In August, Kathryn Mayorga filed a civil complaint against Cristiano Ronaldo in regard to an alleged rape that took place in a Las Vegas hotel room in 2009.
Following the complaint – which alleged the soccer star was able to convinceMayorga to sign a nondisclosure agreement in exchange for $375,000 in 2010 – Las Vegas police reopened a sexual assault investigation into Ronaldo.
Ronaldo denied the charges repeatedly on social media and agreed to comply with a request from Las Vegas police to submit a DNA sample as part of the investigation into the alleged rape earlier this year.
At the time, the 33-year-old also indicated he planned “on cooperating with investigators to prove his innocence.”
However, since then, there has been no announcement about whether legal charges will be filed against Ronaldo and no update about why the original investigation was shelved.
On the civil side, since Ronaldo lives abroad, he has yet to be formally served with the paperwork and subsequently has not had to respond to it.
As ESPN puts it, the situation is “a disquieting limbo.”
“Maybe, at some point, there will be a criminal charge,” according to the publication. “Maybe, at some point, the civil case will proceed. For now, only dribs and drabs tumble out, barely registering beneath the regular cacophony of a famous athlete’s buzz. This, it seems, is the reality of fame. The type of fame Ronaldo enjoys means power – the power to hide in plain sight, to appear on screens in every country every weekend yet avoid being served. Ronaldo might not be above the law, but he can surround himself with a protective layer of lawyers, private investigators and fixers so thick he can hover above it for a lot longer than most.”
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