Fact Check

Jim Jordan's Tweet Scoffing at Story About 10-Year-Old Rape Victim Deleted

The tweet disappeared from Twitter soon after a man was arrested and charged with the rape of a 10-year-old girl in Jordan's own state of Ohio.

Published Jul 13, 2022

WASHINGTON, DC - JULY 21: Rep. Jim Jordan (R-OH) speaks at a news conference on House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s decision to reject two of Leader McCarthy’s selected members from serving on the committee investigating the January 6th riots on July 21, 2021 in Washington, DC. Speaker Pelosi announced she would be rejecting Rep. Banks and Rep. Jordan’s assignment to the committee. (Photo by Kevin Dietsch/Getty Images) (Kevin Dietsch/Getty Images)
Image Via Kevin Dietsch/Getty Images
Claim:
A tweet later deleted from Republican Rep. Jim Jordan's Twitter account dismissed the claim that a 10-year-old girl was raped in his home state of Ohio and had to cross state lines to receive an abortion as "another lie."
Context

The tweet was real. It disappeared from Jordan's account soon after news broke that a man had been arrested and charged with raping the girl.

On July 13, 2022, Popular Information investigative reporter Judd Legum tweeted that he noticed a message had disappeared from U.S. Rep. Jim Jordan's Twitter account. We quickly found evidence that this was true, as the Republican congressman from Ohio had previously tweeted that the claim that a 10-year-old Ohio girl was raped and had to cross state lines to get an abortion was a "lie." It appeared that either Jordan or someone with access to Jordan's account deleted that tweet shortly after news broke on July 13 that a man had been arrested and charged with raping the child.

Via Google cache, this is how the tweet looked before it was deleted:

Kevin Dietsch/Getty Images

Jordan's now-removed tweet about the 10-year-old girl who was raped and crossed state lines to receive an abortion was archived by Google cache. It originally read, "Another lie. Anyone surprised?"

We reported extensively on the case of the 10-year-old girl, whose identity was not revealed due to her age:

After the story went viral, various media personalities and social media commenters questioned whether the story was real. On July 13, 2022, The Columbus Dispatch, however, reported that a man accused of impregnating the child had been arrested. Gerson Fuentes, 27, was arrested and charged with rape, according to that newspaper. He said he raped the child on “at least two occasions,” and Columbus Police Det. Jeffrey Huhn confirmed that that child indeed had an abortion in Indianapolis on June 30.

Court records in Franklin County, Ohio, indicate Fuentes was arraigned on July 13 on charges of raping a child under the age of 13, a felony, and is being held on $2 million bond at Franklin County Correctional Center in Columbus, Ohio. He is due back in court for a preliminary hearing on July 22, 2022.

The Associated Press published the reason why the 10-year-old girl had to go over state lines to Indiana in order to receive the abortion:

An Indianapolis physician who provides abortion services, Dr. Caitlin Bernard, had told The Indianapolis Star that an abortion had been provided for such a child because the girl couldn’t get the procedure in Ohio under a newly imposed state ban on abortions at the first detectable “fetal heartbeat.”

A judge lifted a stay on the ban after the U.S. Supreme Court’s ruling overturning Roe v. Wade.

In sum, yes, a tweet was deleted or removed from Jordan's account regarding a 10-year-old girl who had to cross state lines to receive an abortion after being raped in Ohio.

Jordan Liles is a Senior Reporter who has been with Snopes since 2016.