Man who sent ‘So I raped you’ message to New Jersey woman sentenced for 2013 Gettysburg College campus assault

Gettysburg, Pennsylvania – A man who sent a Facebook message saying “I raped you” to a woman he sexually assaulted in college in 2013 was sentenced to two to four years in prison on Monday.

The ruling came more than a year after Ian Cleary was extradited to Pennsylvania from France for the assault at Gettysburg College and nearly 12 years after the victim first went to police.

The judge took into account Cleary’s guilty plea, remorse and long history of mental illness in imposing a sentence below state guidelines. Cleary, 32, said he sent the letters as part of a 12-step program, hoping to seek atonement.

Victim Shannon Keeler told the court Monday that the letters reopened wounds she had long carried during the assault, which continued for years without prosecution.

“The system that was meant to protect me, protected you instead,” Keller said, detailing in an emotional 10-minute statement the years she spent pursuing accusations, which prosecutors are often reluctant to bring in campus sexual assault cases.

“This is not just my story, this is the story of countless women,” she said.

Cleary faces a maximum of 10 years in prison for the attack, and both sides had initially proposed a sentence of between four and eight years.

Related to: After the alleged rapist confessed on Facebook to the 2013 attack, the victim says she was forced to seek justice

Keller’s lawyer, Andrea Levy, said the sentence was “less than we expected and certainly less than he deserved,” but she said there was relief the case was over.

Keller told police that Cleary snuck into her dorm on the eve of winter break, when only a few people were left on campus, then forced his way into her room and assaulted her. She was 18 years old and in her first semester on campus at the time.

Judge Kevin Hess said anyone with daughters or granddaughters like him in college would find the crime “horrifying.”

However, he said: “The defendant has admitted his guilt, he has come forward, and although 10 to 11 worrying years have passed in the meantime, we would not be here today if it were not for his hope for some kind of forgiveness and remorse.”

Cleary left Gettysburg after the attack and eventually finished college in Silicon Valley, California, where he grew up. He then earned a master’s degree and worked for Tesla before moving abroad.

In 2019, he sent a Facebook message to Keller, and she renewed her efforts with police and prosecutors after noticing it a few months later. In 2021, she shared her experience in an Associated Press story about prosecutors’ reluctance to pursue campus sex crimes.

Cleary was charged weeks after the AP story was published, and after a three-year search, he was extradited from Metz, France, where he had been detained on a vagrancy-related charge in April 2024.

In court Monday, Cleary, standing a few feet away, apologized to Keller and his father.

Related to: After the alleged rapist confessed on Facebook to the 2013 attack, the victim says she was forced to seek justice

“I’m committed to getting mental health treatment and things like that as I move forward,” he said.

Cleary’s family members refused to comment on the case and did not attend most of the court sessions.

In interviews with The Associated Press, Keller described her repeated efforts to persuade authorities to press charges, which began hours after the assault.

“I’ve been thinking about this moment for 12 years,” Keller said after seeing Cleary in court in July, when he pleaded guilty to second-degree sexual assault. She described it as a surreal moment.

Authorities in the United States and Europe tried to track down Cleary after the indictment, but appeared unable to follow his trail, online or off, until he was arrested in an unrelated case.

Defense attorney John Aboom asserted that Cleary was homeless at times and was unaware of the charges against him. Adams County Prosecutor Brian Sinnett said he had suspicions but could not prove that Cleary was a runaway.

The AP does not typically name people who say they have been sexually assaulted unless they come forward publicly, as Keller did.

“The system that failed me a decade ago finally achieved accountability, but at a cost. Evidence was lost. Time passed,” she told the court Monday, noting that the results of the rape kit given to her that night had been destroyed by the time of arraignment.

“My life has moved on, but the impact has never gone away, not for me, not for my family, not for anyone who has had to watch this unfold over and over again,” she said.