Ronaldo sued, accused of rape by Nevada women

Soccer star Cristiano Ronaldo is being sued by a Nevada woman who said he raped her in the penthouse suite of a Las Vegas hotel in 2009 and then dispatched a team of “fixers” to obstruct the criminal investigation and trick her into keeping quiet for $375,000.

The suit says the woman asked police last month to reopen the criminal case; Las Vegas police confirmed to The Associated Press on Monday that they have reopened a sexual assault case from 2009 brought by the woman named in the lawsuit. The AP does not identify those who say they have been sexually assaulted.

Ronaldo’s attorney, Christian Schertz, did not immediately respond to an email seeking comment. But after a report on the case in Der Spiegel last week, he threatened to sue the German magazine, saying: “It violates the personal rights of our client Cristiano Ronaldo in an exceptionally serious way.”

In a smiling Instagram video posted hours after the suit was filed, Ronaldo appears to deny the allegations.

“Fake. Fake news,” said the five-time world player of the year, who moved to Juventus from Real Madrid this summer. “You want to promote by my name. It’s normal. They want to be famous, to say my name. But it is part of the job. I am a happy man and all good.”

The woman’s attorneys did not immediately respond to a telephone message seeking comment.

The lawsuit claims that the woman, who was then 24, went with a friend to the Rain nightclub at the Palms Hotel and Casino on the night of June 12, 2009, and met Ronaldo there. It says he invited a group of people up to his suite “to enjoy the view of the Las Vegas strip” and then into the hot tub; according to the suit, he then barged in on her as she was changing, exposed himself and asked her for oral sex.

When she refused, the lawsuit claims, he raped her.