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LYON, France — An American accused of sexually assaulting a Pennsylvania school scholar in 2013 and later sending her a Fb message that stated, “So I raped you,” has been detained in France after a three-year search.
A prosecutor in Metz, France, confirmed Tuesday that Ian Thomas Cleary, 31, of Saratoga, Calif., had been taken into custody final month and might be held pending extradition proceedings.
Cleary had been the topic of a world search since authorities in Pennsylvania issued a 2021 felony warrant within the case weeks after an Related Press story detailed the reluctance of native prosecutors to pursue campus intercourse crimes.
The arrest warrant accuses Cleary of stalking an 18-year-old Gettysburg School scholar at a celebration, sneaking into her dorm and sexually assaulting her whereas she texted mates for assist. He was a 20-year-old Gettysburg scholar on the time, however didn’t return to campus.
In response to a French judicial official, Cleary was detained on the road in Metz on April 24 as a part of a police verify. He instructed a Justice of the Peace that he had “arrived in France two or three years in the past” from Albania and had solely lately come to Metz, however didn’t have housing there, the official stated. A French lawyer appointed to characterize him didn’t instantly return a cellphone message in search of remark Tuesday.
Cleary, in response to his on-line posts, had beforehand hung out in France and in addition has ties to California and Maryland. His father is a tech govt in Silicon Valley, whereas his mom has lived in Baltimore. Neither he nor his mother and father have returned repeated cellphone and e-mail messages left by the Related Press, together with calls to his mother and father on Tuesday.
The Gettysburg accuser, Shannon Keeler, had a rape examination achieved the identical day she was assaulted in 2013. She gathered witnesses and proof and spent years urging officers to file expenses. She went to authorities once more in 2021 after discovering the Fb messages that appeared to return from Cleary’s account.
“So I raped you,” the sender had written in a string of messages.
“I am going to by no means do it to anybody ever once more.”
“I would like to listen to your voice.”
“I am going to pray for you.”
In response to the June 2021 warrant, police verified that the Fb account used to ship the messages belonged to Ian Cleary. Adams County District Legal professional Brian Sinnett, who filed it, didn’t instantly return a name Tuesday.
The Related Press doesn’t usually title individuals who say they’re sexual assault victims with out their permission, which Keeler has granted. Her lawyer, reached Tuesday, had no speedy touch upon Cleary’s detention.
After leaving Gettysburg, Cleary earned undergraduate and graduate levels from Santa Clara College, close to his household house in California, labored for Tesla, then moved to France for a number of years, in response to his web site, which describes his self-published medieval fiction.
Keeler, initially from Moorestown, New Jersey, stayed on to graduate from Gettysburg and assist lead the ladies’s lacrosse staff to a nationwide title.
By 2023, two years after the warrant was filed, Keeler and her legal professionals puzzled how he was avoiding seize within the age of digital monitoring. The U.S. Marshals Service thought he was doubtless abroad and on the transfer, at the same time as he was the topic of an Interpol alert known as a purple discover.
Throughout the U.S., only a few campus rapes are prosecuted, each as a result of victims concern going to the police and prosecutors hesitate to carry circumstances that may be laborious to win, the Related Press investigation discovered.
Keeler, when the warrant was issued, stated she was grateful, however knew it solely occurred “as a result of I went public with my story, which no survivor ought to must do with a view to acquire justice.”
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