Las Vegas (AFP) – Cristiano Ronaldo on Wednesday denied accusations by a former American model that he raped her in a Las Vegas hotel in 2009 and said his conscience is clear.
“I firmly deny the accusations being issued against me,” the Portuguese superstar tweeted in Portuguese and English.
“Rape is an abominable crime that goes against everything that I am and believe in,” said the 33-year-old Juventus forward.
“Keen as I may be to clear my name I refuse to feed the media spectacle created by people seeking to promote themselves at my expense,” Ronaldo said.
“My clear conscious (sic) will thereby allow me to await with tranquillity the results of any and all investigations,” he added on his Twitter feed @Cristiano, which has nearly 75 million followers.
Kathryn Mayorga, 34, of Las Vegas, accused Ronaldo, in a 32-page complaint filed last month with a district court in Nevada, of raping her on June 13, 2009.
Las Vegas police this week said they were reopening a case filed on that date but did not identify the victim or the alleged perpetrator by name.
Mayorga’s lawyers are to hold a news conference in Las Vegas at 3:00 pm Pacific time (0000 GMT) on Wednesday to discuss the case.
Mayorga alleges in the lawsuit that she was pressured into signing a nondisclosure agreement to keep the alleged rape secret and is seeking no less than $200,000 in penalties and damages.
The complaint was first reported by the German magazine Der Spiegel. Lawyers for Ronaldo have reportedly threatened to sue the magazine over the story.
In the suit, Mayorga said she met Ronaldo, who was then 24 years old, on the evening of June 12, 2009 at the Rain Nightclub in the Palms Hotel and Casino in Las Vegas.
It said she accepted an invitation to join Ronaldo and others in his penthouse suite to “enjoy the view of the Las Vegas strip.”
– ‘No, no no’ –
She was invited to join guests in a hot tub but she declined because she did not have a bathing suit, the complaint said.
Ronaldo offered her clothing and then followed her into a bathroom where she was going to change clothes, it said.
After she refused his demand to perform oral sex and said she wanted to leave, Ronaldo pulled her into a bedroom and anally raped her while she screamed “no, no, no,” according to the suit.
from World Soccer Talk https://ift.tt/2zOJxb3
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