Cristiano Ronaldo claims in a failed lawsuit for millions of dollars that he sexually assaulted the lady in Las Vegas over ten years ago. Ronaldo is now asking a U.S. judge to order the woman’s attorney to pay the international football star more than $626,000.
Ronaldo’s lawyer, Peter Christiansen, urges U.S. District Judge Jennifer Dorsey to hold the woman’s lawyer, Leslie Mark Stovall, personally liable for the sum in a frank court document.
On Wednesday, messages left by phone and email to Stovall went unanswered. Larissa Drohobyczer, an associate, did not respond to text messages. By July 8, Stovall must submit an answer to the court.
To penalize Stovall for his “bad faith conduct” and erroneous use of stolen and leaked materials to prosecute the case, Dorsey dismissed the case on June 10.
The judge concluded that Stovall had “stepped the line of ethical conduct before he brought this suit, and his contempt for the standards of this court has proceeded unabated.”
Although dismissing plaintiff Kathryn Mayorga’s case outright without giving her the chance to reopen it was a severe punishment, Dorsey stated in her 42-page opinion that Ronaldo had suffered because of Stovall’s actions.
In general, the Associated Press does not identify those who claim to have been sexually assaulted, but Mayorga obtained permission through Stovall and Drohobyczer to have her name made public.
A $375,000 hush-money payment that Mayorga got in 2010 to sign a confidentiality agreement and drop a criminal complaint alleging she was sexually assaulted pales in comparison to Ronaldo’s attorneys’ plea for court expenses and fees, which was submitted on Friday.
Christiansen’s appeal for restitution stated that Stovall “should be made personally accountable for ensuring Ronaldo is reimbursed for having to defend against his vexatious and bad faith conduct” due to his abuses and gross misconduct. For almost 1,200 hours of effort, he calculated attorney costs at between $350 and $850 per hour.
Mayorga’s civil complaint, which was initially filed in state court in 2018 and transferred to federal court in 2019, finally sought more than $25 million in damages as well as Stovall’s legal costs.
Before the German news outlet Der Spiegel published an article titled “Cristiano Ronaldo’s Secret” in April 2017 based on documents obtained from what court documents refer to as “whistleblower portal Football Leaks,” it was alleged that Ronaldo or his associates had broken the confidentiality agreement.
The legal representatives for Ronaldo allege that Stovall stole documents containing protected attorney-client communications and persistently attempted to make them public by attaching them to court documents.
In a second court filing on Friday, Dorsey is requested to seal a portion of the court file that contains private documents.
Mayorga is a local of Las Vegas who has worked as a model and a teacher in the past. She met Ronaldo at a nightclub, went to his hotel suite with him and other people, and said he abused her in a bedroom, according to her lawsuit. She had just turned 25. He was 24.
While acknowledging that Ronaldo and Mayorga had intercourse in June 2009, Ronaldo’s legal team insisted it was consensual.
Ronaldo, who is currently 37, is one of the most well-known and well-paid athletes in the world. He has led the Portugal national team while playing for Manchester United of the English Premier League. He recently spent several years playing for Juventus, a team headquartered in Turin, Italy.
After Mayorga’s lawsuit was filed in 2018, Las Vegas police reopened their rape investigation; however, Clark County District Attorney Steve Wolfson chose in 2019 not to press charges. He said that it was now too late to convince a jury of the case’s validity beyond a reasonable doubt.
Mayorga, according to Stovall, didn’t violate the terms of the hush-money agreement. She filed a lawsuit to have it annulled, charging Ronaldo and reputation-protection “fixers” with fraud, coercion, breach of contract, slander, conspiracy, and defamation.
A legal case that is currently proceeding in state court in Las Vegas could yet result in the release of the Las Vegas police report about Ronaldo that was created after Mayorga filed her lawsuit there in 2018.
The Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department is seeking a judge to rule on whether it must accede to The New York Times’ request for access to public records. The department claims that the case was not prosecuted.
A protective order that Dorsey issued to prevent the release of the 2010 agreement does not prevent the department from releasing its file, according to a March ruling by a U.S. magistrate judge in Las Vegas.
In this case, The Las Vegas Review-Journal is also involved. Margaret McLetchie, the lawyer for the newspapers, did not reply to messages right away.
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