Cristiano Ronaldo’s 2010 hush-money settlement in an alleged Las Vegas rape case is not up for appeal, according to a US court, and the lawyer is fined £270,000 for acting “in bad faith.”
The case cannot be reopened because it was dismissed with prejudice.
Ronaldo has maintained that their relationship was consensual through his attorneys.
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On Tuesday, a U.S. appeals court ruled in favor of Cristiano Ronaldo, dismissing an appeal filed by a woman attempting to compel the international soccer player to pay millions of dollars above the $375,000 (£299,385) in hush money he gave her following her 2009 accusation of rape.
Attorneys for Kathryn Mayorga had requested that the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals reverse the decision of a federal judge to dismiss the case in June 2022 in Las Vegas and reopen the civil lawsuit that Mayorga had filed in 2018.
They contended that Mayorga’s attempts to unseal and make public the confidentiality agreement she signed in 2010 to accept payments from Ronaldo were improperly denied by U.S. District Judge Jennifer Dorsey.
The appellate court located in San Francisco was divided by a panel of three judges. Additionally, it dismissed their claim that the judge had abused her discretion by dismissing the case with prejudice, preventing Mayorga from refiling, and went so far as to penalize her attorney, Leslie Mark Stovall, $335,000 (£267,450).
Judge Johnnie Rawlinson’s six-page opinion on Tuesday stated, “The district court clearly recognized the gravity of dismissing the case and accordingly provided a thorough analysis, amply supported by factual findings.”
A US judge has sided with Cristiano Ronaldo in dismissing Kathryn Mayorga’s attorney’s appeal in Las Vegas.
Mayorga (seen with Ronaldo in 2009) accused the player of sexually assaulting her in a hotel room in Las Vegas; Ronaldo has continuously refuted these claims.
Through Stovall’s legal representation, Mayorga gave her approval for her name to be made public.
Among the most well-known and wealthy sportsmen in the world is Ronaldo. He has played for Manchester United in England, Real Madrid in Spain, Juventus in Italy, and the national team of his native Portugal. He currently plays for Al Nassr, a professional team in Saudi Arabia.
Dorsey punished Stovall for “bad faith” when he dismissed the Nevada case, claiming that he had improperly tried to use documents that were stolen or leaked in a cyberattack to pursue Mayorga’s case.
At oral arguments in October, Stovall informed the 9th Circuit panel that Mayorga was not bound by the confidentiality agreement because Ronaldo or his associates had broken it prior to the publication of an article titled “Cristiano Ronaldo’s Secret” in April 2017 by the German news outlet Der Spiegel. The article was based on documents obtained from “the whistleblower portal Football Leaks.”
Following Mayorga’s lawsuit, Las Vegas police reopened their rape investigation; however, in 2019, Clark County District Attorney Steve Wolfson made the decision not to press charges. He claimed that too much time had passed and the evidence was insufficient to support Mayorga’s allegation in front of a jury.
At the age of 25, Mayorga—a model and former teacher from the Las Vegas area—met Ronaldo at a nightclub in 2009, and the two of them proceeded to his hotel suite. In her lawsuit, which was filed nearly ten years later, she claims that the 24-year-old soccer player sexually molested her in a bedroom.
Ronaldo insisted that the 2010 confidentiality agreement was still in effect and that the sex was consensual through his legal representatives. Stovall admitted that the $375,000 had been given to Mayorga.
In her lawsuit, Mayorga made claims of fraud, coercion, conspiracy, defamation, and breach of contract. By the time Dorsey dismissed the lawsuit, Stovall had asserted that Mayorga was entitled to damages exceeding $25 million (£19.9 million).
The 2010 settlement ‘lay dormant until 2017, when… `Football Leaks’ released hundreds of documents through a cyber hack of Ronaldo’s former attorneys,’ according to the 9th Circuit ruling on Tuesday.
The circuit court stated, “Stovall sought and used documents from ‘Football Leaks’ – including those clearly marked attorney-client privileged – to prosecute a new lawsuit on behalf of Mayorga against Ronaldo, despite the settlement and confidentiality agreement between Ronaldo and Mayorga.”
In reference to the “Football Leaks” documents, Judge Dorsey “properly held that Ronaldo did not waive or otherwise forfeit his claim of attorney-client privilege,” the statement read.
Specifically, the appellate judges disregarded Stoval’s claim that Ronaldo did not take sufficient precautions to secure the documents.
The ruling stated that “his attorneys used cybersecurity tools to protect their files prior to the leak.” As the district court pointed out, Ronaldo created the erroneous “navigating this unorthodox predicament” course long before Mayorga’s counsel’s “unprincipled conduct” began, and he then put strong measures in place to safeguard the documents.
The decision stated, “The district court did not abuse its discretion when it determined that a case-terminating sanction was appropriate.”
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