Facing allegations of rape by a former model Cristiano Ronaldo rejected the charges as “fake news” during a live chat on Instagram.
Ronaldo, who now plays for Juventus in Italy’s Serie A, has been accused by Kathryn Mayorga who says the Portuguese star attacked her in his Las Vegas hotel penthouse suite in 2009.
“What they said today, fake – fake news,” the 33-year-old star of the Portuguese national team said in a post that was later deleted.
Mayorga, 34, of Las Vegas, accused Ronaldo, in a 32-page complaint filed last month with a district court in Nevada, of raping her on June 13, 2009.
Mayorga alleges in the lawsuit that she was pressured into signing a nondisclosure agreement to keep the alleged rape secret and is seeking $200,000 in penalties and damages.
The complaint was first reported by the German magazine Der Spiegel.
In the suit, Mayorga said she met Ronaldo on the evening of June 12, 2009 at the Rain Nightclub in the Palms Hotel and Casino in Las Vegas.
It said she accepted an invitation to join Ronaldo and others in his penthouse suite to “enjoy the view of the Las Vegas strip.”
She was invited to join guests in a hot tub but she declined because she did not have a bathing suit, the complaint said.
Ronaldo offered her clothing and then followed her into a bathroom where she was going to change clothes, it said.
After she refused his demand to perform oral sex and said she wanted to leave, Ronaldo pulled her into a bedroom and anally raped her while she screamed “no, no, no,” the complaint said.
“When Cristiano Ronaldo completed the sexual assault of the plaintiff, he allowed her to leave the bedroom stating he was sorry, he was usually a gentleman,” it said.
The lawsuit said Mayorga reported the alleged assault to the Las Vegas police the same day and underwent an examination at a local hospital.
It said the assault had left her with “severe emotional and bodily injuries” and “major depression.”
Under pressure from Ronaldo’s “fixers,” Mayorga settled the case “in exchange for a payment of $375,000 and non-disclosure of the sexual assault,” the lawsuit said.
The unidentified “fixers” were also named as co-defendants in the lawsuit, which accuses the Juventus forward of violating the nondisclosure agreement.
The Telegraph had earlier reported that Ronaldo’s lawyers issued a statement categorically denying the allegations, referring to Der Spiegel’s report as “blatantly illegal.” The report added that Ronaldo’s team would be pursuing “moral damages in an amount corresponding to the gravity of the infringement, which is probably one of the most serious violations of personal rights in recent years.”
Ronaldo was also once arrested in 2007 during his time at Old Trafford as a Manchester United player. He was let off then on bail and the rape charges were dropped later due to insufficient evidence.
(With AFP inputs)