Cristiano Ronaldo has found himself at the centre of another controversy. Days after receiving a red-card on his Champions League debut for Juventus, the Portuguese star has now been accused of rape.
A German outlet Der Speigel has reported 34-year-old Kathryn Mayorga was raped by the former Real Madrid man in 2009 in Las Vegas . The outlet also claimed that Ronaldo paid the woman $375,000 as hush money.
Der Spiegel said the rape allegedly took place in June 2009 in a hotel room in Las Vegas, according to Leslie Mark Stovall, lawyer for Mayorga. She also said Ronaldo fell to his knees and told her he was “99 percent” a “good guy” let down by the “one percent.”
The outlet further claimed that Mayorga’s lawyer’s case is based on a document containing Ronaldo’s account of what happened on the fateful night. In it, Ronaldo is quoted as saying “she said ‘no’ and ‘stop’ several times.”
Stovall said: “Kathryn was sexually assaulted in June 2009 by an individual named Cristiano Ronaldo.”
Ronaldo, on the other hand, has vehemently denied these claims, saying that the sex was consensual.
Meanwhile, Ronaldo’s lawyer has issued a statement to Reuters, stating that the charges were ‘blatantly illegal’. The lawyer said that his client would sue the German magazine.
Ronaldo’s lawyer Christian Schertz said in a statement the report was “an inadmissible reporting of suspicions in the area of privacy”. The lawyer also said he would seek compensation from Der Spiegel for “moral damages in an amount corresponding to the gravity of the infringement”.
This is not the first time Ronaldo has found himself in such situation. Earlier during his early days at Manchester United in 2003, he was accused of sexual assault in a penthouse suite at the Sanderson Hotel in central London on October 2.
