GETTYSBURG, Pa. (AP) — An American man, extradited from France, has pleaded guilty to sexually assaulting a classmate from a Pennsylvania college back in 2013. This follows a disturbing Facebook message he sent her later, saying, “So I raped you.”

Ian Cleary, now 32, admitted to the crime of second-degree sexual assault, a crime committed over ten years ago when Shannon Keeler reported that he broke into her first-year dorm at Gettysburg College just before the winter break and attacked her. This plea marked Keeler’s first in-person encounter with Cleary since the incident.

“I’ve been anticipating this moment for 12 years,” expressed Keeler, while tightly holding her husband’s hand as Cleary was brought into the courtroom. For her, it was an unreal experience, especially since a previous prosecutor had chosen not to pursue the case a decade prior.

“It’s taken a lot of twists and turns to get to this point,” said Keeler, now 30. “It took a lot of people doing the right thing to get us here.”

Judge Kevin Hess set an Oct. 20 sentencing date. The two sides proposed a four- to eight-year sentence, which the judge can accept or not.

Keeler, in interviews with The Associated Press, described her decade-long efforts to persuade authorities to pursue charges, starting hours after the assault.

She renewed the quest in 2021, after finding a series of disturbing Facebook messages from his account.

Cleary has been in custody since his arrest on minor, unrelated charges in Metz, France, in April 2024. A defense lawyer told the judge Thursday that Cleary experienced several mental health episodes there and was hospitalized around the time he sent the Facebook messages in 2019.

Cleary left Gettysburg after the assault and finished college in Silicon Valley, California, where he’d grown up. He then got a master’s degree and worked for Tesla before moving overseas, where he spent time writing medieval fiction, according to his online posts.

The AP published an investigation on the case and on the broader reluctance among prosecutors to pursue campus sex assault charges in May 2021. An indictment followed weeks later.

Authorities in the U.S. and Europe tried to track Cleary down for the next three years, but seemed unable to follow his trail, online or otherwise.

In court Thursday, defense lawyer John Abom said Cleary was homeless at times and unaware of the charges. Adams County District Attorney Brian Sinnett on Thursday said he has his doubts, but cannot prove that Cleary was on the run, so it’s unlikely to be an issue at sentencing.

The second-degree sexual assault charge carries a maximum 10 years in prison. His family members have declined to comment on the case and have not attended his court hearings. Abom also declined to comment on Cleary’s behalf Thursday.

The AP typically does not name people who say they have been sexually assaulted unless they come forward publicly, as Keeler has done.

“I hope that we as a society, the institutions around us, can make truly successful legal outcomes more viable for victims,” she said after the plea.

“It starts with listening to victims and making sure their voices are heard,” she said, “even if the system’s slow to catch up.”