A former college hockey player who allegedly messaged a Pennsylvania student “So I raped you” after attacking her more than 10 years ago was finally being extradited back to the US on Thursday, French officials announced.
Ian Cleary, now 31, was turned over to US authorities at Paris Charles de Gaulle airport early Thursday, according to the French Appeal Court prosecutors’ office.
Cleary has been holed up in a French jail ever since he was nabbed last year in Metz, in northeastern France, following a three-year international manhunt.
Ian Cleary was extradited to the US from France on Thursday. APAuthorities in Pennsylvania had issued a felony warrant for him back in 2021 after he was accused of stalking an 18-year-old Gettysburg College student at a party in 2013, sneaking into her dorm and then sexually assaulting her as she texted friends for help.
His accuser, Shannon Keeler, had a rape exam done the same day of the attack and spent years begging authorities to file charges.
She went back to authorities again in 2021 when she recovered a slew of Facebook messages that appeared to have come from Cleary’s account.
“So I raped you,” one message allegedly read. “I’ll never do it to anyone ever again.”
Other messages allegedly also said, “I need to hear your voice” and “I’ll pray for you.”
Investigators later verified that the Facebook account used to send the messages belonged to Cleary, officials have said.
Cleary is accused of sexually assaulting Shannon Keeler in 2013. AP
The alleged rape happened in Keeler’s dorm at Gettysburg College. APCleary, who was a 20-year-old Gettysburg student at the time of the alleged attack, didn’t return to campus. After leaving Gettysburg, Cleary earned undergraduate and graduate degrees from Santa Clara University — near his family home in California.
He then worked for Tesla before moving to France several years ago, according to his website, which describes self-published medieval fiction.
Cleary allegedly sent Keeler a series of disturbing messages following the assault. Inside edition
Authorities spent three years looking for Cleary. Ian Cleary/FacebookAt one point during the manhunt for him, Cleary was the subject of an Interpol alert called a red notice after the US Marshals Service flagged that he could be holed up overseas somewhere.
When Cleary was eventually picked up by French cops last year, he told authorities he had “arrived in France two or three years ago” from Albania.
With Post wires
