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The Real Madrid defender Raúl Asencio and three former youth players at the club are to stand trial in connection with the alleged filming and distribution of sexual videos involving two women, one of whom was a minor at the time.
According to court documents, three of the defendants are accused of “one count of distributing child pornography, as well as two offences against privacy”. Their bail has been set at €20,000 each (£17,400). The fourth, who is understood to be Asencio, is accused of two offences against privacy and has had his bail set at €15,000.
The decision to proceed to trial was announced by the judicial authorities on Thursday. It follows a police and judicial investigation into the case, which is alleged to have involved two women, aged 18 and 16, and to have happened in a private area of a beach club on the Spanish island of Gran Canaria on 15 June 2023.
Prosecutors are reported to be seeking a sentence of two years and six months for Asencio, and sentences of four years and seven months for the other three, who have been named in the media as Asencio’s former colleagues Andrés García, Ferrán Ruiz and Juan Rodríguez.
One of the alleged victims has included all four of the defendants in her accusations, while the other has excluded Asencio from her complaint.
In September 2023, three unnamed Real Madrid reserve players were arrested in connection with the alleged incident and were released after the data on their mobile phones was seized.
In comments released after the judge concluded a pre-trial investigation, Asencio said he had “never taken part in any behaviour that has threatened any woman’s sexual freedom, much less that of a minor”. He said he had not been involved in recording or distributing the videos, and had only “briefly seen the content”. The player, who is alleged to have shown one of the videos to a friend, also stressed the importance of the presumption of innocence.
Police said the case had followed a complaint filed by the mother of a 16-year-old girl in the Canary islands regarding an alleged recording of sexual relations. They added that while the girl maintained the relations were consensual, the recording had been made without her consent and that she had recently become aware of it.
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Real Madrid issued a statement at the time saying that a total of four youth team players had been questioned by police “in connection with a complaint about an alleged release of a private video via WhatsApp” messaging system.
