'So I raped you': Man who allegedly sent confessional Facebook message to college sexual assault victim is arrested in France

Ian Thomas Cleary wanted poster courtesy of the U.S. Marshals

Ian Thomas Cleary of California has been arrested in France more than a decade after police say he raped a college student from Pennsylvania and then later sent her a message on Facebook declaring: “So I raped you.”

Police were actively searching for Cleary since the summer of 2021 after a warrant was issued for his arrest. The alleged 2013 rape of Gettysburg College student Shannon Keeler, who was just 18 at the time, was reported right after it happened on campus and Keeler subjected herself to an invasive rape exam. The charges against Cleary, however, were not filed until 2021.

He was arrested in Metz, France, on April 24 and is currently still being detained there. He will be extradited, according to The Associated Press .

Metz is located in the eastern part of France, some 330 miles from Paris and around 30 miles west of the border with Germany.

Keeler’s story drew national media attention and The Associated Press was first to report how the young woman stumbled across Cleary’s disturbing message to her in 2021.

“I’ll never do it to anyone ever again,” he allegedly wrote. “I need to hear your voice.”

Keeler said he also told her: “I pray for you.”

Prosecutors say Cleary stalked Keeler at a college party in 2013, following her into her dormitory and then busting into her bedroom. Though she begged him to stop, Keeler said he assaulted her anyway, even as she texted friends for help.

Though Keeler followed every recommendation her college made on the night of her assault, including having a male friend walk her home from the party and immediately reporting what happened — and then pushing for charges — her case languished until Cleary allegedly sent the confessions via Facebook.

According to The Associated Press, on the night of the alleged rape, Cleary even tried to get Keeler’s friend walking her home to go away — for $20. When her friend left her at the dorm, she went inside to sleep and was awoken later by a knock on the door. She opened it believing it was her friend, not Cleary.

He burst in, Keeler said, and she texted friends right away pleading for help — but he raped her anyway, she said.

“As soon as he did, he started crying after,” she said of the Saratoga, California, man.

She said he told her that he “didn’t mean to hurt you” before he fled.

Prosecutors and Keeler say that Cleary, who was an upperclassman at Gettysburg College, was identified by other people who had attended the party that night. After the alleged rape, he left the school and earned undergraduate and graduate degrees from Santa Clara University in California and then moved to France. On his own website , Cleary said he worked at Tesla for a time before leaving that job to pursue a writing career.

When police arrested him in Metz last month, he reportedly told them that he didn’t have a place to live and had moved to France from Albania a few years earlier, according to the New York Daily News .

The post ‘So I raped you’: Man who allegedly sent confessional Facebook message to college sexual assault victim is arrested in France first appeared on Law & Crime .