After a nearly 12-year odyssey for justice, Shannon Keeler was able to confront in court on Monday the man who confessed to sexually assaulting her at a 2013 fraternity party.
“I was shaking and tearing up a bit, but it felt really good to be able to look him in the eyes and tell him what he did to me,” Keeler told ABC News’ Juju Chang in an interview that aired Tuesday on “Good Morning America.”
Ian Cleary, the man accused of sexually assaulting Keeler at Gettysburg University in 2013, was sentenced Monday to two to four years in prison.
“It definitely was shorter than we expected and less than I think he deserved,” Keeler said of Cleary’s sentence. “But you know what, 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, and that’s justice, and for that … I’m happy, and I’m grateful, and I’m relieved, and I’m lucky.”
Keeler was a freshman lacrosse player at Gettysburg University in Gettysburg, Pennsylvania, in 2013 when she went to a fraternity party, where she said a male student — whom she identified as Cleary — kept bothering her.
Keeler said that out of concern for her safety, a friend escorted her back to her dorm, but she said Cleary followed them.
“There was knock on the door. And, I mean, I just didn’t think for a second it would be him,” Keeler told Chang. “And I opened the door and it was him, and … he came in uninvited.”
Once inside her dorm room, Keeler said she was sexually assaulted by Cleary.
In court on Monday, Keeler read aloud a victim impact statement that described, in her own words, the trauma she said she experienced.
“The trauma of that night wasn’t confined to my dorm room. It changed how I saw myself,” Keeler said, later adding, “My confidence, my self-care, my relationship with my body, all of it shifted in quiet, painful ways.”
Soon after the incident, Keeler said she reported the incident to campus and local police, who questioned her for hours and had her submit a rape kit.
Despite her full cooperation with authorities, the district attorney at the time declined to charge Cleary.
Seven years later, in 2020, Keeler was on vacation when she said she saw what appeared to be multiple Facebook messages from Cleary. One specific message, she said, admitted to the attack.
“So, I raped you,” Keeler said the message read, in an interview with ABC News in 2021. “I’ll never do it to anyone ever again.”
On June 30, 2021, the Adams County District Attorney’s Office announced that it had filed sexual assault charges against Cleary.
Three years after charges were filed, authorities found Cleary in France in 2024. Earlier this summer, he pleaded guilty to sexual assault.
In court on Monday, Cleary apologized to Keeler and to his family.
Keeler told Chang that she hopes her own long journey to justice helps other women too.
“I mean, I am doing it for me, but I also recognize that I am just the complete minority,” she said. “I am in a position where I can do something so many other women would too, if they were in my shoes.”
Keeler also said that she has forgiven Cleary, a position she said has given her freedom too.
With time served, Cleary could be up for parole after six months state prison, following his sentencing on Monday.
“Ultimately, forgiveness doesn’t just set him free. It sets me free too, right? And I don’t want to live with anger,” she said. “I believe in redemption as well, and he still has the power to live a good life and become a good person and do the right thing, and I hope he does.”
Watch more of Juju Chang’s interview with Shannon Keeler on “Nightline” TONIGHT at 12:35 a.m. ET on ABC.
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