An American white male by the name of Ian Cleary stands accused of raping a college student in 2013, later sending her a message that said “So I raped you”, then fleeing to France where he was recently captured.
Ian Cleary, 31, of Saratoga, California, was detained in April in Metz, France, after a three-year search. A French appeals court authorized his extradition. Upon his arrival to the US last week, he was ordered held without bail during a court hearing in Pennsylvania.
Former Gettysburg College student Shannon Keeler, who pursued the case for more than a decade, said Thursday that Cleary's extradition gave her “renewed faith” in the justice system.
Cleary was the subject of an international search after authorities in Pennsylvania issued an arrest warrant in the case in 2021, weeks after an Associated Press story detailed the reluctance of local prosecutors to pursue campus sex crimes.
The warrant accused Cleary of stalking the 18-year-old Keeler at a campus party in 2013, sneaking into her dorm and sexually assaulting her while she texted friends for help. He was a 20-year-old Gettysburg student at the time but did not return to campus. Keeler underwent a rape exam the same day. She gathered witnesses and evidence and spent years urging officials to file charges. She went to authorities again in 2021 after discovering the Facebook messages that were confirmed as coming from Cleary’s account. “So I raped you,” he wrote in a string of messages.
Cleary is your an average white US-born American male. He is not a migrant or an immigrant. He grew up in Silicon Valley, earned undergraduate and graduate
degrees in California, worked for Elon Musk's Tesla before moving to Europe and publishing several books. His mother lives in Baltimore, he
told the judge Friday.
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