Attorney says accuser ‘determined’ in Ronaldo sex assault lawsuit
After international soccer star Cristiano Ronaldo denied a woman’s Las Vegas rape accusations against him in a tweet Wednesday, her attorney said she was “determined to follow through” with a lawsuit.
Kathryn Mayorga is the plaintiff in a lawsuit filed Sept. 27 against Ronaldo, alleging that his “team of fixers” tried to “obstruct the criminal investigation and prosecution” of the soccer player after the alleged rape on June 13, 2009.
“She made the decision to do this; she was determined to follow through on this,” Mayorga’s attorney, Leslie Stovall, said during a Wednesday press conference.
Mayorga didn’t attend the press conference and has left the Las Vegas area because of her mental health, her lawyers said. The lawsuit said Mayorga was diagnosed with major depression and post-traumatic stress disorder caused by the assault.
Ronaldo, 33, denied the allegations, tweeting that he “(refused) to feed the media spectacle created by people seeking to promote themselves at my expense.”
I firmly deny the accusations being issued against me. Rape is an abominable crime that goes against everything that I am and believe in. Keen as I may be to clear my name, I refuse to feed the media spectacle created by people seeking to promote themselves at my expense.
— Cristiano Ronaldo (@Cristiano) October 3, 2018
Stovall said he was “not interested in responding to Twitter.”
Mayorga’s attorneys said the soccer player will have 20 days to respond to a summons after he receives it.
The complaint states that the assault occurred in Ronaldo’s penthouse suite at the Palms and that Mayorga repeatedly said no to Ronaldo during the attack.
The lawsuit also said after the attack Ronaldo apologized, saying that “he was usually a gentleman.”
The German magazine Der Spiegel uncovered documents last year revealing a 2010 out-of-court settlement between Ronaldo and Mayorga, who at the time was identified only as an American woman.
The current lawsuit states the previous mediation happened in Las Vegas after Ronaldo hired a team of “fixers” who threatened to falsely and publicly implicate that Mayorga accused Ronaldo “to obtain money” from him.
Stovall said Mayorga received $375,000 from the settlement, but that if a judgment was made in favor of Mayorga in the case, Ronaldo would receive a “credit” for the money.
Ronaldo was not present for the 2010 out-of-court negotiation, according to the complaint.
Stovall said a court could decide the agreement was void if Mayorga’s emotional state made her unable to “participate reasonably in that negotiation.”
Mayorga wanted to publicly come forward after documents about Ronaldo’s team were unveiled, Stovall said.
“The Me Too movement and the women who have stood up and disclosed sexual assault publicly have given Kathryn a lot of courage,” he said.
Mayorga filed a report with the Metropolitan Police Department and went to University Medical Center for an examination the same day of the alleged assault, the complaint said. An officer interviewed her “within weeks” of her report. During the interview, the complaint alleges, Mayorga was told she would “be the subject of public humiliation.”
Police did not contact Mayorga after that interview, but she has since talked with Metro after her attorneys gave police documentation about the settlement in August, Stovall said.
Metro spokesman Jay Rivera said the 2009 case was reopened in Septemberbut he declined to discuss the case further because of the ongoing investigation.
Stovall said the lawsuit process could take months.
“If I were really to tell you what I think she would want, she would want to not have been the person that this occurred to on June 13th, 2009,” Stovall said.
Contact Katelyn Newberg at knewberg@reviewjournal.com or 702-383-0240. Follow @k_newberg on Twitter.
