An Ohio grand jury on Thursday returned a two-count indictment against the man accused of raping a girl who later travelled to Indiana to obtain an abortion because she was barred from terminating the pregnancy in her home state.
The indictment also reveals that the girl was just 9 years old at the time she was assaulted, younger even than the 10 years of age widely reported at the time she sought an out-of-state abortion.Gerson Fuentes, 27, jailed since his July 12 arrest, was previously charged with rape in a criminal complaint filed by prosecutors in a case that stirred an uproar following the U.S. Supreme Court decision last month erasing a constitutional right to abortion.
The Ohio ban went into effect hours after the Supreme Court's conservative majority struck down the 1973 Roe v. Wade decision establishing a national right to an abortion and allowing each state to regulate the procedure as it sees fit. The indictment charges Fuentes with two counts of rape, according to a redacted copy of the document filed in the Franklin County Court of Common Pleas. It says the victim was 9 years old on both occasions but gives no details of the alleged encounters or of how the defendant and victim may have known one another.
Opponents of abortion sought to raise doubts about the veracity of the story, first reported by the Indianapolis Star newspaper, until the suspect made his first court appearance on July 13.