October 2, 2018

A lawyer representing the woman claiming Cristiano Ronaldo, one of the world's biggest soccer stars, raped her in a Las Vegas hotel room in 2009 has said the accusation is not "fake news."

Kathryn Mayorga says the Portuguese footballer, who now plays for Italian club Juventus, raped her while she repeatedly screamed no, according to a lawsuit filed Friday in Clark County, Nevada.

According to the lawsuit, after the attack, Ronaldo apologized, "stating he was sorry, he was usually a gentleman."

The lawsuit alleges that Ronaldo told his representatives that "she said 'no' and 'stop' several times."

Mayorga's lawsuit accuses Ronaldo, 33, & his team of taking advantage of her fragile emotional state to coerce her into signing a settlement & nondisclosure agreement in 2009.

She claims that she received $375,000 in exchange for her silence. Her lawsuit seeks to void the settlement and agreement. Leslie Stovall, Mayorga's co-counsel, said her complaint & her "psychological" injuries, as well as the physical evidence, the settlement & Ronaldo's alleged answers to questions about the assault, aren't fake news.

In a statement, Stovall said her client wanted to hold the soccer star accountable & protect other women & also wanted to show how "fixers" like the ones who allegedly assisted Ronaldo enable sexual assault, Stovall said.

Mayorga hoped, said Stovall, to convince victims to pursue charges against alleged perpetrators, "no matter how wealthy, famous or powerful they may appear to be."

Ronaldo's representatives denied the rape allegations when German publication Der Spiegel 1st reported them in 2017. After the outlet broke news of the lawsuit Friday in an interview with Mayorga, Ronaldo's lawyer called the reporting "blatantly illegal."

"It violates the personal rights of our client Cristiano Ronaldo in an exceptionally serious way. This is an inadmissible reporting of suspicions in the area of privacy," lawyer Christian Schertz said in a statement.

Ronaldo appeared to dispute the claims in an Instagram live post on Friday: "What they said today, fake - fake news. They want to promote by my name. It's normal. They want to be famous - to say my name. Yeah but it's part of the job. I'm (a) happy man and all, all good."

Der Spiegel told CNN Sport Tuesday that it hadn't received any notification of legal action from Ronaldo's representatives. Las Vegas police announced the case was re-opened on Monday.

The Alleged Attack

Mayorga met Ronaldo at the now-closed Rain nightclub, inside the Palms Hotel and Casino on 13th June 2009, the complaint says. Ronaldo invited her, her friend and others to his penthouse suite.

According to Mayorga's lawsuit, Ronaldo asked her to join the group in a jacuzzi & gave her shorts & a T-shirt to wear.

As Mayorga changed in a bathroom, she said Ronaldo approached her, exposed himself & asked her for oral sex. Mayorga said she refused, but that Ronaldo pulled her into a bedroom & raped her as she screamed, "No, no, no."

The same day, she reported the incident to the Police and went to the hospital for a sexual assault examination, the lawsuit says.

Picture Source :