Las Palmas de Gran Canaria, Sept. 18 (EFE) – Court number 3 of San Bartolomé de Tirajana (Gran Canaria) has agreed to open oral proceedings against Real Madrid defender Raúl Asencio and former players from the club’s youth system Ferrán Ruiz, Juan Rodríguez and Andrés García, accused of having disseminated without permission videos of a sexual nature that affect two young women, one of whom is a minor.

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According to reports from the High Court of Justice of the Canary Islands, the judge requires Ruiz, Rodríguez, and García to deposit bail bonds of 20,000 euros each, while requiring Raúl Asencio to provide one of 15,000 euros. The difference lies in the fact that the first three are not only accused of having disseminated the videos, but also of being the authors of those recordings, without the consent of those affected. Against the ruling made public this Thursday – although it is dated September 2nd – there is no further appeal. Now, the case will be referred to a Criminal Court in Las Palmas de Gran Canaria to set the date for the public hearing.

The deeds by which they will be judged

The events for which they are going to be judged occurred on June 15, 2023, when the four soccer players were spending the day at a beach club in the town of Amadores, in the south of Gran Canaria. Ferrán Ruiz, Juan Rodríguez and Andrés García met two girls, one of whom was 16 years old at the time, with whom they had a consensual sexual relationship in a private cabin of the club, which Raúl Asencio did not enter, who remained at all times apart from what happened there and stayed in the common pool. The complainants claim that, without their permission, the three players, who are no longer with Real Madrid, recorded them having sex and shared those videos in WhatsApp groups, even though they had expressly asked them to delete them from their phones.

Asencio’s Involvement

Asencio’s involvement in the case came days later, when one of the defendants sent him one of the videos to his mobile phone and he showed it to a friend, supposedly knowing that they had been taken against the will of the young women who appeared in them. It’s something that he himself acknowledged in a WhatsApp message recovered by the Civil Guard from his phone, in which he said: “Hey, brother, I showed it to you because Juan (Rodríguez) passed it to me”, as stated in the ruling that ended the investigation.

Prosecution’s Requests

In this procedure, the Prosecution requests sentences of four years and seven months in prison for Ferrán Ruiz, Juan Rodríguez and Andrés García, and two years and six months in prison for Raúl Asencio. For the first three, he imputes a crime of distribution of child pornography in competition with two crimes against privacy, for having recorded and distributed the images, while Asencio attributes two crimes against privacy (for having shown the images knowing the circumstances in which they were recorded). In the case, the two young complainants are also represented as private prosecutions. The one who was a minor at the time of the events brings charges against the four footballers, while her companion has withdrawn the accusation against Raúl Asencio. And he did so, according to his lawyer’s confirmation to EFE, after having been compensated by the player in an amount that has not been made public and having received a formal letter of apology from the footballer, in which he expressly admits “the error” of having shown a third person the images he received on his mobile.