A federal civil lawsuit alleging that Portuguese soccer player Cristiano Ronaldo raped a woman in a Las Vegas hotel room in 2009 was dismissed on Friday.
Judge Jennifer Dorsey accepted the recommendation of a federal magistrate, saying that an attorney for accuser Kathryn Mayorga engaged in misconduct so severe that it would be impossible for Ronaldo to have a fair trial. “Because of her attorney’s abuses and flagrant circumvention of the proper litigation process, Mayorga loses her opportunity to pursue this case and attempt to unwind the settlement of claims that, themselves, implicate serious allegations of a highly personal nature,” Dorsey wrote.
Mayorga alleged that she was forced into signing a nondisclosure agreement and a $375,000 settlement following the reported rape, which Ronaldo has maintained was a romantic encounter. Mayorga had asked the judge to void that agreement.
As reported by Der Spiegel in 2017, leaked confidential communications from Cristiano Ronaldo’s attorneys reported the existence of a settlement with Kathryn Mayorga. Using these leaked documents, one of Mayorga’s attorneys, Leslie Stovall, reached out to the source of that leak to request those documents, including “the reporting and communications of the attorneys and investigators representing and defending Ronaldo following the sexual assault thru the negotiations and conclusion of the settlement and non-disclosure agreement.” The court found that “Stovall’s repeated use of stolen, privileged documents to prosecute this case has every indicia of bad-faith conduct,” stating that simply striking the leaked documents from the case and disqualifying Stovall would not adequately address the misconduct.
Ronaldo’s lawyer, Peter Christiansen, said in a CNN Saturday email that since the Plaintiff filed the first lawsuit in 2018, the case has been maintained in bad faith. The cancellation of the suit is expected to give renewed confidence in the judicial process to those who follow this matter while discouraging those who undermine it.
In August 2018, the Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department reopened a criminal investigation at Mayorga’s request. In July 2019, the Clark County District Attorney’s Office announced that it would not pursue criminal charges against Ronaldo, saying the allegations could not be proven beyond a reasonable doubt.
