Vivek Ramaswamy’s effort to undermine Democratic rival Amy Acton’s claims of childhood abuse has taken a dramatic turn after a previously unknown family member came forward to support her account.
Acton’s estranged mother, Donna Arthur, 82, branded her daughter a lifelong ‘liar’ in a controversial advertisement paid for by Ramaswamy’s campaign for Ohio governor.
At a campaign stop in Thornville, Ohio, on Monday, the Republican candidate escalated his attacks, telling supporters he was ‘running against someone who is crazy, who is unstable, and who is a liar.’
But the Daily Mail can reveal that Acton’s long-lost stepsister has come forward to say she believes Acton’s description of her troubled childhood. She also said the candidate’s allegations of sexual abuse by her stepfather and the family’s period of living in a tent are true.
The 62-year-old woman from Youngstown, Ohio, who asked not to be named, is the biological daughter of Cledith ‘Bud’ Arthur, who married Acton’s mother, Donna, in 1975.
Speaking exclusively to the Daily Mail from the porch of her modest home in the former steelmaking city, and at times breaking down in tears, she alleged that Cledith Arthur raped her late sister, Christine, when Christine was about the same age as Acton.
‘Yes, he raped her, and it was more than once,’ the woman said.
At the time, Cledith was married to the sisters’ mother, Theresa A. Arthur. Theresa died in July 2025 at the age of 87.
Ohio’s Republican gubernatorial nominee Vivek Ramaswamy has faced criticism from both parties over an advertisement featuring rival Amy Acton’s mother disputing her abuse claims
The controversy centers on deeply personal experiences Acton has discussed publicly, including allegations that she was sexually abused as a child by her stepfather
Christine died in December 2024 at 66, but memories of what happened have resurfaced for her sister after the allegations were broadcast on television and became part of one of the country’s most fiercely contested gubernatorial campaigns.
‘It was a terrible time for our family and it’s very hard to talk about it,’ Christine’s sister told the Daily Mail. ‘My brother won’t say anything at all. It’s a nightmare for us to relive what happened in our family after all these years.’
‘Christine was a wonderful person, but she was very damaged by it. It affected her, and it affected our whole family. Seeing it played out in this campaign and on TV has brought back a lot of terrible memories.’
The advertisement, produced by Ramaswamy’s Republican campaign, features Arthur calling her daughter a liar and rejecting Acton’s account of a childhood shaped by poverty, homelessness and sexual abuse.
‘Oh, I know they were homeless for a while and living in a tent,’ Christine’s sister said, pointing toward Youngstown’s north side. She alleged that Cledith lived there for a period with his second family. ‘All that is definitely true.’
According to newspaper reports published at the time, Cledith Arthur was charged with incest in 1974 over allegations involving Christine.
Four years later, he was charged with raping his stepdaughter, Acton, who was then 12 . He fled Ohio for Pennsylvania after being indicted in 1978 and apparently was never found by police. He died in 2004.
Court records show that he pleaded not guilty, fled Ohio and never went to trial.
Acton’s stepsister, Christine Arthur (pictured), died in December 2024 at 66. Her father, Cledith Arthur, was allegedly accused of abusing her and was also accused of abusing his stepdaughter Amy Acton (Source: Borowski Funeral Services)
Newspaper clippings from Ohio’s Youngstown Vindicator show Cledith Arthur facing a rape charge in 1978
Another clipping lists Arthur as being charged with incest in 1974. He died in 2004
Christine’s sister said she largely avoided her father after he married Donna Arthur, who remained his wife until his death.
‘I hardly saw my father after he married Donna. I didn’t want to see him,’ the woman said. ‘After knowing what he did to my sister, I have no doubt he also assaulted Amy.’
She recalled hearing allegations that her father had molested another young girl who lived nearby, although she could not confirm the account.
‘I just recall specifically hearing that [my father] liked young girls.’
She added: ‘I think the ad was awful to put up there.’
The controversial ad debuted around October 20, in the final days of the tightly-contested November 3 election as Ramaswamy seeks to defeat Acton, a physician and former Ohio health director.
The minute-long video features Donna Arthur, now 82, telling Ohio voters that her daughter cannot be trusted. (Arthur previously gave a lengthy interview to the pro-life organization Operation Rescue in 2020, in which she said that Acton’s claim that she moved 18 times in the first 12 years of her life was not true and that Amy lied. She also indicated that Amy’s allegation that Cledith raped her, as well as Christine Arthur’s similar claim, were ‘unfounded.’)
‘It’s not easy for a mother to say this, but Amy has a serious problem,’ Arthur says in the video.
Acton’s estrangement from her mother stemmed from the actions of Acton’s stepfather, Cledith Arthur, who was charged with child molestation and reportedly abused Acton as well as another minor under the age of 13
Amy Acton’s estranged mother, Donna Arthur, appears in a campaign ad urging Ohioans not to vote for her daughter. It’s produced by Vivek Ramaswamy’s campaign
‘She lies about her past. She says she grew up living in a tent. None of that is true. She’s lied her entire life.’
Arthur urges voters not to elect her daughter, whom she has not seen since 1978.
