Facebook post leads to arrest warrant in years-old rape allegation

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PHILADELPHIA As she pleaded with prosecutors to press charges for rape at college, Shannon Keeler studied in Spain, won a national lacrosse championship, graduated with a bachelor’s degree and fell in love.

All the while, she gathered evidence of the first-year attack and passed it on to investigators. Here are the names of the people who saw the high school student harass me at the fellowship party in 2013. Here is the phone number of the friend who saw him follow me home. This is the name of the hospital where my coach took me to get a rape kit.

And then, just last year: Here’s a recent post from her Facebook account that says, So I raped you.

After verifying the account and after Keeler told his story to The Associated Press, a new team of police and prosecutors on Tuesday obtained an arrest warrant, accusing Ian Cleary, 28, of Saratoga, Calif., Of ‘sexually assaulting Keeler while they were students at Gettysburg College in 2013. Police say they haven’t located him yet and don’t know his whereabouts. So it’s still not clear whether Keeler will see the case go to trial.

Although I am moved to tears by this result, which I have been waiting for (for) more than seven years, I am aware that this moment has come because I have made my story public, which no survivor should. having to do to get justice, Keeler, now 26, said in a statement released through her lawyer.

Keeler had discussed his experience in PA history which detailed prosecutors’ frequent reluctance to lay charges in campus rape cases. Authorities had told Keeler it was difficult to continue with business when the victim was drinking, she said. The rape kit was then lost or destroyed.

Affidavit filed with warrant accuses Cleary, then a junior and goaltender for the ice hockey team, of following Keeler home after the party, sneaking into her room, and sexually assaulting her . Keeler didn’t even know his name. As he apologized and ran away, Keeler texted friends on campus OMG Please Help Me, according to the documents.

The Gettysburg Police Department reopened the case last year after Keeler showed them a flurry of messages that appeared to come from Clearys’ Facebook account. Police obtained a search warrant for the account and linked it to Cleary via the cell phone number, according to the affidavit. Adams County District Attorney Brian Sinnett, whose office had filed a few rape cases involving adult victims since 2013, backed the charges.

Washington attorney Laura Dunn, who represents Keeler, said she hoped the case would prompt authorities to be more receptive to victims of sexual assault. She wonders what’s next.

Are we going to be able to find him? Are we going to be able to make an arrest? Will there be a plea deal or successful lawsuits? she said. I remain hopeful, but I am very concerned that he has not yet been arrested, not located yet.

A cell phone linked to Cleary rang unanswered on Tuesday and had no voicemail. Messages left at phone numbers associated with her father in California and her mother in Maryland were not immediately returned.

The AP had not named Cleary before because he had not been charged and could not reach him for comment. Now that the arrest warrant has been issued, the PA is using his name.

The alleged assault happened on the last night of Keelers’ first semester in Gettysburg, when few students were still on campus. Victim advocates say campus sexual assault occurs frequently in a student’s first year, when he or she is perhaps the most vulnerable.

FILE – In this April 7, 2021 file photo of the Gettysburg College campus in Gettysburg, Pennsylvania. Authorities in Pennsylvania on Tuesday, June 29, 2021, filed an arrest warrant in an attack on the University of Gettysburg campus in 2013, nearly eight years The victim went to police and a year later , she got a message online saying: So I raped you. (AP Photo / Matt Rourke, file)

Keeler had stayed an extra day because a snowstorm had delayed her last exam until Saturday. Cleary never returned to campus after that semester, ending the school’s Title IX investigation, she said. He appears to have later graduated from a university in Northern California.

Keeler always believed she had a strong case. Witnesses include a friend who escorted her home from the party to keep her safe and says Cleary followed them and offered $ 20 to leave him alone with Keeler.

It has bothered me over the years that I’ve never been able to do anything, Keeler told the AP this spring. If you’re not going to help me, who are you going to help? Because I have proof.

Only one in five university sexual assault victims report to the police. And when they do, experts say, prosecutors are often reluctant to take on cases where victims had been drinking or knew the accused.

Cleary seems to have lived in Europe in recent years. Efforts to locate him could spread across the country and abroad, officials said.

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