Soccer star Ronaldo paid $375K to accuser, Las Vegas court records say
International soccer star Cristiano Ronaldo wants a lawsuit against him thrown out, acknowledging he reached a settlement agreement with a woman who accused him of raping her, according to newly filed papers in federal court.
“Mr. Ronaldo paid (Kathryn Mayorga) the sum of $375,000.00 and both parties agreed to be bound by explicit confidentiality and non-disparagement obligations,” Ronaldo’s attorney, Peter Christiansen, wrote in a document filed Friday.
Last month, the Clark County district attorney’s office announced that prosecutors would not pursue criminal charges against Ronaldo, citing a lack of evidence at the time of the alleged attack.
Mayorga has said that at the time, she refused to provide a name out of fear of public humiliation and retaliation but did identify her attacker to police as “a famous soccer player.”
Investigators had reopened the case after Mayorga identified Ronaldo as her attacker to police for the first time in August 2018.
About a month later, a lawsuit accusing Ronaldo of obstructing the criminal investigation into the sexual assault allegations was filed in Clark County District Court on Mayorga’s behalf. That lawsuit was voluntarily dismissed in May but later refiled in federal court.
Ronaldo’s lawyer wrote in the document filed Friday that the statute of limitations on the criminal charges and lawsuit “has long since expired.”
Ronaldo has denied the accusations made against him by Mayorga, taking to Twitter in early October to state, in part, “I firmly deny the accusations being issued against me. Rape is an abominable crime that goes against everything that I am and believe in.”
That same day, Mayorga’s attorney, Leslie Stovall, hosted a news conference in Las Vegas, saying that “the Me Too movement and the women who have stood up and disclosed sexual assault publicly have given Kathryn a lot of courage.”
Mayorga’s lawsuit alleges battery, intentional infliction of emotional distress, coercion and fraud, abuse of a vulnerable person, defamation, and racketeering and civil conspiracy.
The federal complaint alleges that Ronaldo threatened to say that the sex was consensual in order to frame her allegations as extortion.
His lawyer denied the claim, saying that Ronaldo wanted to defend his innocence.
“There is nothing unlawful about defending himself. In reality, the so-called ‘threat’ was not false, misleading or a ‘threat’ at all,” Christiansen wrote. “Mr. Ronaldo has and will continue to maintain his innocence.”
Contact David Ferrara at dferrara@reviewjournal.com or 702-380-1039. Follow @randompoker on Twitter.