US court denies woman’s appeal of Cristiano Ronaldo’s 2010 hush-money settlement in Vegas rape case

By SCOTT SONNER
Associated Press

RENO, Nev. (AP) — A U.S. appeals court has sided with Cristiano Ronaldo, rejecting an appeal by a woman trying to force the international soccer star to pay millions more than the $375,000 in hush money he paid her after she accused him of raping her in 2009. The woman’s lawyer had asked the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals to overturn a federal judge’s dismissal of the case in Las Vegas in June 2022. They argued a lower-court judge should not have rejected the woman’s attempt to unseal the confidentiality agreement she signed in 2010 in accepting payments from Ronaldo. A three-judge panel of the San Francisco-based appellate court disagreed in a 6-page opinion Tuesday.