Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Gershon Fuentes sexual assault case


 * The following discussion is an archived debate of the proposed deletion of the article below. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in a deletion review).  No further edits should be made to this page.

The result was delete. Opinion is mostly split between "keep or merge" and "delete". The former camp considers the incident notable because of the coverage it received, the latter believes that Ohio's abortion laws and their impact on the 10-year-old at issue are the story, not her alleged rape as such. These are prima facie valid arguments, and therefore I must consider their weight in the light of applicable policy.

In my view, WP:SUSPECT, part of the core policy WP:BLP, must be given great weight here. It provides that "For individuals who are not public figures; that is, individuals not covered by § Public figures, editors must seriously consider not including material—in any article—that suggests the person has committed, or is accused of having committed, a crime, unless a conviction has been secured." In this discussion, only two people on the "keep" side undertake this consideration as mandated by the policy, and they both agree that the name of the alleged perpetrator is not material to the topic. Policy-informed consensus, therefore, is that an article with this title or with content that names the alleged perpetrator must not be kept.

This rules out a redirect or a merger, which would both preserve the name as a search term. The only BLP-compliant outcome is therefore to delete the article. This is, I dare say, no great loss to Wikipedia, given that the article in its entirety reads: "The [N.N.] sexual assault case is a 2022 event in the United States in which [N.N.], age 27, has been accused of sexually assaulting a 10 -year-old girl in Ohio. The girl traveled to Indiana to get an abortion, which was prohibited in Ohio." It should be no great trouble for interested editors to either create from scratch a much better new article that focuses on the abortion law issues raised by this case, or to add such content to e.g. Abortion in Ohio.  Sandstein  19:25, 4 August 2022 (UTC)

Gershon Fuentes sexual assault case

 * – ( View AfD View log | edits since nomination)

Accused non public figure. WP:SUSPECT. I prodded and an editor removed it. Reported at WP:BLPN and an admin suggested AfD. Bruxton (talk) 01:29, 14 July 2022 (UTC)
 * Note: This discussion has been included in the deletion sorting lists for the following topics: Crime and Ohio. Shellwood (talk) 07:21, 14 July 2022 (UTC)
 * Delete : The living individual concerned has no notability other than being charged with this crime, which is reprehensible but not unique and not worthy of a Wikipedia article. In any case, he hasn't been convicted so WP:BLPCRIME applies, and the article is basically a WP:COATRACK for pointing out the consequence of the Ohio abortion laws for the victim. Neiltonks (talk) 09:08, 14 July 2022 (UTC)
 * Keep (but rename) or Merge : There are two stories here, so I understand why one could see this article as a WP:COATRACK. But this is a notable crime where an unnamed 10 year old victim needed to seek an abortion after being raped by the accused perpetrator and is alleged to be the father of her child, too. The consequence of the Ohio abortion laws for child victims of sexual assault are notable because they are out of the ordinary, so the article may benefit from being rewritten from that viewpoint. Even though WP:SUSPECT counsels against writing a biography about criminal suspects because people accused of a crime are presumed innocent until found guilty by a judicial process, WP:NCRIME advises that notable crimes can be written about as a single event, but not as a biography of a living person notable for a single event. The title of this article names the accused, although misspelling his name, consequently the title could be considered having a non-neutral point of view as the title could be seen as prejudging any trial by connecting the accused with a crime. The current title therefore disrespects a person's right to a fair trial and could be a reason for deleting the title, but that is not cause for deleting the contents of the article. So the article should be renamed and rewritten with a different focus. Depending on the outcome of any trial, there is POTENTIAL for a future biographical article, because the accused might no longer be a low profile individual, but not just yet. Where this case will go in the future, nobody knows, but there are multiple possibilities. An alternative to keeping this article is to merge the content into an article like Abortion in Ohio, Abortion in Indiana or Abortion in the United States or even Sexual assault § United States. - Cameron Dewe (talk) 09:55, 14 July 2022 (UTC)
 * Delete per WP:BLPCRIME and as a biography of an arrest. The abortion controversy may be notable, but it's not even the primary focus of the article. There is nothing to salvage here, not even the article title. As for the above keep !vote, the speculative significance of the accused cannot overcome the clear BLP violation. The content to be merged is mostly about the suspect, not abortion. • Gene93k (talk) 12:57, 14 July 2022 (UTC)
 * Neutral: mmh... this seems to be developing into a story with nationwide coverage. there is the alleged crime itself, and then the issue of how abortion laws impacted the alleged victim's unwanted pregnancy. the story is made more notable by the fact that some journalists and public figures said they believed the story was a hoax meant to advance a pro-abortion agenda. the story is still developing. the article was probably started too soon, but i wouldnt be surprised if a more robust wiki article on this subject later emerges. some media coverage includes:
 * https://www.nytimes.com/2022/07/13/us/ohio-arrest-rape-abortion.html
 * https://www.wsj.com/amp/articles/an-abortion-story-too-good-to-confirm-joe-biden-ten-year-old-girl-indiana-ohio-caitlin-bernard-11657648618
 * https://www.reuters.com/world/us/ohio-man-charged-with-raping-10-year-old-who-was-forced-cross-state-lines-2022-07-13/
 * https://www.thedailybeast.com/fox-news-host-jesse-watters-suggested-10-year-old-rape-victims-abortion-was-a-hoax-before-arrest
 * Thank you. Al83tito (talk) 14:19, 14 July 2022 (UTC)
 * what will more likely make this subject notable, is not the alleged crimeitself, but the doubts (see Washington Post article) surrounding the veracity of the case and the many political reactions related to the abortion debate that are stemming from it.Al83tito (talk) 14:32, 14 July 2022 (UTC)


