By Victor Kanayo
Portuguese captain Cristiano Ronaldo is enjoying new financial exploits, after a Judge ordered that he should be compensated with $300,000, being legal fees he spent while defending himself in a federal civil case.
The case was that of an alleged rape of a woman in a Las Vegas hotel room in 2009, according to CNN report.
The report said the case was dismissed in June, 2022, after the judge found that the plaintiff’s lawyer engaged in misconduct, so severe that it would be impossible for Ronaldo to have a fair trial.
In his ruling, US District Judge Jennifer Dorsey ordered that the attorney representing the accuser Kathryn Mayorga, Leslie Stovall, should pay Ronaldo $334,637.50.
The court found Stovall owed the money after the attorney was judged to have harmed the footballer through “bad-faith lawyering.”
The US news platform reports that Ronaldo’s legal team had sought more compensation, but Dorsey concluded Ronaldo and his lawyers had dragged the case on longer than necessary.
The case was dismissed with prejudice, meaning Mayorga cannot refile the complaint.
Mayorga said she was coerced into signing a non-disclosure agreement and $375,000 settlement following the alleged rape, which Ronaldo has maintained was a consensual sexual encounter. Mayorga had asked a judge to void that agreement.
The existence of the settlement was first reported by the German newspaper Der Spiegel, in 2017 using leaked confidential communications from Ronaldo’s attorneys.
Last year, a court found that Stovall reached out to the source of that leak to request those documents, including “the reporting and communications of the attorneys and investigators representing and defending Ronaldo, following the sexual assault through the negotiations and conclusion of the settlement and non-disclosure agreement.”
The Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department reopened a criminal investigation at Mayorga’s request in August 2018.
CNN report also revealed that in July 2019, the Clark County District Attorney’s Office, announced they would not pursue criminal charges.
It said the allegations could not be proven beyond a reasonable doubt.
