US judge recommends filing Cristiano Ronaldo’s rape case

Kathryn Mayorga accused Ronaldo of raping her in a Las Vegas hotel room in 2009. Ronaldo claimed the bout was consensual.

Mayorga also accused Ronaldo and his team of forcing her to sign a settlement and nondisclosure agreement. He claims to have received $ 375,000 in that deal.

His lawsuit, which originally seeks to nullify the deal and settlement, was filed in 2018 in a state court. It was filed again in 2019 in federal court.

However, Magistrate Judge Daniel Albregts on Wednesday recommended the case be closed because Mayorga’s lawyers improperly obtained and used information from leaked documents, his recommendation says.

In 2017, a sports website leaked copies of documents and communications from the mediation discussions to the German publication Der Spiegel.

Albregts’ recommendation states that Mayorga’s attorneys based part of their client’s case on leaked documents that Ronaldo’s team says they “contain attorney-client material and privileged material about the work product.”

“Dismissal [the] case for his attorney’s inappropriate conduct is a harsh result, ”Albregts wrote in his recommendation.

“If the court does not grant sanctions for the termination of the case, [her lawyer’s] actions could have dangerous and far-reaching consequences on the legitimacy of the judicial process ”.

“Stovall acted in bad faith to the detriment of his client – and the profession -” continued Albregts, referring to one of Mayorga’s legal team members, Leslie Mark Stovall.

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CNN reached out to Stovall for comment on Albregts’ recommendation.

In 2019, the Clark County District Attorney’s Office stated that Ronaldo would not face allegations of sexual assault in Las Vegas, saying the allegations could not be proven beyond a reasonable doubt.