Brazilian police investigating rape allegations against Paris Saint-Germain star Neymar said they have closed the case against him due to a lack of evidence. According to BBC News, the case has been suspended by the office of Sao Paulo’s attorney general and will be handed to prosecutors, who will have 15 days to evaluate it before a judge makes a final decision.
Najila Trindade said the forward raped her in a Paris hotel room on May 15. She told Roberto Cabrini of Brazilian TV channel SBT (h/t ESPN) the player became “aggressive” after she refused to have sex with him without a condom.
Trindade said Neymar had left her “traumatised” and that she wanted him to “pay for what he did.” She also released video of a second encounter that purportedly showed the pair arguing in a hotel room.
EXCLUSIVO! Assista ao vídeo da suposta briga entre Neymar e modelo que o acusou de agressão e estupro #JornalismoRecord #JornalismoVerdade pic.twitter.com/0K7N4mZe2X
— Record TV (@recordtvoficial) June 6, 2019
Neymar was unable to comment on the closure of the case, a representative of his told the Agence France-Presse. The Brazil international had denied the allegations in a video he posted to Instagram.
Police were also looking into the video, which had to be taken down from the platform for violating its rules, for a potential breach of privacy. In the video, Neymar shared messages exchanged between himself and Trindade as well as pictures of the pair without her consent.
According to the AFP, Brazilian police filed a defamation suit against Trindade after she allegedly accused them of corruption.
Per BBC News, Trindade’s original legal team dropped her case after she filed the rape allegation with Sao Paulo police, which they said was “incompatible with the strategy” they had agreed upon after she initially cited “aggression” and “physical violence” in her complaint against the footballer.
She was later dropped by her third lawyer, Danilo Garcia de Andrade, shortly after he said he would walk away from the case if she could not produce the full video of the second encounter, which she said was on a tablet that was stolen.