A MODEL who claimed she was raped by Cristiano Ronaldo has launched a fresh bid to force the footballer to pay millions more in hush money.
Kathryn Mayorga alleged the Portuguese star, 38, attacked her in a Las Vegas hotel room in 2009.
The Al Nassr player has always insisted they had consensual sex and has strongly denied her accusations.
Former teacher Ms Mayorga, who waived her right to anonymity, accepted £275,000 in a hush-hush agreement in 2010.
In June last year, a lawsuit attempting to push for a higher payout was thrown out by US District Judge Jennifer Dorsey after it was revealed stolen confidential documents had been used.
But today, lawyers trying to revive Ms Mayorga’s bid for millions more have returned to court.
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Her legal team is asking the 9th US Circuit Court of Appeals to overturn the dismissal of the case and reopen the civil lawsuit she first filed in Nevada in 2018.
They will argue previouss attempts to include as evidence the confidentiality agreement she signed in 2010 after taking the payment from Ronaldo was repeatedly and wrongly rejected by the federal judge.
Las Vegas police reopened a rape investigation after Ms Mayorga’s lawsuit was filed, but Clark County District Attorney Steve Wolfson decided in 2019 not to pursue criminal charges.
He said too much time had passed and evidence failed to show that Ms Mayorga’s accusation could be proved to a jury.
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Ms Mayorga, an ex model from the Las Vegas area, was 25 when she met Ronaldo at a nightclub in 2009 and went with him and other people to his hotel suite.
She alleged in her lawsuit filed almost a decade later that the star, then 24, sexually assaulted her in a bedroom.
Ronaldo, through his lawyers, maintained sex was consensual.
The two reached a confidentiality agreement in 2010 under which Stovall acknowledged that Ms Mayorga received $375,000.
In dismissing the case last year, US District Judge Jennifer Dorsey in Las Vegas took the unusual step of levying a $335,000 (£278,000) fine against Ms Mayorga’s lead lawyer, Stovall, for acting in bad faith in filing the case on his client’s behalf.
The Sun has contacted Ronaldo’s representatives for comment.
Source: Soccer - thesun.co.uk
