Cristiano Ronaldo's legal professionals are in search of $626,000 in damages from a lawyer representing an alleged rape sufferer.
AP
LAS VEGAS — Cristiano Ronaldo is asking a U.S. decide to order a girl’s lawyer to pay the worldwide soccer star greater than $626,000 after claiming in a failed lawsuit in search of hundreds of thousands of dollars that Ronaldo raped the girl in Las Vegas practically a decade earlier.
In a bluntly worded court docket doc, Ronaldo’s legal professional, Peter Christiansen, asks U.S. District Choose Jennifer Dorsey to make the girl’s legal professional, Leslie Mark Stovall, personally chargeable for the quantity.
Stovall didn't instantly reply Wednesday to phone and e mail messages. Textual content messages to affiliate Larissa Drohobyczer weren't answered. Stovall is because of file a solution with the court docket by July 8.
Dorsey on June 10 kicked the case out of court docket to punish Stovall for “bad-faith conduct” and the improper use of leaked and stolen paperwork to pursue the case.
Stovall “crossed the border of moral habits earlier than he filed this motion, and his disregard for the foundations of this court docket has continued unabated,” the decide discovered.
Dorsey stated in her 42-page order that dismissing plaintiff Kathryn Mayorga’s case outright with no choice to file it once more was a extreme sanction, however stated Ronaldo had been harmed by Stovall’s conduct.
The Related Press usually doesn't title individuals who say they're victims of sexual assault, however Mayorga gave consent by means of Stovall and Drohobyczer to make her title public.
The bid for court docket prices and charges for Ronaldo’s attorneys, filed Friday, dwarfs a $375,000 hush-money cost that Mayorga obtained in 2010 to signal a confidentiality settlement and drop a felony grievance alleging she was sexually assaulted.
“Given Stovall’s abuses and flagrant misconduct, Stovall ought to be made personally chargeable for guaranteeing Ronaldo is reimbursed for having to defend in opposition to his vexatious and dangerous religion conduct,” Christiansen’s request for reimbursement stated. He tallied legal professional charges at between $350 and $850 per hour for practically 1,200 hours of labor.
Mayorga’s civil lawsuit — filed in 2018 in state court docket and moved in 2019 to federal court docket — ultimately sought greater than $25 million in damages, plus legal professional charges for Stovall.
It alleged that Ronaldo or his associates violated the confidentiality settlement earlier than a German information outlet, Der Spiegel, printed an article in April 2017 titled “Cristiano Ronaldo’s Secret” based mostly on paperwork obtained from what court docket filings time period “whistleblower portal Soccer Leaks.”
Ronaldo’s attorneys accuse Stovall of acquiring stolen materials containing privileged attorney-client communication after which attempting repeatedly to make them pubic by attaching them to court docket filings.
A second court docket submitting on Friday asks Dorsey to seal a part of the court docket document containing confidential paperwork.
Mayorga is a former mannequin and trainer who lives within the Las Vegas space. Her lawsuit stated she met Ronaldo at a nightclub and went with him and different individuals to his resort suite, the place she alleged he assaulted her in a bed room. She was 25 on the time. He was 24.
Ronaldo’s authorized crew doesn't dispute Ronaldo met Mayorga and so they had intercourse in June 2009, however maintained it was consensual.
Ronaldo, now 37, is likely one of the most extremely paid and recognizable sports activities stars on this planet. He performs for the English Premier League membership Manchester United and has captained the nationwide crew of his house nation, Portugal. He spent a number of current years taking part in in Italy for the Turin-based membership Juventus.
Las Vegas police reopened their rape investigation after Mayorga’s lawsuit was filed in 2018, however Clark County District Lawyer Steve Wolfson determined in 2019 to not pursue felony costs. He stated an excessive amount of time had handed to show the case to a jury past an inexpensive doubt.
Stovall maintained that Mayorga didn’t break the hush-money settlement. Her lawsuit sought to void it, accusing Ronaldo and reputation-protection “fixers” of conspiracy, defamation, breach of contract, coercion and fraud.
The Las Vegas police report compiled about Ronaldo after Mayorga filed her lawsuit in 2018 may nonetheless turn out to be public underneath a court docket motion pending in state court docket in Las Vegas.
The Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Division is asking a decide to find out whether or not it has to adjust to a public data request by The New York Occasions. The division argues that no costs had been filed within the case.
A U.S. Justice of the Peace decide in Las Vegas stated in March that a protecting order that Dorsey imposed the order to forestall launch of the 2010 settlement doesn't stop the division from releasing its file.
The Las Vegas Evaluation-Journal is also a part of the case. Lawyer Margaret McLetchie, representing the newspapers, didn't instantly reply to messages.
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