Portugal and Juventus forward Cristiano Ronaldo has denied claims made by an American woman that he raped her in a Las Vegas hotel room in 2009 and then paid $375,000 for her silence.
Last year, German magazine Der Spiegel claimed to have unearthed documents that revealed an out-of-court settlement between the then Real Madrid player and the woman, Kathryn Mayorga.
On Friday, Spiegel Online carried an interview with Mayorga, sharing her version of incidents that took place in Ronaldo’s Palms Place Hotel penthouse. And the validity of that settlement is reportedly being questioned in the state of Nevada in the United States.
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Ronaldo, 33, has denied the allegations stating that the sex was consensual as per him. The footballer's lawyer Christian Schertz said in a statement, as reported by Reuters, the report was “an inadmissible reporting of suspicions in the area of privacy”, and that he would seek legal redress for his client from the magazine.
The lawyer also said that they would seek compensation from Der Spiegel for “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.”
Meanwhile, Der Spiegel said that they approached Ronaldo and his team but were not provided with a response.
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“We sent written questions, to which there were no answers. Nobody sued us in connection with earlier Ronaldo reports,” said the Editor-in-Chief.
Ronaldo, one of the biggest names in world sport, joined Italian champions Juventus during the summer transfer. He is a five-time world player of the year.
