Prosecutor: insufficient evidence to charge Montero

The King County prosecutor’s office said Tuesday there is
insufficient evidence to file any criminal charges against
Seattle Sounders FC star Fredy Montero. A woman had
accused him of raping her twice, on March 15 and 22.

The prosecutor’s office announced that it has completed
its review of the criminal investigation referred from the
suburban Bellevue Police Department regarding the 21-year-
old striker from Campo de la Cruz, Colombia.

Prosecutor’s spokesman Dan Donohoe did not elaborate.

The Bellevue department released its 165-page file on the
case.

“We are pleased with the decision from the prosecutor’s
office and look forward to putting this behind us and
focusing on soccer,” the team said in a statement late
Tuesday.

In a statement released by the team, Montero said: “I am
excited to return my complete attention to scoring goals
for the people of Seattle and making the Sounders FC a
very successful club.”

His agent, Helmut Wennin, told Colombian newspaper El
Tiempo that the allegations stemmed from a disagreement
over a relationship, that Montero sought to end the
relationship with the woman who made the allegations, and
that he trusts in Montero’s character.

Other people present at Montero’s Bellevue apartment in
the first instance told police that the pair had been
drinking heavily and began kissing in the kitchen of the
apartment before heading upstairs to his bedroom. The
woman told police she awoke the next morning to find him
having sex with her. She said Montero stopped when she
told him to.

A week later, she returned to his apartment to look for a
necklace she had left there and again wound up in his
room. This time he refused to stop, she told police.

Based on the woman’s report, Bellevue police arrested
Montero on March 22 and forced him to turn over his
passport.

The woman claimed that during the incident on March 22 she
yelled and screamed at him to stop.

The 16-year-old son of Montero’s host family told police
that he spent the night of March 22 at Montero’s apartment
and never heard any noise coming from Montero’s room
except for a dog scratching at his door.

Police asked the 16-year-old if he would ever lie for
Montero and he said, “I look up to him and I want to be
like him someday, but I would not tell a lie for him. No,
I wouldn’t.”

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