A lawsuit alleges former West Point cadet Caleb Suh drugged his then-girlfriend and administered abortion pills without her consent before later studying at Cornell and Columbia.
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A onetime West Point cadet has pleaded guilty to assault in the March 2022 drugging of a fellow cadet and later abortion-pill administration, and a New York lawsuit says he returned to school at Ivy League universities after the case.
According to the woman’s lawsuit, Caleb Suh, then a cadet at the U.S. Military Academy, ordered abortion medications and used a sedative to incapacitate his then-girlfriend in her barracks room. The suit says he impersonated the woman to open an online pharmacy account, ordered abortion pills, obtained Xanax from a friend, and duped her into drinking what she believed was a prenatal protein shake.
The lawsuit alleges Suh waited until she fell asleep and administered the abortion pills orally and vaginally. The woman says Suh left her alone while she was bleeding and ignored attempts to contact him after she woke, leading her to call 911 and be hospitalized.
In June, Suh pleaded guilty in federal court in a Manhattan-based case to assault relating to the March 2022 incident, prosecutors said. Prosecutors said the victim was 19 and in her second year at West Point and wanted to have the baby, while Suh told the judge he was “deeply and immeasurably sorry” for his actions and the pain he caused.
The woman’s lawyer, Russell Kornblith, said in a phone interview that she “has suffered a life-changing event that she is still dealing with and will be dealing with for the rest of her life.” The lawsuit, filed under the alias Jane Doe, seeks unspecified damages.
Suh’s lawyer, Thomas Kenniff, declined to comment Monday, and Cornell declined to comment Monday on his education background beyond a statement about application responses. A spokesman for Columbia also declined to comment, citing educational privacy laws.
The lawsuit comes as national scrutiny continues of how universities handle student misconduct complaints. In Suh’s case, the military academy did not provide Monday any information on the outcome of a probe connected to the woman’s report to the Army Criminal Investigation Division in May 2022, according to her lawsuit.
In June court proceedings, an assistant U.S. attorney said Suh had told a West Point investigator that the miscarriage was accidental and denied that he had ordered abortion medication. The court filings referenced by the case did not change that his guilty plea remains on record.
After the West Point incident, Suh transferred to Cornell during the 2023-2024 school year. Cornell said in a statement Monday that he answered “no” to an application question asking whether he had been found responsible for a disciplinary violation at any previous educational institution, and that West Point reported he was in good academic standing and eligible to return.
Cornell’s statement said Suh’s academic profile included recognition for writing in spring 2024 and involvement with the Cornell Center for Health Equity, a research group. The university said he briefly worked at Cornell’s medical school and that he was credited among authors of a medical journal report summarizing a 2025 conference on cardiopulmonary resuscitation.
According to his lawyer’s submission in the federal case, Suh started a master’s program at Columbia University’s Mailman School of Public Health in New York City in September 2026. At the time, a person familiar with the matter, who was not authorized to comment publicly, said Mailman applications are not asked about criminal records but do ask whether someone has ever been disciplined for student conduct violations or poor academic performance; the person said Suh’s application did not mention any disciplinary proceedings.
Sentencing in the federal case was postponed until January at the request of Suh’s lawyer so he could finish his semester at Columbia, according to court-related information referenced in the case. The same submission said Suh has been taking a three-month life skills course for people charged with federal crimes, and prosecutors did not oppose the postponement.
The woman’s lawyer did not say whether the woman ultimately graduated from West Point or what she is doing now. Kornblith said he hopes the lawsuit will ensure “that this never happens to anyone else.”
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