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Report: State lawsuit accusing Ronaldo of rape refiled in federal court

Chris Brunskill/Fantasista / Getty Images Sport / Getty

A civil lawsuit a woman filed in Nevada court in September accusing Cristiano Ronaldo of rape has been dropped and refiled in federal court, according to German newsmagazine Der Spiegel.

Rafael Buschmann, one of Der Spiegel's top reporters, said an earlier report Wednesday that Kathryn Mayorga's suit against Ronaldo had been dropped was incomplete.

"The case is not closed," Buschmann wrote on Twitter. "It is just at a different court now. After it was not possible for Mayorga's lawyers to serve Ronaldo with the complaint, they filed it at a federal court."

The Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department told the Guardian that the criminal case against Ronaldo is still open. The LVMPD reportedly requested a DNA sample from Ronaldo in January as part of the investigation.

Ronaldo's lawyer, Peter Christiansen, declined The Associated Press' request for comment. Mayorga's representative, Leslie Mark Stovall, didn't immediately respond.

Ronaldo denies the accusation.

Mayorga says Ronaldo raped her in a Las Vegas hotel room in 2009. Her representatives were unable to obtain his address for several months, and international law requires a defendant to be served summons directly.

Der Spiegel reports that Mayorga's lawyers faced a 120-day deadline, which was later extended, to serve notice to Ronaldo. The lawsuit - which also accuses Ronaldo and his representatives of conspiracy, coercion, fraud, defamation, battery, breach of contract, and negligence - would've been rendered void if they had failed to reach Ronaldo in time.

Mayorga went public with her story in an interview with Der Spiegel in September, saying the Portuguese superstar paid her $375,000 in exchange for her silence. Las Vegas police subsequently reopened their investigation.

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