 * Delete For one, whomever created this article in haste didn’t even bother to spell the suspect’s name right. Two, this is about a 10 year old child caught in the worst cross hairs anyone could imagine in American history. I do not think there should be an article about it without further details and commentary from the parents. Mind you, for weeks conservatives and a newspaper of record swore up and down this poor girl didn’t even exist. Trillfendi (talk) 14:41, 14 July 2022 (UTC)
 * Separate discussion not needed An editor started a separate merge discussion. It is a duplication of this process and should be closed to prevent confusion. From WP:AFD: Common outcomes are that the article is kept, merged, redirected, incubated, renamed/moved to another title, userfied to a user subpage, or deleted per the deletion policy. Disambiguation pages are also nominated for deletion at AfD. Bruxton (talk) 22:20, 14 July 2022 (UTC)


 *  Keep or merge - The articles says "accused". The consequences of Ohio's strict abortion law causing the victim to travel to Indiana are significant, so the article can be rewritten to encompass this.  Notable crimes can be written as a single event, and we can take the name of the accused out of the title and article completely (i.e. 2022 Ohio sexual assault case).  Assuming the page can not be kept, it can be merged into Abortion in Ohio.  If this were a BLP violation, the name of the suspect would have been removed immediately.  The story and name of suspect have nationwide coverage, so removing the name of the suspect would not protect the suspect very much, if at all.  People claiming that this is a hoax makes this more notable.  Dave Yost doubted the assault, then rejoiced at the arrest.  The spelling of the name of the accused, doubts of existence of the 10 year old girl and lack of comments from parents is completely irrelevant. --Jax 0677 (talk) 01:27, 15 July 2022 (UTC)


 * Keep. Coverage is all over. Surprised that the article is so slim.--2601:C4:C300:A210:55FF:937B:37EC:3F69 (talk) 02:48, 15 July 2022 (UTC)


 * Merge or wait. The crime is horrid but not by itself unique, unfortunately. It does check a lot of other boxes, such as abortion debate, being politicized by the POTUS, by his opposition. The suspect appears to be an undocumented alien, and the doctor leaking the story is now facing a complaint for HIPAA violation. The content should be able to find other homes. Of course, we can also wait and see if anything more develops from it. Cobiexor (talk) 09:37, 15 July 2022 (UTC)


 * Keep. There is significant coverage by many high quality sources: NYT CNN Reuters USA Today Axios Fox WaPo ABC Politico. And it's not just being covered because it's a gruesome (alleged) crime, this case is becoming a big part of the conversation around abortion law in the US. – Anne drew  15:35, 15 July 2022 (UTC)


 * Comment - The article is currently titled "Gershon Fuentes sexual assault case". As such, this is (presumably) an article about the event / the crime ... not a bio of the Fuentes individual.    Joseph A. Spadaro (talk) 00:52, 17 July 2022 (UTC)
 * Delete As I read the news, the primary story is dealing with the victim dealing with the outcome of the sexual assault given recent changes in abortion laws, not on the accused perpetrator. Unfortunately, sexual assualts happen daily, even involving victims this young and we don't have articles on them all. At best, some of this content should be included in an article on changes in abortion laws and the effects of those changes, not as an article focused on the accused perpetrator. Liz Read! Talk! 15:23, 18 July 2022 (UTC)


