing. The document said the man told her “that was him.”

The woman reported the incident to UAPD later the same morning and was taken to Banner University Medical Center to complete a sexual assault forensic exam. While there, a nurse documented “bloody discharge.”

The man who talked to the woman in the one-party consent call two days later said they “killed a handle of tequila” and had been dancing, drinking and wrestling together. He also said on that call that people had videoed them wrestling and one other fraternity member had videoed them in the bathroom kissing, the search warrant said. He said these videos had been shared with him on Snapchat, and he shared them with her when she asked him to.

National scrutiny around Cornell

The alleged incident comes amid heightened national scrutiny of fraternities as headlines focus on a Cornell University student's allegations she was gang raped at a fraternity house at the New York school in 2024.

Last month, Cornell’s “Jane Doe” filed a civil lawsuit saying she was sexually assaulted by seven men at a fraternity house while she was drugged, severely intoxicated and unable to consent.

The lawsuit forced authorities to reopen the investigation under intense public scrutiny of the way universities respond to sexual assaults.

The story was picked up by national media after being first reported by The Cornell Daily Sun.

Four of the men in the Cornell case have said they had consensual sex with "Jane Doe." The other three have denied sexual contact with her in the incident. None have been charged.

Earlier this month, nearly 100 UA students, faculty, staff and other community members protested in solidarity with survivors of sexual violence, the Star previously reported.

UA fraternities also under investigation

UA fraternities have been under fire recently for “multiple reports of misconduct” and “egregious” behavior, flooding the Dean of Students Office with a significant number of cases. This led to all UA fraternities being placed under suspension earlier this month, since the office was at capacity for the number of cases it could investigate at a time.

Since then, the UA has removed the suspensions for 16 of its 21 fraternities.

Five fraternities are still under investigation: Delta Chi, Delta Kappa Epsilon, Sigma Tau Gamma, Zeta Beta Tau and Zeta Psi; four fraternities, including Sigma Phi Epsilon, have been placed on probation until May next year; and one, Sigma Alpha Mu, has been placed on “interim loss of recognition” for the next five years.

Being placed on probation means any violation of the student code of conduct during the probationary period could lead to “further disciplinary action” and possibly a “loss of recognition.” The fraternities on probation also had to pay fines and conduct hazing awareness and prevention workshops, among other measures.

Sigma Phi Epsilon, which was placed on probation in July and asked to pay a fine of $25 per fraternity member, was put on “activities suspension” a month before that.

It was investigated for allegedly subjecting its new members to sleep deprivation, forced alcohol consumption, “kidnapping” and forced calisthenics, according to a July letter to the fraternity from Whitney Mohr, UA’s associate dean of students. Mohr said their office had also received reports of illegal drug use by Sigma Phi Epsilon members, and conduct that allegedly created an environment that “endangered UA students.”

Mohr’s letter also included Sigma Phi Epsilon’s responses to the hazing allegations, where it confirmed that there were still instances where new members were asked to perform calisthenics, a form of strength training. It also confirmed that there was at least one instance of a new member being forced to consume alcohol at an event that wasn’t chapter-sanctioned, and the organization responded by expelling the member responsible for this.

However, the organization said its fraternity leaders have been working to change the culture, and that they appointed a new chapter advisor in fall 2025 and elected new student leaders for the spring this year.

“The chapter acknowledged that they have made significant changes to the new-member process, but there are still areas for improvement,” Mohr said.