Cristiano Ronaldo's attorneys have revealed for the first time in court documents that the footballer had paid $375,000 to settle allegations that he raped Kathryn Mayorga in a Las Vegas hotel penthouse suite in 2009, TMZ Sports reported. They have, however, insisted that he's innocent.
"Mr. Ronaldo paid Plaintiff the sum of $375,000 and both parties agreed to be bound by explicit confidentiality and non-disparagement obligations. [...] The [agreement] made clear Mr. Ronaldo disputed [Mayorga's] allegations and in no way conceded she was injured. To the contrary, the [agreement] stated in no uncertain terms that Mr. Ronaldo was agreeing to pay [Mayorga] a sum of money in order to maintain the confidentiality of their dispute", documents, obtained by TMZ Sports, read.
Mayorga has long claimed that she took the money from Cristiano back in 2010 as part of an out-of-court settlement - in exchange, she vowed never to go public with her allegations.
In September 2018, she, however, publicly identified Ronaldo as the man that had purportedly raped her after they met at a Vegas night club, and filed a lawsuit in state court later seeking to invalidate the agreement on the grounds that the footballer and his legal team took advantage of her vulnerable emotional state to compel her to sign it.
Cristiano has adamantly denied the accusations, insisting that the sex was consensual.
According to her complaint, Ronaldo's representatives made her believe that they were trying to compensate her for her purported injuries and that signing up for the settlement stopped her from cooperating with police.
In a motion filed on Friday asking to dismiss Mayorga's lawsuit, Ronaldo's lawyers said that the confidentialty agreement didn't prevent her from communicating with law enforcement, and accused her of failing to provide any details for when she was allegedly threatened by either the footballer or his legal team.
"The insistence [Mayorga] was incapacitated or incompetent to file suit within the applicable statute of limitations is completely belied by the undisputed fact that she immediately reported the alleged incident to LVMPD and within months, indeed made civil claims against Mr. Ronaldo".
In a September 2018 interview with Der Spiegel, Mayorga alleged that she met the then-Manchester United player at a night club and they later went to his luxury suite, where Ronaldo came on to her despite her protests and screams to stop.
The paper's journalists claimed that evidence of the supposed rape had been documented and photographed; Mayorga showed up at a police station and went through a rape kit examination, although refused to name the purported assailant at the time.
Las Vegas authorities looked into her complaint in 2009, but ultimately backed off after the alleged victim failed to provide detectives with the location of the incident or a description of the suspect.
The police reopened the investigation into the matter in 2018, but brought no charges against CR7 due to a lack of evidence.