Former UFC fighter Conor McGregor speaks within the James S. Brady Press Briefing Room of the White Home in Washington, D.C., on March 17.
Jim Lo Scalzo/EPA/Bloomberg through Getty Pictures
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Jim Lo Scalzo/EPA/Bloomberg through Getty Pictures
LONDON — The combined martial arts fighter Conor McGregor — who’s from Eire and visited President Trump on the White Home for St. Patrick’s Day this 12 months — has misplaced his enchantment in a rape case.
Eire’s Court docket of Appeals dominated towards him Thursday, which means a decrease courtroom ruling in a civil case nonetheless holds, and McGregor must pay damages to his accuser.
Final November, a jury discovered the MMA fighter civilly chargeable for assault. It ordered him to pay almost 250,000 euros ($285,000) in damages, and about 1.3 million euros ($1.5 million) in authorized prices, to Nikita Hand, who says he “brutally raped and battered” her in a Dublin resort in 2018.
McGregor, 37, denies that, saying they’d consensual intercourse, and that Hand fabricated any assault.
Hand, 35, had sued McGregor in civil courtroom, after prosecutors declined to deliver legal expenses.
McGregor appealed the jury’s order, on grounds that a number of the directions given to the jury have been complicated, and that McGregor’s feedback to police mustn’t have been admitted into proof. However his attorneys didn’t submit extra proof.
Three judges on the Court docket of Appeals unanimously rejected his enchantment Thursday on all grounds. In addition they discovered that McGregor had paid a pal to testify on his behalf, and refused to award the pal reimbursement for authorized prices.
McGregor was once the face of the Final Preventing Championship, or UFC, and has hinted on social media a few comeback.
Out of the ring, he has emerged as a far-right determine in Irish politics, criticizing immigration and mainstream politicians. He visited President Trump on the White Home in March, and has mentioned he might run for Irish president, a largely ceremonial position at the moment held by 84-year-old poet and human rights activist Michael Higgins.
Hand was within the Dublin courtroom for Thursday’s appeals ruling; McGregor was not. Afterward, Hand informed reporters the proceedings had “retraumatized” her, however that she now hopes to “move on and try to heal.” She thanked her attorneys and a rape disaster heart.
McGregor faces one other sexual assault lawsuit in Florida, for allegedly attacking a lady in 2023 within the lavatory of a NBA basketball area.
