After a three-year international manhunt, Ian Thomas Cleary, a 31-year-old American accused of sexually assaulting a Pennsylvania college student in 2013, has been detained in France. The arrest comes after Cleary allegedly sent a Facebook message to his victim stating, "So I raped you."
Cleary, a native of Saratoga, California, was taken into custody last month in Metz, France, according to a local prosecutor. He will remain in detention pending extradition proceedings. The international search for Cleary began after Pennsylvania authorities issued a 2021 felony warrant in the case, following an Associated Press report that highlighted the reluctance of local prosecutors to pursue campus sex crimes.
The arrest warrant accuses Cleary of stalking an 18-year-old Gettysburg College student at a party, infiltrating her dorm, and sexually assaulting her while she was texting friends for help. At the time, Cleary was a 20-year-old student at Gettysburg, but he did not return to campus after the incident.
Cleary was apprehended on the streets of Metz on April 24 during a routine police check. He informed a magistrate that he had arrived in France "two or three years ago" from Albania and had recently moved to Metz, but lacked permanent housing. Cleary, according to his online posts, had previously spent time in France and has connections to both California and Maryland.
The victim, Shannon Keeler, underwent a rape exam on the day of the assault in 2013. She collected witnesses and evidence and spent years urging officials to file charges. Keeler approached authorities again in 2021 after discovering the Facebook messages that appeared to originate from Cleary's account. The messages included statements such as "So I raped you," "I'll never do it to anyone ever again," and "I need to hear your voice. I'll pray for you."
Police confirmed that the Facebook account used to send the messages belonged to Cleary, according to the June 2021 warrant. Adams County District Attorney Brian Sinnett, who filed the warrant, has not yet responded to calls for comment.
After leaving Gettysburg, Cleary obtained undergraduate and graduate degrees from Santa Clara University, near his family home in California. He worked for Tesla before moving to France for several years, according to his website, which also mentions his self-published medieval fiction.
Keeler, originally from Moorestown, New Jersey, continued her education at Gettysburg and helped lead the women's lacrosse team to a national title. By 2023, two years after the warrant was issued, Keeler and her lawyers were puzzled as to how Cleary was evading capture in the digital age. The U.S. Marshals Service suspected he was overseas and constantly moving, even as he was the subject of an Interpol red notice.
Across the U.S., very few campus rapes are prosecuted, largely due to victims' fear of approaching the police and prosecutors' hesitation to bring forward cases that can be challenging to win. Keeler, when the warrant was issued, expressed gratitude but also noted that it only happened "because I went public with my story, which no survivor should have to do in order to obtain justice."
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