The model accusing Cristiano Ronaldo of raping her in a Las Vegas hotel room says he hired a team of professionals to discredit her after the alleged attack.
Kathryn Mayorga, now 34, accuses the football star of using a team of ‘reputation protection specialists’ to frustrate a criminal investigation and smear her name after she accused him of rape in 2009.
Included in the team was a private detective who dug into Mayorga’s past and tailed her around Vegas to see what she was getting up to, she says.
In the meantime his lawyers were seeking assurances from the police that the investigation was being treated as low priority while hammering out a £288,000 deal to buy her silence, court papers allege.
Kathryn Mayorga, now 34, (pictured with Ronaldo in Vegas in 2009) claims the football star hired a team of ‘reputation protection specialists’ to discredit her after she accused him of raping her during this night out
Mayorga alleges that Ronaldo’s team hired a private eye to follow her around and she was so scared that her firefighter father began training her in self defense in the gym
The story was first reported by German magazine Der Speigel last week and subsequently disparaged by Ronaldo’s lawyers as ‘probably one of the most serious violations of personal rights in recent years.’
Christian Schertz, attorney for the sports star, said Spiegel’s reporting was ‘blatantly illegal’ and added that he has been instructed to sue for ‘moral damages.’
Ronaldo personally denied the claims in an Instagram video, calling them ‘fake, fake news’ before adding: ‘I am a happy man and all good.’
In the past, lawyers for Ronaldo have vociferously denied the allegations.
Detailing what she says were Ronaldo’s attempts to rubbish her account, Mayorga told Der Speigel of one occasion after the alleged attack when she was out with friends and they noticed a man sitting a short distance away.
‘There was an investigator looking at us and writing notes down,’ she said.
‘We were laughing, like: “Could you make it obvious!” He was just looking at us and writing.’
The magazine also purports to be in possession of leaked documents from 2009/10 showing the level of detail the investigator went into during his probe.
In one entry carried by Speigel, the investigator describes in intimate detail how she left her house, drove to the MGM Grand hotel, met a friend whom she hugged in the elevator, then drank three glasses of red wine as they chatted.
The investigator also dug up her felony record for parking tickets, details from her resume, and spent hours following her including sitting outside her house, according to the report.
Mayorga’s father, a retired firefighter named Larry, recalled being so afraid for her safety that he took her to a gym to teach her self-defense.
Mayorga claims the attack happened in a suite in this hotel in Las Vegas in the summer of 2009 after Ronaldo burst into a bathroom where she was changing into a swimsuit
She claims Ronaldo (pictured with his family recently) paid her £288,000 – then a week’s wages – in order to buy her silence as part of a non-disclosure agreement
‘Working out, (teaching) her how to punch, stuff like that,’ he said.
It seems the team were hoping to catch Mayorga partying – ideally in the company of men – contradicting her account that the alleged attack left her emotionally scarred.
But the investigation appears to have come up short. At one point, according to Der Spiegel, one of Ronaldo’s lawyer even suggested hiring a second private eye, though it is not clear if this happened.
Meanwhile the team were also seeking information from the Las Vegas police about how they were handling the case, according to court papers Mayorga filed last week.
Using a ‘confidential source’ within the LVMPD, the team allegedly established that cops were not treating the attack as a ‘violent crime’ – despite Mayorga saying she suffered anal injuries which were documented as part of a ‘rape kit’ exam.
Officers said they would class the crime as ‘harassment’, would put the case on the ‘back burner’ and would ‘happily’ drop it if a financial settlement could be reached, the papers allege.
Having established that Mayorga was vulnerable, the team then threatened to publicly smear her as a consenting sexual partner who was trying to extort Ronaldo because of his wealth and fame, the court filing says.
These warnings were echoed by medical staff who examined Mayorga after the attack and the first police officer who interviewed her, she claims.
This amounted to a ‘conspiracy to obstruct the criminal investigation and prosecution of Ronaldo for sexual assault… and interfere, reduce or eliminate plaintiff’s claim for civil damages,’ the papers say.
Mayorga was born in Las Vegas as the daughter of a fireman and stay-at-home mum, and enjoyed a middle-class upbringing.
Ronaldo has personally addressed the claims, calling them ‘fake, fake news’ while his lawyers said the reporting was ‘blatantly illegal’ and that they intend to sue
As a child she played football and netball and was a member of the Girl Scouts, but struggled in school due to Attention Deficit Disorder and a learning disability.
Despite her disability she went on to study journalism at college, graduating from the University of Nevada in 2008.
She married shortly afterwards but got divorced the following year, moving back in with her parents while she pursued a career in modelling.
To that aim she became a bar promoter and was paid to hang out in front of clubs with other attractive women in order to lure punters inside.
It was in that context that she met Ronaldo, who was in Vegas in the summer of 2009 to celebrate moving from Manchester United to Real Madrid for a then-record fee.
He was partying alongside friends at the Rain nightclub that evening and ended up in the VIP area alongside Mayorga, where the pair were photographed.
After that she claims he took her number, then texted her later in the evening to invite her to a private party in his suite.
When she arrived the guests, including a friend she names as Jordan, were invited to get into the hot tub but she didn’t have any swimwear.
She claims Ronaldo offered her a pair of athletic shorts and a t-shirt to wear before showing her to an en-suite bathroom so she could change.
But while she was partially clothed she alleges that Ronaldo burst in, exposed himself, and suggested she perform sex acts on him – which she refused.
The pair kissed but were then interrupted by one of Ronaldo’s friend and she tried to leave, but he dragged her into the bedroom and tried to undress her, she claims.
Despite repeatedly saying ‘no’ and curling up into a ball with her hands over her privates, she claims Ronaldo anally raped her in an ordeal that lasted between five and seven minutes.
Afterwards, she claimed he repeatedly apologised before the pair made their way back to the hot tub.
Mayorga recalls staying at the party for a short time after, though was in a ‘disembodied’ state and had to fend off questions from her friend about whether she was OK.
After leaving, she says she reported the attack to police though refused to give Ronaldo’s name and submitted to medical exams.
In further police interviews she did name the sports star, she claims, but told officers that she didn’t want the news to be taken public.
While suffering depression, anxiety and suicidal thoughts because of the alleged attack, Mayorga claims she agreed to sign a non-disclosure agreement.
In return for £288,000 – a week’s wage for Ronaldo at the time – Mayorga says she agreed to never speak of the attack again or mention his name, including in therapy.
But after living with years of regret and in the midst of the #MeToo movement, she has now decided to speak out, claiming the agreement she signed is not valid because she was in no fit mental state at the time.