Man who sent ‘I raped you’ messages extradited from France to US

An American man arrested in France for sexually assaulting a Pennsylvania student in 2013 has been extradited to the United States to face charges, French authorities said.

The man, Ian Thomas Cleary, of Saratoga, California, was put on a flight Thursday morning from Charles de Gaulle airport near Paris, said Christophe Mira, lead prosecutor at the Metz Court of Appeal in France.

Mr Cleary, 31, was arrested last year in France after a three-year search motivated in part by Facebook messages he sent to the woman he is accused of assaulting years before, in 2013. The student, Shannon Keeler, reported to Authorities in Adams County, Pennsylvania, where she attended Gettysburg College, said Mr. Cleary – also a student at the college – had assaulted her in the night of December 15.

But Mr Cleary was not charged until 2021, after Ms Keeler discovered a series of messages he had sent her on Facebook in 2019, including one which said: “So I raped you”.

Calls and messages to Héloise Rouchel, Mr. Cleary’s public defender in Metz, were not immediately returned. It was unclear whether anyone else represented Mr. Cleary.

Ms. Keeler told authorities that Mr. Cleary followed her and a friend home after a party on campus, according to a probable cause affidavit. The friend told Mr. Cleary to “go away” after offering $20 to stay alone with Ms. Keeler, the affidavit said.