A Nevada woman has sued Cristiano Ronaldo and is participating in a police investigation of the global soccer star for an alleged rape at a Las Vegas hotel in 2009, a complaint filed by her lawyer showed.
Lawyers for Ronaldo, one of the world’s best-known athletes, on Friday threatened to sue a German magazine that published the accusation.
Kathryn Mayorga on Thursday sued Ronaldo in a district court in Clark County, Nevada, and is also seeking to void a US$375,000 settlement that she alleges she was coerced into signing to keep quiet, according to the complaint and Mayorga’s lawyer.
Photo: AP
Ronaldo’s agent, Gestifute, on Monday said that they had no comment beyond a Friday statement by Ronaldo’s lawyer, Christian Schertz, who called the German magazine report “an inadmissible reporting of suspicions in the area of privacy.”
The lawsuit contends that Ronaldo met Mayorga at a Las Vegas nightclub in June 2009 and the next night invited a group of people, including Mayorga, back to the penthouse suite where he was staying.
That night, the lawsuit alleges, Ronaldo asked the woman to perform a sexual act on him in a bathroom as she was changing into attire to wear in a hot tub. He then pulled her into a bedroom and raped her as she screamed: “no, no, no,” the lawsuit said.
“When Cristiano Ronaldo completed the sexual assault of the plaintiff, he allowed her to leave the bedroom stating that he was sorry, that he was usually a gentleman,” the lawsuit said.
The Las Vegas Metropolitan Police on Monday confirmed that an incident report with the number listed in Mayorga’s lawsuit was filed on the night of the alleged attack, and said that the case was reopened last month after the unidentified victim came forward with new information.
They declined to say whether the athlete was the subject of an investigation.
Contacted late on Monday, Ronaldo’s representatives did not immediately return a request for comment about the reopening of the case by Las Vegas police.
Lawyers for the Portuguese athlete said in a statement on Friday that they would sue German magazine Der Spiegel after it published “blatantly illegal” accusations by Mayorga.
Mayorga told Der Spiegel that she no longer felt bound by the non-disclosure agreement as she suffers from the consequences of the night nine years ago.
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