Court records prove Amy Acton accurately described abusive childhood

A campaign ad for Vivek Ramaswamy, Acton's opponent in the Ohio governor's race, features her estranged mother accusing her of lying. Published Oct. 23, 2026 Claim: Ohio gubernatorial candidate Amy Acton's birth mother, Donna Arthur, remained married to Acton's stepfather, Cledith Arthur, until 2004, despite him being charged with raping Acton when she was 12. Rating: ContextCledith Arthur was never tried on the rape charge because he and Donna Arthur fled the state, and Cledith Arthur never returned to face the charges before his death in 2004. Without a conviction, Snopes cannot definitively confirm he raped Acton. In October, less than a month before the U.S. 2026 midterm elections, Ohio's Republican gubernatorial candidate Vivek Ramaswamy released an advertisement featuring Donna Arthur, the mother of his opponent Dr. Amy Acton. In the advertisement, Arthur claimed that Acton "lies about her past." In response, Acton's campaign released a statement from her brother, Philip Stearns, noting that the two had been estranged from their mother for decades. Her stepfather, Cledith Arthur, raped Acton when she was 12, and both she and her brother were removed from Donna and Cledith Arthur's custody after his arrest, according to the statement. Stearns' statement further claimed thatDonna Arthur "stayed married to Amy's rapist until he died" in 2004. Acton, the former state health department director, has been open when talking about her difficult childhood for years. A 2019 piece about Acton for Youngstown, Ohio's local newspaper The Vindicator described her as "abused, abandoned, neglected," and claimed she lived in "18 or so homes in her first 12 years," including a winter spent living in a tent at a Youngstown campground. That article also mentioned the sexual abuse she suffered at the hands of her stepfather. Donna Arthur disputed the "living in a tent" claim directly in the pro-Ramaswamy advertisement, but did not mention the abuse allegations. (PolitiFact found she did claim Acton lied about being raped in a 2020 interview with Operation Rescue, an anti-abortion group.) Ramaswamy has stood by the ad, and President Donald Trump and Vice President JD Vance have said they support running it. Vance told Republicans to "stop whining" about the ad at a rally. But the insinuation Acton was lying about her abusive childhood struck many as insensitive, including some Republicans. Ohio Sen. Jon Husted (who is running for reelection this year) said he would not have run the ad, and incumbent Gov. Mike DeWine (who is not running because he is term-limited) called for Ramaswamy to take it down. Snopes received several requests from readers asking us to get to the truth of the matter — was Acton actually lying about her childhood, as her mother claimed? We vetted the story. Court records show Acton's stepfather was charged with raping her, as she claimed. We also found evidence that Donna and Cledith Arthur remained married and lived together until Cledith Arthur's death in 2004. In a response to Snopes' request for comment, the Acton campaign provided a comprehensive timeline of events and images of court documents documenting the rape charge filed against Cledith Arthur, Acton's stepfather, alongside several interviews in which she discussed her childhood. The Acton campaign also noted that Donna Arthur was found guilty of felony theft in 1996 and of animal neglect in 2021, and that Cledith Arthur was also indicted on an incest charge in 1974, before he and Donna married. (Snopes confirmed that charge via a note in The Youngstown Vindicator on March 22, 1974 — Page 25, at the bottom of the article titled "Trumbull Indicts 2 Mahoning Men for Shooting Deaths, clear third"). We then requested the files for the rape charge against Arthur from the County Clerk in Mahoning County, Ohio (which can be viewed here), in order to confirm the legitimacy of the documents the Acton campaign provided. Next, we searched the archives of local newspapers for Cledith Arthur's name, and found two brief articles in The Vindicator reporting on the rape charge in 1978. To verify that Cledith and Donna Arthur remained married, we ran a background check on both, and found that both were using the same mailing address as late as 2003, suggesting they continued living together. We also searched the courts for divorce records and found none. In sum, all of the information matched Acton's claims. It's worth noting that because she was a minor at the time, Acton's name was redacted on the set of documents Snopes obtained via public records request. The documents we received from the Acton campaign, meanwhile, were not redacted. In order to obtain those, someone personally involved with the case (likely Acton or her brother, Philip) would have needed to make the request. It's also worth noting that while a grand jury indicted Arthur on rape charges (he pleaded not guilty, according to the court records viewed by Snopes), he was never tried because he and Donna Arthur moved out of state before the hearing. Cledith Arthur died in Pennsylvania in 2004, according to FindAGrave and the Acton campaign. The timeline According to the 2019 Vindicator profile, Acton's biological mother, Donna, and father divorced when she was 3, and her mother retained custody of the children. In 1975, according to the statement from Acton's campaign, Donna remarried Cledith Arthur. On July 13, 1978, Acton's biological father filed a formal complaint against Arthur, alleging he raped Acton between