While he was not mentioned in the ad, Ramaswamy acknowledged that his campaign produced it and committed $4 million to promoting it, despite criticism from members of his own party.
President Donald Trump, meanwhile, defended the Republican candidate’s decision to continue running the commercial.
Acton’s brother, Philip Stearns, also condemned the advertisement, saying their mother, Arthur, had remained married to the man accused of abusing Acton even after the children were removed from the household.
‘I received a lot of abuse, but Amy always got the worst of it,’ Stearns said in a response video released by Acton’s campaign.
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Acton has repeatedly recounted her turbulent childhood in Youngstown, describing periods when her family lived in a tent and moved between unstable homes.
She has said the last time she saw her mother was in a Youngstown courthouse when she was 12.
Ohio Republican gubernatorial candidate Vivek Ramaswamy joins other Republicans at a rally at the annual Circleville Pumpkin Show last Friday in Circleville, Ohio
‘I went to give her a kiss on the cheek and she turned away,’ Acton recalled in a recent interview.
The Ramaswamy campaign cut the ad to 30 seconds on Monday, removing Donna Arthur’s specific claim that Acton lied about her past, including the tent story.
Arthur has spent years living a marginal existence far removed from the campaign trail.
The Daily Mail traced her to the Boalsburg area of central Pennsylvania, where she has lived in her silver Honda Civic, often with several cats.
For approximately two and a half years, beginning in late 2023, Arthur parked her vehicle in the upper parking lot of Calvary Church, a sprawling religious property set among 120 acres of rolling hills near Tussey Mountain.
Pastor Dan Nold said Arthur arrived with approximately four cats and slept in the front seat of her car, even during freezing Pennsylvania winters.
‘We really tried to help her,’ Nold told the Daily Mail, speaking alongside two church staff members inside the church.
‘We offered to let her stay inside during cold nights but she said no. We did every bit of outreach we could. We tried to locate family members. But she wasn’t interested in help.’
Nold said he had a number of conversations with Arthur and said she was ‘lucid’ but he felt she had a ‘hoarding issue’ with cats.
The situation grew increasingly difficult, Nold said, as Arthur’s un-neutered felines reproduced until there were approximately 30 animals living inside her vehicle or roaming the church grounds.
Eventually, the church asked her to go but she refused.
‘She wasn’t cooperative when we asked her to leave,’ Nold said.
‘We finally had to go down to the police and fill out forms to have them evict her. They had to come in a squad car and escort her out. It was very difficult to get her out and we felt badly about doing so but the situation with all the cats was just getting out of control.’
Arthur’s difficulties involving animals stretched back several years.
In 2021, while she was living in her car and working at Ollie’s Bargain Outlet in Boalsburg, authorities intervened after cats and newborn kittens were left inside her locked vehicle in extreme heat, according to court records.
Retired Humane Society police officer Harold Walstrom, who handled the case, told the Daily Mail that temperatures inside the vehicle approached 120 degrees when he went to Arthur’s car to rescue the cats.
‘It was a pretty bad situation,’ he recalled. ‘I’ll never forget it.’
Two kittens died, one before rescuers arrived and another afterward from heat exhaustion, Walstrom said.
Ohio Democratic gubernatorial candidate Dr Amy Acton at a campaign rally with former President Barack Obama in Cleveland, Ohio, on October 24
‘Donna was very stubborn and very hard to deal with,’ Walstrom added.
‘She was also totally against getting her cats spayed. She wouldn’t listen to anyone.’
Arthur was convicted of animal neglect and sentenced to a fine and non-reporting probation, but the Pennsylvania Superior Court vacated the conviction in August 2023 after finding that her request for court-appointed counsel had been improperly denied.
The court sent the case back for further proceedings. The appellate ruling did not resolve the underlying allegations.
In a text exchange with the Daily Mail, Arthur lashed out at the church and animal rescue organizations.
She described Nold as a ‘thoroughly corrupted lead pastor’ and accused rescue workers of stealing her cats and falsely accusing her of crimes.
But Arthur, who is reportedly now living in her car in a state forest near Boalsburg, offered no response when the Daily Mail sent her screenshots of two separate newspaper articles documenting allegations of sexual abuse against her late husband – one involving his biological daughter Christine, the other Acton.
On Saturday, Acton appeared at a Cleveland campaign rally with former President Barack Obama. Asked afterward about Trump and Vice President JD Vance defending the advertisement, she urged them to examine the evidence.
‘I do hope they would look at the facts,’ Acton told ABC News.
The Daily Mail has reached out to both Ramaswamy and his campaign spokeswoman Connie Luck.
Back in Youngstown, Christine Arthur’s sister views the controversy through a different lens.
She recalled how Christine went on to graduate from Girard High School, worked with children with special needs in Las Vegas and later earned a bachelor’s degree. She died in Youngstown in December 2024, leaving behind a daughter and a family that remembers her warmth and humor.
For those who knew what happened decades ago, the political ad has reopened wounds that never entirely healed.
‘It was awful for our family,’ Christine’s sister said. ‘We wish we could just forget about it and now all this has come up and re-opened old wounds.’