After a nearly 12-year odyssey for justice, Shannon Keeler was able to confront in court Monday the man who confessed to sexually assaulting her at a fraternity party in 2013.
“I was shaking and crying a little, 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 was definitely shorter than we expected and shorter than I think he deserved,” Keeler said of Cleary’s sentence. “But you know what, he’s going to go to jail and be labeled a sexual predator for the rest of his life, and that’s responsibility, and that’s justice, and for that… I’m happy, grateful, relieved, and fortunate.”
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 student, whom she identified as Cleary, kept bothering her.
Shannon Keeler speaks with ABC News’ Juju Chang in an interview that aired October 21, 2025 on “Good Morning America.”
ABC News
Concerned for her safety, Keeler said a friend walked her back to her dorm, but she said Cleary followed them.
“There was a knock on the door. And, I mean, I 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 bedroom, Keeler said Cleary sexually assaulted her.
In court 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 limited to my bedroom. It changed the way I saw myself,” Keeler said, later adding, “My confidence, my self-care, my relationship with my body, all silently and painfully changed.”
Shortly after the incident, Keeler said she reported the incident to the campus and local police, who questioned her for hours and made her produce a rape kit.
Despite his 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 several Facebook messages from Cleary. A specific message, he said, admitted to the attack.
“So, I raped you,” Keeler said the message read, in an interview with ABC News in 2021. “I will never do it to anyone 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 Monday, Cleary apologized to Keeler and his family.
In this May 29, 2025, file photo, sexual assault suspect Ian Cleary leaves the Adams County Courthouse in Gettysburg, Pennsylvania.
Matt Rourke/AP, FILE
Keeler told Chang that she hopes her long journey toward justice will help other women as well.
“I mean, I do it for me, but I also recognize that I’m a complete minority,” he said. “I’m in a position where I can do something that many other women would also do if they were in my place.”
Keeler also said she has forgiven Cleary, a position she said has also given her freedom.
With time served, Cleary could be eligible for parole after six months in state prison following his sentencing Monday.
“Ultimately, forgiveness doesn’t just free him. It also frees me, right? And I don’t want to live with anger,” he said. “I believe in redemption too, 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 12:35am ET on ABC.
