Soccer superstar Cristiano Ronaldo could face his rape accuser in court after a Las Vegas judge ruled against him.
Kathryn Mayorga, 35, claims the Portuguese star sexually assaulted her in June 2009 at the Palms Casino Resort in Las Vegas.
In 2010, she accepted $375,000 (£290,000) in a non-disclosure agreement, but is now pursuing a new claim for more than $210,000 (£165,000) saying she was mentally unfit when she took the first settlement.
Ronaldo’s U.S. lawyers had tried to get the judge to dismiss her bid, arguing that Mayorga was well enough the first time around in 2010.
But the judge has now ruled against him and ordered a trial date to be set to settle the issue by December because the merit of Mayorga’s claim ‘hinges on the mental-capacity issue.’
Mayorga will now appear before a court, and if she is successful in her bid to prove she was not mentally fit to settle in 2010, Ronaldo could be called to give evidence.
Ronaldo, 35, has always vehemently denied Mayorga’s accusations against him, branding them ‘fake news’.
Lawyers for Cristiano Ronaldo have failed to get a claim for more than $210,000 (£165,000) against him dismissed in Las Vegas. Ronaldo had been accused of rape by American model Kathryn Mayorga (pictured right) who is saying she was mentally unfit when she first accepted a settlement in 2010
In the court filings obtained by The Sun, Judge Jennifer Dorsey ruled: ‘I find that Mayorga’s challenge that she lacked the mental capacity to assent to the settlement agreement is not arbitrable…
”Mayorga did not comply with the correct procedure to request a jury trial of the mental-capacity issue, so I direct the parties to prepare to adjudicate it in a bench trial.
”Because the proper venue for resolving Mayorga’s claims on their merits hinges on the mental-capacity issue, I deny without prejudice Ronaldo’s motion to dismiss them.”
Ronaldo and his legal team argued that ”Mayorga cannot show that she lacked the mental capacity to assent to the settlement agreement.”
But the judge stated: ”Mayorga provides written statements from both a psychiatrist and a therapist who treated her within the past five years about the alleged sexual assault and opine that she lacked capacity to contract at the time she signed the settlement agreement.
”She also offers a written statement from a therapist who treated her shortly after the alleged assault and thereafter for many years.”
American model-turned-teacher Mayorga claimed the football star raped her in a Las Vegas hotel room in 2009 after the pair met on a night out and she agreed to go back to his hotel room.
Last year, the Juventus star was told in July that he will not face charges after police failed to find enough evidence to prosecute.
But Mayorga is pressing ahead with a civil case which seeks to nullify a non-disclosure agreement she signed with the athlete in 2010.
She claims his legal team exploited her vulnerable mental state in order to get her to sign the document.