Spanish
Las Palmas de Gran Canaria (EFE).- Real Madrid player Raúl Asencio acknowledges that he made the "mistake" of showing a friend in 2023 a sexual video recorded without consent by his then-teammates from the youth academy Ferrán Ruiz, Juan Rodríguez and Andrés García, in the apology letter he sent to one of the two young women who appear in the images, the complainant in the case.
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Lawyer Margarita Alejo confirmed to EFE this Thursday that her client accepts the formal apologies requested by Asencio and withdraws the accusation, not only because the player has already paid her financial compensation - the amount of which she prefers not to reveal - but also because the letter includes "an express acknowledgment" of the facts attributed to him (in his case, re-broadcasting or showing the video, something that the Prosecutor's Office qualifies as a crime against privacy). Of the two young people involved in the case, this complainant is the one who was already of legal age at the time of the events (she was 18 years old then). Her lawyer, however, maintains the accusation against Ferrán Ruiz, Juan Rodríguez and Andrés García, footballers who are no longer part of Real Madrid's subsidiary chain. The three maintained a consensual sexual relationship on June 15, 2023, in a cabin at a beach club in Amadores (Gran Canaria) with two young women, one of whom was a minor at the time. The complainants claim that, without their permission, they recorded them having sex and shared those videos in WhatsApp groups, despite the fact that they expressly asked them to delete them from their phones. Raúl Asencio was also at that beach club in Amadores that day, but he did not participate in the sexual encounter. His involvement in the case came later, when one of those involved sent him one of the videos and he showed it to a third person. It's something he himself acknowledged in a WhatsApp message recovered by the Civil Guard from his phone, in which he said: "Hey, bro, I showed it to you because Juan (Rodríguez) passed it to me," as stated in the judicial ruling that ended the investigation. The decision on this particular accusation - already communicated to the Court - does not prevent Asencio from going to trial, because the other complainant (who was 16 years old when they recorded her) and, above all, the Prosecutor's Office, which is asking for two and a half years in prison for two crimes against privacy, still point to him. The Public Prosecutor's request for conviction for the other three defendants is more severe: four years and seven months in prison, because it attributes to them having recorded and disseminated those sexual images without consent and knowing that a minor was appearing, which leads it to formulate the charge of distribution of child pornography. The case is now only pending the determination of which Criminal Court of Gran Canaria will hold the trial and on what date. EFE
