Cristiano Ronaldo responds to rape accusation by Kathryn Mayorga, saying he has a ‘clear conscience’

Cristiano Ronaldo has firmly denied allegations of rape made against him.

The Juventus and Portugal forward is being sued by a woman in the United States who claims he raped her in the penthouse suite of a Las Vegas hotel in 2009.

Tweets coming from Ronaldo’s Twitter account have strongly denied the accusations made against him: “I firmly deny the accusations being issued against me. Rape is an abominable crime that goes against everything that I am and believe in.

Read more: Is the Cristiano Ronaldo rape allegation football’s #MeToo moment?

“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.

“My clear conscious will thereby allow me to await with tranquillity the results of any and all investigations.”

I firmly deny the accusations being issued against me. Rape is an abominable crime that goes against everything that I am and believe in. 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.

— Cristiano Ronaldo (@Cristiano) October 3, 2018

My clear conscious will thereby allow me to await with tranquillity the results of any and all investigations.

— Cristiano Ronaldo (@Cristiano) October 3, 2018

Allegations

Kathryn Mayorga alleges the footballer, who has played for Real Madrid and Manchester United in the past, employed a team of ‘fixers’ to obstruct the criminal investigation and trick her into signing a non-disclosure agreement worth 375,000 US dollars (£268,000). The lawsuit says the woman last month asked police to reopen the criminal case.

Read more: Cristiano Ronaldo denies allegations of 2009 rape in Las Vegas

Las Vegas police have confirmed they have reopened a sexual assault case from 2009 brought by the woman named in the lawsuit, which also accuses Ronaldo or those working for him of battery, intentional infliction of emotional distress, coercion and fraud, abuse of a vulnerable person, racketeering and civil conspiracy, defamation, abuse of process, breach of contract, and negligence for allowing details of the confidential settlement to leak out.

It asks for general damages, special damages, punitive damages and special relief, each in excess of $50,000 (£38,000), along with interest, attorney fees and court costs.

The allegations of sexual misconduct against Ronaldo were recently published in the German magazine Der Spiegel, which said that Kathryn Mayorga had claimed Ronaldo raped her in a hotel room in Las Vegas. Ronaldo’s lawyers say they will sue the magazine.

In a statement, Ronaldo’s lawyer Christian Schertz said “the reporting in Spiegel is blatantly illegal”. Schertz said he would seek compensation from the magazine for “moral damages in an amount corresponding to the gravity of the infringement, which is probably one of the most serious violations of personal rights in recent years.”

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Mayorga’s lawyer, Leslie Mark Stovall said in a statement: “The purpose of this lawsuit is to hold Cristiano Ronaldo responsible within a civil court of law for the injuries he has caused Kathryn Mayorga and the consequences of those injuries.”