Real Madrid‘s Raúl Asencio was acquitted on Thursday by a Spanish court of charges related to allegedly recording sexual images of a woman and a minor and distributing them without their consent.
Asencio’s former Real Madrid youth division teammates Andrés García, Ferrán Ruiz and Juan Rodríguez, also on trial, all agreed to a one-year suspended jail sentence for distributing child pornography.
The case centres on the filming of a sexual encounter in the private area of a beach club in the Canary Islands in June 2023, as well as the distribution of the video, without consent.
Asencio, 23, was not accused of having been involved in the incident or the filming of it but of distributing the video without consent.
The two young women who appear in the footage — one of whom was 16 at the time — confirmed during Thursday’s trial that they had forgiven the four players.
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Spanish prosecutors had requested two-and-a-half-year prison sentence for Asencio and jail sentences of four years and seven months for García, Ruiz and Rodríguez.
“After hearing the victims confirm that they forgave the defendants and the report from the representative of the Public Prosecutor’s Office withdrawing the charges against one of them and reducing the sentence sought for the other three, the judge handed down a verdict by consent in accordance with the prosecutor’s report,” a statement from a Las Palmas de Gran Canaria court said.
“The three footballers accused of distributing child pornography have been sentenced to one year’s imprisonment (which is suspended on condition that they do not reoffend during that period), two years’ restraining order from the victims, and a three-year ban on working in any profession involving minors. The footballer (Asencio) in question, against whom the prosecutor had withdrawn all charges, has been acquitted and is free to go.
“The ruling is final and definitively concludes the proceedings, as the parties have confirmed that they accept it and will not appeal.”
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This ruling comes one day after Asencio was convicted of a traffic offence for driving under the influence of alcohol.
The Spanish defender was fined €14,400 (€120 per day for four months), in addition to having his driver’s licence suspended for eight months.
Real Madrid opened a disciplinary proceeding against Asencio after his DUI conviction, coach José Mourinho said on Thursday.
“While the proceeding is open I see him as a Real Madrid player,” Mourinho said. “He’s injured and will continue to be sidelined for a couple of weeks. That helps me not to have to deal with this problem now.”
Asencio hasn’t played this season because of a muscle injury.
“He’s an exemplary professional. While he was fit, nobody trained harder or better than him,” Mourinho said. ” Now he’s the first to arrive and the last to leave. But a Real Madrid player is a Real Madrid player 24 hours a day, seven days a week and 12 months a year. Everything you do off the field is still about Real Madrid. It still damages the prestige of a club that is untouchable. I’m not happy, and everyone makes mistakes, but accumulated mistakes are different.”
Information from The Associated Press was used in this report.
