Soccer superstar Cristiano Ronaldo has been accused of rape in a Las Vegas hotel in 2009, in a civil suit filed Friday in Nevada’s Clark County.
In the suit, Kathryn Mayorga accused the popular athlete of sexually assaulting her on June 13, 2009, after inviting her and a group of people up to his Las Vegas hotel room at the Palms Hotel and Casino. The suit states that, after Mayorga changed into clothes to go swimming in Ronaldo’s bathroom, he “pulled the plaintiff into a bedroom and onto a bed and attempted to engage in sexual intercourse.” The suit continued that Mayorga refused and covered herself up, but that “Ronaldo turned plaintiff onto her side and while screaming ‘no, no, no’ she was sodomized by Cristiano Ronaldo.”
Representatives for Ronaldo did not immediately respond to TheWrap’s request for comment.
Update: The Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department said Monday that it has reopened a sexual assault investigation that precipitated from a June 13, 2009 call — the same date Mayorga said Ronaldo sexually assaulted her. The LVMPD would not name the accused or accuser when asked by TheWrap, but shared that it “responded to a call of a sexual assault on June 13, 2009. At the time the report was taken, the victim did not provide detectives with the location of the incident or suspect description. A medical exam was conducted. As of September 2018, the case has been reopened and our detectives are following up on information being provided by the victim. This is an on-going investigation and no further details will be released at this time.”
Mayorga’s lawsuit further accuses Ronaldo and his team of taking advantage of her fragile emotional state to pressure her into signing a settlement and nondisclosure agreement in 2009. She says she received $375,000 in exchange for her silence. The civil suit filed on Friday seeks to void the settlement and agreement.
The suit also comes after Mayorga spoke with German publication, Der Spiegel, on Friday and provided an account of the 2009 incident. Later Friday, Ronaldo responded to Mayorga’s claims in an Instagram Live video, calling her account “fake news” aimed at making her famous by using his name.
The Portuguese-born Ronaldo, who now plays for Italian club Juventus, is one of the most popular and recognizable athletes in the world.
Pamela Chelin contributed to this report.