John Locher / AP
Attorney Leslie Stovall, right, speaks during a news conference about rape allegations against soccer star Cristiano Ronaldo, Wednesday, Oct. 3, 2018, in Las Vegas. Stovall represents Kathryn Mayorga, of Nevada, who is alleging Ronaldo raped her in Las Vegas in 2009.
Wednesday, Oct. 3, 2018 | 7:25 p.m.
After partying at a Las Vegas resort nightclub in 2009, the revelers moved to the soccer star’s penthouse suite where several of them piled into an outdoor hot tub overlooking the valley, according to a lawsuit recently filed in Clark County District Court.
The documents highlight what allegedly occurred next that June 13 evening.
Lacking proper jacuzzi attire, Kathryn Mayorga, then 24, declined the invite. But Cristiano Ronaldo led her to his room at the Palms where there were clothes she could use.
While she was changing in the bathroom into shorts and a T-shirt he’d provided, Ronaldo entered, exposed himself and asked for a sexual act. Mayorga told him she wanted to leave.
As she made her way out, Ronaldo pulled her into a bedroom and onto a bed and raped her while she screamed “no, no, no.”
When the alleged sexual assault concluded, Ronaldo apologized, noting “he was usually a gentleman,” according to the lawsuit.
Ronaldo, among the world’s most famous athletes, on Wednesday denied the allegations.
“Rape is an abominable crime that goes against everything that I am and believe in,” he wrote on Twitter, in his native Portuguese and then English. “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.
“My clear conscious will thereby allow me to await with tranquillity the results of any and all investigations,” noted Ronaldo, who’d previously called the allegations “fake news.”
Juventus forward Cristiano Ronaldo and his partner Georgina sit in the stands prior to the Champions League match between Juventus and Young Boys, at the Allianz stadium in Turin, Italy, Tuesday, Oct. 2, 2018.
For Mayorga, her interaction with Ronaldo has left lingering ramifications, including “major depression,” thoughts of suicide, and alcohol abuse, according to the lawsuit filed by the Stovall & Associates law group in Las Vegas.
A certified psychologist diagnosed Mayorga with post-traumatic stress disorder that can be linked back to the alleged attack, attorney Larissa Drohobyczer said.
The case, fueled by revelations from a 2010 nondisclosure agreement and a settlement reached between Mayorga and Ronaldo’s “fixers” when the alleged victim was reportedly not mentally capable of negotiating, has garnered international attention, evident by the various media outlets who attended a news conference where Drohobyczer and attorney Leslie Stovall on Wednesday outlined the lawsuit.
Mayorga suffered several months of severe emotional stress and coercion by Ronaldo's representatives to push Mayorga into taking a monetary settlement to keep quiet, her lawyers said.
Drohobyczer acknowledged that Mayorga accepted the money nine years ago because she never wanted her name made public.
Drohobyczer said previously that Mayorga, now 34, filed the lawsuit now because she became worried that her name would become public after a 2017 media report apparently referred to the incident at the resort.
Mayorga, a Las Vegas resident, decided to leave the country to an undisclosed location to weather what may come, her attorneys said, while Ronaldo is in Italy, where he’s one of the top soccer players.
Attorney David Chesnoff in Las Vegas, who was hired Wednesday by Ronaldo, issued a statement expressing "complete faith in the justice system."
Chesnoff said Metro investigated Mayorga's sexual assault claim in 2009 and did not recommend the filing of criminal charges.
Meanwhile, Metro has reopened an investigation into the alleged incident, and its investigators have twice interviewed Mayorga, Stovall said, noting Ronaldo could also face criminal charges.
Ronaldo has been summoned to respond to the lawsuit, filed on Sept. 27. A service has been contracted to serve him, and once he is, he will have 20 days to respond, Drohobyczer said.
Mayorga’s legal team is exploring the possibility of publicly releasing documents, to include medical and police reports, early next week, Drohobyczer said. An attorney representing Ronaldo, 33, contacted Mayorga’s team on Wednesday, Stovall said.
Mayorga reported the assault to Metro Police the day it occurred and was interviewed by a detective that September in 2009, according to her lawyers. She underwent a rape examination at University Medical Center.
“She came to us and we had concerns with what happened in 2009 ... with the police investigation and the circumstances around the settlement and how the negotiations were conducted,” Drohobyczer told the Associated Press. “We don’t believe she had the capacity to enter an agreement at that time due to her emotional state.”
It wasn’t clear if Metro investigators further probed the allegations, but police spokesman Officer Aden OcampoGomez told the Associated Press that Mayorga had refused to identify the perpetrator of her alleged attack or where it’d occurred, only saying he was a “European soccer player.” Stovall on Wednesday disputed that statement.
Emboldened by the #MeToo movement and out of concern over the circumstances of the settlement and how the investigation was handled, Mayorga came forward with the allegations, her attorneys said.
Regarding an inaccurate perception that Mayorga may have consented to sex and only wants money, Stovall said, retributions would not return to her what she lost that night. “Unfortunately we’re not able to do that, and we believe that a person who is a defendant has a right to come in and prove that they didn’t."
"She would want to not have been the person that this occurred to on June 13, 2009," Stovall said.
The lawsuit seeks unspecified damages of at least $200,000. It makes 11 accusations against Ronaldo or those working for him, including conspiracy, defamation, abusing a vulnerable person, battery, infliction of emotional distress, coercion and fraud, racketeering and conspiracy, breach of contract, abuse of process and negligence for allowing details of the confidential settlement to become public.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
