LAS VEGAS, USA: A US appeals court convened on Wednesday to hear arguments from attorneys aiming to revive a woman’s legal pursuit to compel international soccer star Cristiano Ronaldo to pay more than the $375,000 in hush money he provided after she accused him of sexual assault in Las Vegas in 2009.
The woman’s attorney is urging the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals to overturn the case’s dismissal in June 2022 and reopen the civil lawsuit initially filed in Nevada back in 2018.
The appeal centers on the contention that the federal court judge in Nevada made mistakes in repeatedly denying the woman’s efforts to reveal and include the confidentiality agreement she signed in 2010, accepting payments from Ronaldo, as evidence.
A three-judge panel of the San Francisco-based appellate court is not expected to deliver an immediate ruling. Instead, they are set to question the attorneys for Ronaldo and his accuser, Kathryn Mayorga, during oral arguments at a special session held at the law school on the University of Nevada, Las Vegas campus.
The Associated Press typically refrains from naming individuals who claim to be victims of sexual assault. However, Mayorga, with consent from her legal representation, including Leslie Mark Stovall, has chosen to disclose her identity.
Cristiano Ronaldo, a globally recognized and affluent athlete, leads Portugal’s national team and has notably played for prominent clubs such as Real Madrid in Spain, Juventus in Italy, Manchester United in England, and presently plays for the Saudi Arabian professional team Al Nassr.
Following the filing of Mayorga’s lawsuit, Las Vegas police reopened a rape investigation. However, Clark County District Attorney Steve Wolfson decided in 2019 not to pursue criminal charges, citing the passage of too much time and insufficient evidence to support Mayorga’s accusation before a jury.
Mayorga, a former educator and model from the Las Vegas area, was 25 years old when she met Ronaldo at a nightclub in 2009 and accompanied him and others to his hotel suite. Nearly a decade later, she alleged in her lawsuit that the soccer star, then 24, sexually assaulted her in a bedroom.
Ronaldo, contending that the encounter was consensual, entered into a confidentiality agreement with Mayorga in 2010, acknowledging a payment of $375,000.
In the dismissal of the case last year, U.S. District Judge Jennifer Dorsey in Las Vegas imposed a $335,000 fine against Mayorga’s lead lawyer, Stovall, for what was deemed “bad faith” in filing the case on his client’s behalf.
Stovall’s appeal on Mayorga’s behalf, filed in March, challenges Dorsey’s ruling as a “manifest abuse of discretion” and seeks to unseal records and revive the case.
The appeal contends that Mayorga was not bound by the confidentiality agreement, citing alleged violations by Ronaldo or his associates prior to an article by a German news outlet, Der Spiegel, published in April 2017, titled “Cristiano Ronaldo’s Secret.” The article was based on documents obtained from what court filings described as the “whistleblower portal Football Leaks.”
Ronaldo’s legal team argued, and the judge concurred, that the “Football Leaks” documents and the confidentiality agreement were products of privileged attorney-client discussions, challenging their authenticity and their admissibility as evidence.
