Real Madrid defender Raul Asencio has broken his silence after being indicted along with three former youth players at the club, for the alleged distribution of a sexual video involving a minor.
The 22-year-old football star allegedly solicited a video filmed by team-mates Ferran Ruiz, 22, Andres Garcia, 22, and Juan Rodriguez, 23, in June 2023, which involved a minor and another young girl, aged 16 and 18 respectively at the time.
The players are accused of ‘disclosure of secrets without consent, and violation of privacy, distributing and sending videos to third parties without consent, capturing and using minors for pornographic purposes, and possession of child pornography’.
The judge in the case later clarified that Asencio has not been charged with recording the video but remains indicted on charges of revealing secrets for showing the video to a third party and of child pornography.
Asencio denied the charges in a lengthy statement released later on Thursday, May 15.
‘I have not participated in any behaviour that violates the sexual freedom of any woman, much less minors,’ he said.
Asencio and the three other players were arrested at Real Madrid’s training centre in September 2023 following a complaint lodged by the mother of the 16-year-old girl who appears in the video.
At the time, Spanish media reported that one of the footballers had recorded a consensual sexual encounter with the young girl before sending the video to the other players without her consent.
The Real star’s full statement read: ‘
Following the clarification issued today by the head of the Investigating Court No. 3 of San Bartolomé de Tirajana—in which the initial indictment order was amended, expressly excluding me from both the recording of videos with sexual content and the events that were the subject of said recording—and in view of the public dissemination of information related to said procedure, I wish to state the following:
‘1. I have not participated in any behavior that violates the sexual freedom of any woman, much less that of minors.
‘This is confirmed by the ruling issued by the aforementioned Court, which does not accuse me of having had sexual relations with the two women involved, nor of having recorded them, with or without their consent. Likewise, the court order clarifies that I was not the one who sent any intimate images or videos to third parties, which, I reiterate, were recorded in a location other than where I was.
‘2. The court order, as far as I am concerned, limits its content to the eventual momentary viewing of some images by a third party, without attributing to me any participation in their recording or dissemination.
‘3. The charges brought against me, as expressly stated in the court ruling itself, are strictly provisional. Therefore, the presumption of innocence must continue to prevail. Should charges ultimately be filed and a trial commence, I will continue to defend myself before the Courts and Tribunals, in which I have full confidence, reaffirming my innocence of any criminal conduct. All of this is without prejudice to the utmost respect for the conduct of the judicial proceedings as a whole, including those of the other persons under investigation.
‘4. I want to reiterate, once again, my absolute respect for the rights to sexual freedom and privacy of all women.’