 * As I said above ... this is an article about the event/crime ... not a bio of the perpetrator.    Joseph A. Spadaro (talk) 20:04, 18 July 2022 (UTC)
 * You can’t call two sentences, one of which isn’t even about him, an article. Trillfendi (talk) 02:09, 21 July 2022 (UTC)
 * I am not sure how that addresses my point. It's obviously an article.  That's why we are here, discussing an AFD ... that is, proposing an Article For Deletion.  And, it's obviously a stub.  Thanks.     Joseph A. Spadaro (talk) 06:49, 21 July 2022 (UTC)
 *  Reply - WP:TOOSHORT. --Jax 0677 (talk) 13:51, 21 July 2022 (UTC)
 * An article details it’s subject with facts, this is not even a stub. This was an attempt to the first to jump in on a political controversy, rather carelessly. In any other logical time, this would've been speedy deleted or PROD. Two sentences don't make an article. Trillfendi (talk) 14:56, 21 July 2022 (UTC)
 *  Reply - WP:POTENTIAL. --Jax 0677 (talk) 17:24, 21 July 2022 (UTC)

Please add new comments below this notice. Thanks, Less Unless (talk) 18:30, 22 July 2022 (UTC)
 * Merge to Abortion in Ohio. This, as a standalone article, screams WP:1E to me; it fits far better in an article where it can be focused on in context of the ongoing abortion debate. A section in the Ohio article will reduce a focus on the accused (who is, it should be noted, still just accused, and not convicted) and puts the focus firmly on the broader political issues involved. Tony Fox (arf!) 20:11, 18 July 2022 (UTC)
 * Delete per Blow it up and start over. I do not think that I have ever seen a Wikipedia article about a crime that incorporates the name of an accused but not convicted person into the title of the article. I believe that the very existence of an article with a title like this is a violation of Wikipedia's policy on biographies of living people. The article started at two sentences when nominated for AfD and it remains at two sentences six days later. I think that an acceptable article could be written about this controversy, but this isn't it and is not even the kernel of it. Cullen328 (talk) 06:52, 19 July 2022 (UTC)
 *  Relisted to generate a more thorough discussion and clearer consensus.


 * Comment almost too soon to see if this turns into something bigger or not. Could we draftify? Oaktree b (talk) 23:14, 22 July 2022 (UTC)
 *  Reply - WP:RUSH. --Jax 0677 (talk) 11:41, 23 July 2022 (UTC)


 * Delete per 's points. Rubbish computer (Ping me or leave a message on my talk page) 17:24, 26 July 2022 (UTC)
 * Keep or merge I completely agree with the comment from Jax 0677 above.  That one person was raped, and another accused of the rape, are not inherently notable events -- happens every day, alas.  But this particular case is highly notable because it became such a political lightning rod.  Supporters of reproductive rights pointed to the plight of a ten-year-old rape victim as an early indication of the consequences of the Dobbs decision.  The response from prominent right-wingers was to deny that the girl even existed and to charge that the whole thing was a hoax.  When the "hoax" narrative fell apart, the Attorney General of Indiana made threats against the doctor who had performed the abortion.  All of that is notable and must be covered in Wikipedia somewhere.  The name of the person who actually committed the rape is not important to that story, and the name of someone who at this stage is merely accused of it is even less so, but suppressing the incident entirely is not the answer. JamesMLane t c 15:44, 27 July 2022 (UTC)
 * Delete Due to reasoning by Liz and WP:PERPETRATOR. MrsSnoozyTurtle 04:05, 31 July 2022 (UTC)
 * Delete per WP:TNT. It would be hard to name this article appropriately, but it's not an appropriate title, and there's not much to the article than that. With all due respect, though this is a shocking and upsetting thing to read about, Wikipedia is not news and it is not clear to me what the long-term significance of this case is. We can cover this as part of another article if, for instance, it leads to legal change or contributes to a social movement. My condolences to the ten-year-old who has suffered so much from this horrible crime, so much more from the U.S. government's war on bodily autonomy, and even further as the result of this intense media scrutiny. — Bilorv ( talk ) 22:38, 2 August 2022 (UTC)
 *  Reply - "2022 Ohio sexual assault case". --Jax 0677 (talk) 11:31, 3 August 2022 (UTC)


 * The above discussion is preserved as an archive of the debate. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this page.