The man accused of raping and impregnating a ten-year-old Ohio girl who traveled to Indiana to get an abortion was indicted by a grand jury on Thursday, according to court documents.
Twenty-seven-year-old Gerson Fuentes, allegedly an illegal migrant from Guatemala, was indicted on two counts of rape. The rapes took place between January and May of 2022 when the girl was nine years old, court documents showed, according to NBC4 Columbus.
The story made national headlines days after the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade, as the girl traveled across state lines to terminate her pregnancy after Ohio’s 6-week abortion law took effect. Ohio attorney general Dave Yost claims the girl had the right to get an abortion in Ohio, as the law provides an exception when the mother’s life is in danger.
President Joe Biden used the story to argue for the federal right to abortion.
“She was forced to have to travel out of the state to Indiana to seek to terminate the pregnancy and maybe save her life,” Biden said. “Ten years old — 10 years old! — raped, six weeks pregnant, already traumatized, was forced to travel to another state.”
Fuentes was arrested earlier in July after he confessed to raping the girl, and was held on a $2 million dollar bond. He is set to go back to court on Monday on arraignment of his new charges, according to the outlet.
The doctor who performed the abortion in Indiana, Caitlin Bernard, sent a letter to Indiana officials last week, indicating she may sue Rokita for defamation, who initially doubted the veracity of the story.
Bernard was initially the sole source of the story and refused to give details corroborating details to several media outlets.
Rokita gave an interview on Fox News July 13 and claimed Bernard has a history of “failing to report” abortion cases and said that she’s an “abortion activist acting as a doctor.” However, Bernard did report the abortion in time, records showed.