‘It’s old news’ - Conor McGregor responds to civil lawsuits, rape accusation
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McGregor’s response to the sexual assault accusation was brief before turning to his UFC 257 main event vs. Dustin Poirier.
UFC star Conor McGregor addressed the recent civil lawsuits against him by the woman who accused him of sexual assault, albeit briefly.
At Thursday’s UFC 257 press conference in Abu Dhabi,
MMA Junkie’s John Morgan asked the former two-division champion for comment on the lawsuits and whether it’s affecting his focus ahead of Saturday’s rematch vs. Dustin Poirier.
“You know, it’s old news,” McGregor said. “It was investigated thoroughly over the course of two long years, and I was cleared of any wrongdoing. And that’s it.”
“So much positivity in my life,” he continued. “I’ve got a great challenge ahead of me on Saturday night and I’m very excited to get in. I’ve put in an immense amount of work to get my frame correct at 155, to get my conditioning
—I want to answer questions here and I hope Dustin can bring it to me and we can have a good fight.”
On Tuesday, the New York Times confirmed that this lawsuit stems from an alleged sexual assault in Ireland back in December 2018. McGregor was arrested and brought in by police for questioning but was never formally charged after an investigation. The woman is seeking a sum of $1.79 million to $2.13 million as part of the civil suit.
Incidentally it should also be noted that fans in attendance at the press conference booed John Morgan’s question and then subsequently cheered McGregor’s answer. It’s the first time that fans have attended a pre-fight presser since the UFC 249 press conference last March, when ESPN’s Marc Raimondi
was booed loudly for asking Dana White about any fears that the coronavirus would have an impact on its event schedule.
https://www.bloodyelbow.com/2021/1/...ivil-lawsuit-rape-accusation-ufc-257-mma-news
Gotta love when a Sherdog Mod copies and pastes an entire article from BloodyElbow and posts it here without so much as adding a single thought or word of their own.
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Here, I'll give an example of adding something beyond just a copy/paste of someone else's work:
“You know, it’s old news,” McGregor said. “It was investigated thoroughly over the course of two long years, and I was cleared of any wrongdoing. And that’s it.”
Conor SAYS he "was cleared on any wrongdoing" but that is NOT the case. The result of the investigation at this point is that the DPP doesn't feel there's enough evidence to charge Conor, that's quite different than being "cleared".
"The decision from the Director of Public Prosecutions states that the case would not be considered strong enough to convince a jury of the person's guilt"*
[*SOURCE:
https://www.rt.com/sport/491301-famous-irish-sports-star-dpp/]
Maybe it'd be worth looking at how few cases get prosecuted (in Northern Ireland just 28.7% in 2019/2020**) OR how few cases result in a conviction ("Just three per cent of rape cases referred to prosecutors in Northern Ireland in the past year led to prosecution and conviction"***).
[**SOURCE:
https://www.nisra.gov.uk/news/pps-publishes-annual-statistics-sexual-offences]
[***SOURCE:
https://irishlegal.com/article/just-three-per-cent-of-rape-reports-lead-to-conviction]
Or maybe even more telling is how "in 2019, crime figures from the UK showed that as few as 1.5% of reports of rape resulted in a charge or a summons"****
Then there's the people in this thread incorrectl asserting it's just a false allegation and that that is somehow commonplace. "statistics show that false allegations ... are relatively low with
4% of cases reported in the United Kingdom being found, or suspected to be, false"***
[****SOURCE:
https://ijsj.ie/assets/uploads/documents/pdfs/2020-Edition-02/10. Tonna-Barthet Hunter Blair.pdf]
Or there's the inane assertion in this thread that "she waited years to sue". However the civil case proceedings are (always?) delayed until AFTER the criminal case is concluded. In this case, like pretty much all rape cases, that took quite a while (roughly 18 months) before the DPP made the decision to not prosecute Conor at this time, which they did back in June 2020. So, it wasn't until a few months ago that civil proceedings likely started and thus the filing being done recently.
As for the case, reports are that way back when, she turned down >$1.25M from Conor to drop the case and now she's suing for (roughly) $1.8-2.1M. so not really all that much more than she'd turned down on the first offer (and there were rumors that a second offer had been made - but I'm not sure how reliable those rumors are).
IMO this can go either of 2 ways:
1. Conor offers to pay her the amount she's asking for in exchange for dropping the case and a NDA (I'm sure Conor considers this the ideal resolution)
2. She's willing to go to court to make a point and expose McGregor - in which case she'll likely still get the money, will tarnish Conor's rep further, but will have to be willing to have her name publicized.
Obviously rape is horrendous, and while I'd prefer it was just a money grab, there's NO reason to think it is. If it was a money grab, then she would've taken it when it was offered and not flatly turned Conor down. Only to wait >2 years to turn around and go to court to ask for not much more than was already offered, while simultaneously opening herself up to becoming publicly named.
All evidence and known facts point to the poor girl going through something horrible, and while money won't make it right, it hopefully can help her find some help/therapy/solace/peace.
[NOTE: If you @ me I'll read it, but I'm not gonna reply]
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