Las Vegas police (LVMPD) believed they had the evidence to arrest and charge soccer superstar Cristiano Ronaldo for an alleged 2009 rape at the Palms Casino, and even applied for an arrest warrant.
That was just before Clark County AG Steve Wolfson decided in 2019 not to prosecute the Manchester United and Portugal forward. Wolfson said the allegations could not be “proven beyond reasonable doubt.”
The news that LVMPD were ready to make an arrest came from court transcripts from a civil case brought against the soccer player by his accuser, Kathryn Mayorga.
DA Says No
The comments were made by Mayorga’s lawyer, Leslie Stovall, during a Las Vegas federal court hearing in September. But the transcript has only just come to light.
“What happened is when that [arrest warrant affidavit] was submitted to the district attorney’s office, Mr. Wolfson declined to prosecute,” said Stovall in the transcript, seen by The Sun.
“He doesn’t say why he decided to decline, and anything, any argument, is just speculation. It was within the statute of limitations.
“The police believed that they had a case to prosecute for one count of sexual assault, and the DA decided not to.”
Ronaldo denies raping Mayorga. He says that the sex that occurred between them at his penthouse at the Palms on the night of June 13, 2009, was consensual.
According to the DA and court records, Mayorga called the LVMPD on June 13, 2009, to say she had been sexually assaulted. She was taken to a hospital for an examination which revealed she had circumferential rectal swelling with bruising and a laceration, injuries consistent with anal rape.
But she refused to disclose the name of the alleged perpetrator to police because she feared public humiliation and retribution, according to court documents. As a result, police dropped the case. It would be reopened a decade later.
In 2010, Mayorga agreed to sign a non-disclosure agreement to drop any civil claims against Ronaldo for a $375,000 settlement. But Stovall claims she was coerced into this by the star’s team of legal fixers and reputation management specialists at a time when she was “mentally incapacitated.”
Football Leaks Documents
In 2018, Mayorga sued Ronaldo, claiming battery, intentional infliction of emotional distress, coercion, fraud, and abuse of a vulnerable person.
The catalyst was the leak of confidential documents from Ronaldo’s camp, which revealed the existence of the NDA. But they also included conversations purported to be between the soccer player and his lawyer, in which a person identified as Ronaldo appears to admit that the sex was not consensual.
This individual also mentions details that appear to corroborate Mayorga’s account, such as that he apologized and claimed he was “usually a gentleman” after the act.
The documents were passed to German news magazine Der Spiegel by the Football Leaks website. Ronaldo’s lawyers say the documents were stolen by hackers and falsified.
Mayorga took copies of the documents to LVMPD and asked them to reopen the case, which they did. It was dropped by Wolfson in July 2019.
A Las Vegas mgistrate judge recently recommended Mayorga’s case should be dismissed because much of it is based on privileged information, shared between Ronaldo and his lawyers. This should not have been publicly submitted as evidence, the judge said.
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