Five-time Ballon d'Or winner Cristiano Ronaldo's lawyers tried to intimidate his alleged rape victim with threats of "public exposure" and "humiliation" if she continued to record her statements with law enforcement agencies investigating her case, court documents obtained by British tabloid The Sun have revealed.
A woman named Kathryn Mayorga accused the legendary footballer of raping her in a Las Vegas hotel back in 2009 when he was playing for Real Madrid.
Ronaldo tried to hush up the matter by paying her $375,000 in 2010 in exchange for her dropping criminal charges against him, but Mayorga eventually sued the current Manchester United ace in court in 2018.
According to the publication, lawyers representing the 37-year-old football star warned Mayorga against speaking to the police and, if she did so, they would charge her with extortion, which would hamper her chances of a settlement in the civil case.
Last year, Mayorga's attorney Leslie Mark Stovall informed the US District Court where the case was being heard, that his client was "vulnerable to a very powerful individual and she was frightened of publicity".
According to Stovall, this was something Ronaldo's lawyers played to their advantage when they "worked that angle".
"What they did is they - and you'll see it throughout the negotiations - 'Well, if you continue to talk to Metro, we're not going to continue with settlement and we are going to accuse you publicly of extortion, that you had consensual sex and that you're now trying to extort money from this famous, well-known person','" Stovall said.
"And she was terrified of that. And that continued to be repeated and repeated and repeated throughout their correspondence. There was a threat," he added.
Stovall revealed that Mayorga gave in to the alleged threats of Ronaldo's lawyers as she stopped cooperating with the police.
"You can look at the investigative report from Metro and you will see she stopped speaking to them early on. Why? Because she was threatened with public exposure and humiliation by the defendant's attorneys. And it's documented in those e-mails," Stovall continued.
According to Stovall, it was a well thought out strategy used by Ronaldo's lawyers, as they succeeded in delaying the prosecution.
Despite the delay, the case was reopened in 2019.
In 2021, Ronaldo's lawyers lambasted Mayorga's attorney, accusing him of obtaining documents related to the case through the help of a hacker, who had broken into Ronaldo's private computer.
Ronaldo has publicly denied raping Mayorga at the five-star Palms Hotel and Casino in the summer of 2009.
Although the police inquiry is over, the court case continues.