Leslie Stovall, Kathryn Mayorga’s lawyer, will have to allocate US$ 335,000 to the player’s team for expenses considered unnecessary in the process
Cristiano Ronaldo – AFP
Las Vegas District Judge Jennifer Dorsey ordered lawyer Leslie Stovall to pay $335,000 (approximately R$ 1.75 million) for the defense of Cristiano Ronaldo in legal costs. Stovall was penalized for trying to force the continuation of the process brought by his client Kathryn Mayorga, who accused the Portuguese player of rape.
“Ronaldo wouldn’t have to pay such huge procedural costs in this case if it weren’t for the accused’s bad faith”, says an excerpt from the sentence. The costs will have to be paid directly to the player’s defense, led by Peter Christiansen and Kendelee Works.
Mayorga alleges that she was raped by CR7 in a hotel room in Las Vegas in 2009. At the time, she was 25 years old and Cristiano was 24. era. Initially, the case was finalized in 2010, after the payment of 300,000 euros (R$ 1.68 million, at current prices) in agreement by the player to the accuser to close it.
But the scenario has changed almost a decade later. The case was reopened by Stovall and Mayorga in 2018, on charges of violating the confidentiality agreement and claiming compensation when the website “Football Leaks” published conversations between Cristiano and his defense on the case. In this Tuesday’s decision, the magistrate says that the allegations are based on “stolen material” and sentences that Stovall acted in reckless conduct and out of bounds for using the leaked material. Dorsey also denied a larger compensation payment to CR7’s defense, on the grounds that the star’s team bears part of the blame for the long duration of the case.
At the time of the reopening of the case, the Las Vegas police even reopened the investigation, but the local prosecutor claimed that too much time had elapsed from the complaint and there was not enough evidence to bring him to a jury. Parallel to the main lawsuit, Mayorga’s defense tried to make public other documents related to the case, such as a police report from the time of the complaint, but the Justice of Clark County, through Judge Jasmin Lilly-Spells, also denied the request.
Cristiano Ronaldo, who played in the fifth World Cup of his career at the end of last year, in Qatar, is playing for Al-Nassr, from Saudi Arabia. On the last 5th, the player, who is the father of five children, turned 38.
