France wants to extradite US man who sent Facebook message to rape victim

A man accused of raping a fellow student at Gettysburg College in 2013 and writing about it to her years later on Facebook is to be extradited to the United States, a French court ruled on Monday.

Ian Cleary, now 31, has been in custody since his arrest in April in the north-eastern city of Metz, near the German border in France, ending a three-year manhunt.

On Monday, the city’s appeals court said he could be extradited despite his resistance. Under French law, he has the right to say yes or no, but that will have no impact on the final outcome other than potentially delaying it.

It was in December 2013 when Cleary, then 20, stalked 18-year-old freshman Shannon Keeler at a party, followed her home and broke into her dorm room after the friend who had accompanied her home left, authorities say.

Cleary allegedly raped her while she begged him to stop and texted her friends for help. The friends ran across the street from the party they had all been attending, but Cleary had already fled, according to authorities.

Although Keeler had done all the “right” things to protect himself beforehand and report the crime afterwards, Gettysburg officials and other authorities refused to press charges.

The three-year manhunt began in 2021 after Keeler was interviewed by the Associated Press for an article about the difficulties sexual assault victims face in prosecuting crimes on campus and discovered Facebook messages from Cleary from the previous year.

“So I raped you,” he wrote in a series of messages from an account that authorities later confirmed was his. “I will never do that to anyone again. I need to hear your voice. I will pray for you.”

For years, Keeler had previously tried unsuccessfully to prosecute Cleary. She did not comment on the recent developments, but in 2021 had her lawyer explain that the only reason her case had come this far was “because I went public with my story, which no survivor should have to do to seek justice.”

With News Wire Services