RENO, Nev. (AP) — A U.S. appeals court sided with Cristiano Ronaldo on Tuesday, rejecting an appeal by lawyers for a woman who tried to force the international soccer star to pay millions of dollars. Not the $375,000 hush money he paid Cristiano Ronaldo to her after he accused her of raping her. in 2009.
Attorneys for Katherine Mayorga had asked the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals to overturn a federal judge’s decision to dismiss the case in Las Vegas in June 2022 and reopen the civil lawsuit she filed in 2018.
They argued that U.S. District Judge Jennifer Dorsey should not have rejected Mayorga’s attempt to unseal and make public the nondisclosure agreement she signed in 2010 to accept payments from Ronaldo.
A three-judge panel of the San Francisco Court of Appeals disagreed. It also rejected their argument that the judge abused his discretion by dismissing the case with prejudice, preventing Mayorga from re-opening it and taking the unusual step of challenging her attorney, Leslie Mark Stovall. A fine of $335,000 was imposed.
“The district court clearly recognized the seriousness of dismissing this case and therefore provided a comprehensive analysis fully supported by factual findings,” Judge Johnny Rawlinson wrote in Tuesday’s six-page opinion.
The Associated Press typically does not name people who say they are victims of sexual assault, but Mayorga, through her lawyers, including Stovall, agreed to have her name released.
Ronaldo is one of the most famous and richest athletes in the world. He leads the national team of his native Portugal and has played for Real Madrid in Spain, Juventus in Italy and Manchester United in England. He currently plays for Saudi Arabian professional team Al Nassr.
When Nevada dismissed the case, Dorsey sanctioned Stovall for “bad faith,” saying he improperly tried to pursue Mayorga’s case using documents leaked or stolen in a cyberattack.
Stovall told the 9th Circuit panel during oral arguments in October that Mayorga was not bound by the confidentiality agreement because of an April 2017 article by German news outlet Der Spiegel titled “Cristiano Ronaldo. “Secrets” article, Ronaldo or his colleagues breached the confidentiality agreement. Documents obtained from whistleblower portal Football Leaks.
Las Vegas police reopened the rape investigation after Mayorga filed the lawsuit, but Clark County District Attorney Steve Wolfson decided in 2019 not to pursue criminal charges. He said too much time had passed and the evidence failed to show Mayorga’s charges could be proven to a jury.
Mayorga, a former teacher and model in the Las Vegas area, met Ronaldo at a nightclub in 2009 when she was 25 and went with him and others to his hotel suite. She claimed in a lawsuit filed nearly a decade later that the then-24-year-old soccer star sexually assaulted her in her bedroom.
Ronaldo insisted through his lawyers that the sex was consensual and that the confidentiality agreement reached in 2010 was in effect. Stovall acknowledged Mayorga received $375,000.
Mayorga’s lawsuit alleges conspiracy, defamation, breach of contract, coercion and fraud. When Dorsey dismissed the case, Stovall claimed Mayorga deserved more than $25 million in damages.
Tuesday’s ruling from the Ninth Circuit noted that the 2010 settlement “remained dormant until 2017… when ‘Football Leaks’ leaked hundreds of documents through a cyber hack by Ronaldo’s former lawyer.”
The circuit court said: “Stovall rejected the settlement and confidentiality agreement between Ronaldo and Mayorga, sought and used documents from ‘Football Leaks’ – including those expressly marked with attorney-client privilege – to represent Mayorga. Yorga files new lawsuit against Ronaldo.”
Judge Dorsey “correctly held that Ronaldo did not waive or otherwise abandon his claim of attorney-client privilege over the ‘Football Leaks’ documents,” he said.
The appeals judges specifically rejected Stovall’s argument that Ronaldo failed to adequately protect the documents.
“Prior to the leak, his lawyers used cybersecurity tools to protect their documents,” the ruling said. As the district court noted, Ronaldo erred in setting the course “to deal with this unorthodox dilemma,” which was explained by Mayo It was caused by the long-term “unprincipled behavior” of Canadian lawyers. These documents were vigorously protected before and since. “
“The district court did not abuse its discretion when it concluded that sanctions terminating the case were appropriate,” the ruling said.