October 8 – An American judge has recommended that a civil case against Cristiano Ronaldo over an alleged rape should be thrown out.
Kathryn Mayorga, a former school teacher and model, alleged that the Portuguese superstar raped her at a Las Vegas penthouse suite in 2009.
Her legal team is aiming to overturn a $375,000 out-of-court settlement signed with Ronaldo in 2010 on the grounds that she was mentally unfit to agree to its terms at the time and that it was signed under duress. She was pursuing Ronaldo, who vehemently denied her claims, through a Las Vegas court demanding damages and costs.
But she now has less than two weeks to object to Judge Daniel Albregts ruling or the case will be dismissed.
Giving his decision, Albregts wrote: “It is recommended that Ronaldo’s motion for case terminating sanctions be granted. It is further recommended that Mayorga’s action be dismissed with prejudice.”
Albregts blamed Mayorga’s attorney, Leslie Mark Stovall, for inappropriately basing the civil damages lawsuit on leaked and stolen documents shown to be privileged communications between Ronaldo and his lawyers.
“Dismissing Mayorga’s case for the inappropriate conduct of her attorney is a harsh result,” he wrote in a 23-page report to U.S. District Judge Jennifer Dorsey. “But it is, unfortunately, the only appropriate sanction to ensure the integrity of the judicial process.”
“Stovall has acted in bad faith to his client’s – and his profession’s – detriment,” Albregts decided.
Ronaldo’s attorneys have acknowledged that their client, now with Manchester United, and Mayorga had sex, but that it was consensual and not rape.
Ronaldo’s lawyer Peter S. Christiansen was quoted as saying of the decision: “We are pleased with the court’s detailed review of this matter and its willingness to justly apply the law to the facts and recommend dismissal of the civil case against Mr Ronaldo.”
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