Cristiano Ronaldo has won $334,637.50 from his rape accuser’s ‘dodgy’ lawyer for acting in ‘bad faith’ over the bogus sex claims.
A US judge declared Kathryn Mayorga’s lawyer Leslie Stovall must personally hand over the cash to the world’s highest-paid sportsman after Ronaldo claimed he had been prejudiced by the attorney’s ‘reckless conduct’ in the long-running case.
District Judge Jennifer Dorsey also threw out a bid by former model and teacher Mayorga to get the former Manchester United striker to produce his contract with his lawyer to see if he had benefited from any fee discounts.
Granting the footballer’s compensation request ‘in part’, the judge said in an 18-page written ruling: ‘Ronaldo would not have incurred a majority of the fees and costs that he spent on this litigation had it not been for the plaintiff counsel’s bad faith.’
Ronaldo is pictured with Mayorga in this 2009 image
Cristiano Ronaldo is pictured on the pitch at King Fahd International Stadium, Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, on Jan 26, 2023
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 (pictured) in the city
The soccer star, now on a mega-bucks $205 million-a-year deal with Saudi Arabian side Al Nassr, has always denied raping Mayorga, 40, in a Las Vegas hotel room in 2009 and insisted they had consensual sex. Police have never brought any charges.
Mayorga claimed Ronaldo had paid her $330,000 in hush money as part of an out-of-court settlement in 2010 to gag her from talking about the hotel incident and stop her pursuing criminal charges.
Her lawyers went on to try to overturn that settlement, claiming she was ‘mentally incapacitated’ at the time.
Las Vegas-based Judge Dorsey claimed Cristiano had been harmed by Stovall’s conduct in a damning ruling last June when she kicked out Mayorga’s bid to get the former Manchester United player to pay millions of dollars more than the hush money agreed with him in 2010.
She accused Stovall of tainting the case ‘beyond redemption’ with his use of hacked documents detailing discussions between Ronaldo and his lawyers about the rape allegations.
In an 18-page written ruling, US District judge Jennifer Dorsey ordered Mayorga’s lawyer to pay Ronaldo $334,637.50 in damages
The footballer and his lawyer have repeatedly said the documents were altered in an attempt to defame him.
Ronaldo was awarded more than half of the $609,680 in legal fees he was trying to claw back because of Stovall’s ‘bad faith.’
The judge said she could not order the disgraced attorney to hand Ronaldo the full amount he was claiming because he could have acted quicker in getting the case against him dismissed.
She ruled: ‘It was clear early on that Mayorga’s allegations were rooted in the purloined materials.
‘Ronaldo shares at least part of the blame for this case dragging on for as long as it did although he had to recognise its dubious underpinnings.
‘I thus decline to award fees for the work Ronaldo’s attorneys performed in discovery or preparation for trial, as that work could have been avoided.’
source: dailymail.co.uk
