My understanding is that the document is a questionnaire that Ronaldo’s lawyers asked him to fill in. I’m not a criminal lawyer, but we use questionnaires a lot for clients as a starting point when preparing evidence, so they are fairly commonplace. Unsure why it was used in this case and at this stage though. I also understand that the questionnaire was obtained via a leak (assumed it was via a kind of ‘Wikileaks’ hack, but I don’t know for certain at all).
If it was obtained via a hack, or other illegal means, this would render it inadmissible. The tricky bit for Ms Mayorga’s lawyers will be finding a way to get to it in a ‘legit’ way now they know about it. Think this will be extremely difficult though, especially now that it has been published. Hopefully there will be some other evidence, as Ms Mayorga did report the assault at the time, but I share your overall pessimism, unfortunately. Real shame, because you want to see him and his “team” of fixers properly swing for this.
Will definitely listen to the piece with the journalist, thanks for the link. Think the way Spiegel have handled this has been pretty spot on so far. Difficult to say anything comes out ‘well’ in a situation like this, but think they have (I’m assuming they are not the ones that originally published the questionnaire though…)
What I don’t understand is why Ronaldo is unique amongst all the men accused of sexual assault recently, that football journalists are apparently completely unable to talk about it, except for when it’s on the front page of a newspaper? Feels very… hmm.
If it was another industry (e.g. showbiz) there’d not only be thinkpieces out about the allegations, but plenty more pieces discussing and uncovering the horrendous sexual practices that are endemic to the ‘football community’ or whatever the hell you wanna call it. But you know no one’s gonna do that.
As I said upthread, it’s really disheartening and disappointing how little traction the original story from last year got. But from what I’ve seen on twitter, the Spiegel article etc, it’s incredibly difficult for journalists to reference this stuff through fear of legal action. Even now, the pieces are so cautious and fail to mention some of the most pertinent, damning details.
I’m just really sceptical that it’s so difficult legally that they can’t say anything about it at all. I’m sure journalists are getting instructions from their editors, but to me it feels like a form of cowardice, and a feeling that this isn’t their fight. Plus, see my other post about how they should really be using it as a catalyst for something much broader.
I mean, I don’t completely disagree, and I’ve got no doubt like any industry with rich, powerful, entitled men, stuff like this is absolutely rife. Eventually and inevitably there will be a lot of stuff exposed. But Weinstein sent a house of cards tumbling, exposing others in his industry and empowering victims to speak out. At present… that just hasn’t happened (yet) wrt to football.
The old guard have shown they’re absolutely ill-equipped to deal with something like this and they’ve shown that so often with other social issues, race, etc. But it’s getting better and writers like Daniel Taylor have done some brilliant, necessary investigative work in recent years and there are lots out there who would treat something like this properly. It’s very hard to write any thinkpiece on this one specific case (so far) without it being libellous, and potentially dangerous wrt to damaging a prosecution case
He’s their employee, not been proven guilty and is a HUGE investment for them, there’s literally no way they could’ve said anything negative and I suspect were under a lot of pressure to say something. The second tweet is ridiculous however and a slap in the face to victims of sexual assault.
I know this has been said multiple times relating to tweets about this but fucking HELL some of the replies Juve’s tweets there. Steer clear unless you want to feel really upset about everything.
Thats assuming that the trial would hinge solely on the questionnaire, though. The fact that she went to the police at the time and told them she’d been raped, they took evidence photos of bruises and lacerations that resulted and there were pap photos of them together on the night in question might be enough.
BTW I found this detailed article quite enlightening about a lot of the legal implications, especially in regard to the reopened criminal investigation.
Also wanna reiterate how depressing those Juventus tweets are. Unbelievably offensive.
