Years After a Chilling Text — ‘I Raped You’ — the Attacker Is Finally Sentenced, and the Survivor Breaks Her Silence

A Pennsylvania woman is speaking out as the man who admitted to raping her in a Facebook message is sentenced, five years after she read his chilling confession.

Ian Cleary, 32, was sentenced to two to four years in prison on Monday, Oct. 20 after pleading guilty in July to second-degree sexual assault, according to the Associated Press, ABC27 and WGAL. He was extradited to the U.S. from France earlier this year to face charges following his April 2024 arrest.

According to a probable cause affidavit previously obtained by PEOPLE, authorities said Cleary stalked Shannon Keeler at a party, snuck into her dorm at Gettysburg College and sexually assaulted her in December 2013.

Keeler, then 18, reported the attack to police, undertook a rape kit test and found witnesses who saw Cleary that night, per the affidavit. But nothing came of it after Keeler had spent years trying to convince prosecutors to charge Cleary, who later moved to California.

Then in 2020, Keeler said she read an unopened Facebook message Cleary had sent her in 2019.

“So I raped you,” Cleary wrote, per the affidavit. He also said, “I need to hear your voice. I need to know if I did it or not.” Investigators verified the Facebook account belonged to Cleary.

Authorities then took a new look at the case, weeks after Keeler spoke to the Associated Press in 2021 for a story about how difficult it is to prosecute sex crimes on college campuses. Cleary was indicted later that year.

Speaking to ABC News journalist Juju Chang on Tuesday, Oct. 21, Keeler explained why she has since forgiven her assailant.

“Forgiveness doesn’t just set him free, it sets me free too,” Keeler said. “And I don’t want to live with anger and I believe in redemption as well. And he still has the power to live a good life and become a good person…do the right thing, and I hope he does.”

Keeler also said Cleary’s sentence was less than what she believed “he deserved,” but told Chang “he’s going to jail and he’s going to have the label of a sexual predator for the rest of his life and that’s accountability…that’s justice.”

According to the AP, prosecutors proposed a four to eight year sentence.

At his sentencing hearing, Cleary apologized for his actions and said he’s “committed to getting treatment for mental health and stuff like that as I go forward,” the AP reported.