December 1976 and April 1978, when she was between the ages of 10 and 12. The court documents viewed by Snopes listed Arthur's address as "Terrace Lake Park" on State Route 7 in Rogers, Ohio. Snopes found the property is now called Terrace Lakes Camp Ground. Arthur was arrested the day after the complaint was filed, and he pleaded not guilty to the rape charge five days later. This fact was reported in The Vindicator on July 17. Acton and several police officers were subsequently subpoenaed as witnesses, according to court documents. On Aug. 11, The Vindicator reported that Arthur would face a grand jury for the rape charge. The court documents showed Arthur testified before the grand jury in late September 1978, where he was indicted. "In the courthouse after they were charged, I went to give her a kiss, and she just turned her cheek away," Acton said of her mother while speaking to The Vindicator in 2019. "That was the last time I ever saw her." Cledith and Donna Arthur seemingly skipped town before Arthur's Oct. 13 hearing, and a judge issued a warrant for Arthur's arrest on Oct. 26. "It appears the Defendant has willfully vacated his last known address and has failed to provide any forwarding address and his present whereabouts are unknown," the order read. The court issued an additional warrant against Arthur on Dec. 9, 1981, but, as previously stated, he was never found. There was exactly one sticking point in the files — it was unclear exactly when the court officially transferred custody of Acton and her brother to their biological father. Snopes requested those files from both the Mahoning County Clerk and the Acton campaign. The Acton campaign did not have them available and the Mahoning County Clerk did not provide them alongside the file on Arthur's court case. The files are likely unavailable to third parties under Ohio law, but Snopes is awaiting confirmation from the County Clerk on this fact. Sources "Acton's Estranged Mother Calls Daughter 'Liar.'" The Vindicator, https://www.vindy.com/news/local-news/2026/10/actons-estranged-mother-calls-daughter-liar/. Accessed 22 Oct. 2026.August 31, Opinion:, and 2019 at 12:05a.m. "State Health Director's Passion Come from Youngstown." Http://Vindyarchives.Com, http://vindyarchives.com/news/2019/aug/31/ohio-leaders-passion-comes-from-youngsto/. Accessed 22 Oct. 2026.Becker, Amanda. "Amy Acton Survived Childhood Abuse. Her Republican Opponent Is Using It to Attack Her." The 19th, 21 Oct. 2026, https://19thnews.org/2026/10/amy-acton-childhood-abuse-ad-vivek-ramaswamy/.Bullock, Addie. "Dr. Amy Acton's Brother's Statement on Ramaswamy Platforming Their Estranged and Abusive Mother." Dr. Amy Acton for Governor, 20 Oct. 2026, https://actonforgovernor.com/dr-amy-actons-brothers-statement-on-ramaswamy-platforming-their-estranged-and-abusive-mother/.———. "RAMASWAMY CAMPAIGN STANDS BY DR. ACTON'S ESTRANGED AND ABUSIVE MOTHER." Dr. Amy Acton for Governor, 20 Oct. 2026, https://actonforgovernor.com/ramaswamy-campaign-stands-by-dr-actons-estranged-and-abusive-mother/.Contrera, Jessica. "Attack Ad Featuring Candidate's Mother Turns Ohio Governor's Race Even Uglier." The New York Times, 20 Oct. 2026, https://www.nytimes.com/2026/10/20/us/politics/ramaswamy-campaign-ad-acton-estranged-mother-donna-arthur.html.Cuno-Booth, Paul. "Controversial Ohio Ad Calls Acton a 'Liar,' But Records Back Her Account of Childhood." FactCheck.Org, 21 Oct. 2026, https://www.factcheck.org/2026/10/controversial-ohio-ad-calls-acton-a-liar-but-records-back-her-account-of-childhood/.Curtin, Mike. "Vivek Ramaswamy Doesn't Want You to Know This Happened to Amy Acton | Opinion." The Columbus Dispatch, https://www.dispatch.com/story/opinion/columns/guest/2026/10/22/amy-acton-vivek-ramasawamy-court-record-donna-stearns-arthur-cledith-arthur-rape/92374978007/. Accessed 22 Oct. 2026.Lindkvist, Kierstin. "Vivek Ramaswamy Defends Campaign Ad Featuring Amy Acton's Estranged Mother." WSYX, 21 Oct. 2026, https://abc6onyourside.com/news/local/vivek-ramaswamy-defends-campaign-ad-featuring-amy-actons-estranged-mother.McCracken, Ford. "Ohio GOP Senator: 'I Would Not Have Run' Ramaswamy Ad ." The Hill, 21 Oct. 2026, https://thehill.com/homenews/campaign/6163911-husted-opposes-ramaswamy-controversial-ad/.News, A. B. C. "Vance Praises Ramaswamy for Having 'audacity' to Run Controversial Amy Acton Ad." ABC News, https://abcnews.com/Politics/vance-praises-ramaswamy-audacity-run-controversial-amy-acton/story?id=137454653. Accessed 22 Oct. 2026."Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine Calls on Vivek Ramaswamy to Take down Ad Featuring Opponent's Estranged Mother." NBC News, 22 Oct. 2026, https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/2026-election/ohio-mike-dewine-vivek-ramaswamy-take-down-ad-amy-acton-mom-rcna605006.Sullenger, Cheryl. "Ohio Health Director's Mother Comes Forward to Set the Record Straight About Daughter's Troubled Past." Operation Rescue, 3 June 2020, https://www.operationrescue.org/ohio-health-directors-mother-comes-forward-to-set-the-record-straight-about-daughters-troubled-past/.Vance Tells Republicans to "stop Whining" about Ohio Attack Ad against Democrat Amy Acton. 21 Oct. 2026, https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cm98zn3l2rn7o.Youngstown Vindicator. Youngstown Vindicator.Youngstown Vindicator - Google News Archive Search. https://news.google.com/newspapers?id=epNIAAAAIBAJ&sjid=FYQMAAAAIBAJ&pg=5214%2C1013486. Accessed 22 Oct. 2026. By Jack Izzo Jack Izzo is a Chicago-based journalist and two-time "Jeopardy!" alumnus. Article Tags