Former Manchester City footballer Benjamin Mendy has been cleared of raping a woman and attempting to rape another.
The 28-year-old was accused of attacking a 24-year-old woman at his £4m mansion in Mottram St Andrew, Cheshire in October 2020. He was also charged with the attempted rape of a 29-year-old woman at his home two years earlier.
Mendy, who had denied both charges, was found not guilty by the jury of six men and six women at Chester Crown Court on Friday, July 14. He had earlier stated that the encounters had been consensual.
The acquittals mean that the 28-year-old defender has now been found not guilty of all of the allegations made against him by six women, which destroyed his football career.
The women had accused him of assaulting them at his £4.8m gated mansion between October 2018 and August 2021, often at illegal parties held during Covid lockdowns.
He was cleared in January of raping four women and sexually assaulting another, with the jury unable to reach verdicts on two outstanding charges, prompting the retrial.
He was acquitted on Friday, of trying to rape a woman who came to his house with a friend of his, another French footballer, Diacko Fofana. She said Mendy tried to rape her when she got out of the shower, but he said they flirted and that he withdrew as soon as she said no.
Mendy was also cleared of raping a woman he had met at a bar in Alderley Edge, an upmarket Cheshire suburb.
Mendy had faced a potential life sentence if he was found guilty of the allegations. But the 2018 World Cup winner, who told jurors he had slept with more than 10,000 women, is now free to move on with his life.
Mendy broke down in tears as the verdicts were given by the jury foreman following a three-week trial at Chester Crown Court in northwest England. He had stood for the verdicts but sank to his seat, his head on his knees, wiping away tears with a tissue.
Benjamin Mendy responds to not guilty verdict 🎙 pic.twitter.com/juh9QrpLPT
— Football Daily (@footballdaily) July 14, 2023
Benjamin Mendy was Premier League’s most expensive defender when Manchester City paid £52m to Monaco for him in 2017. He won three titles with City and was part of France’s World Cup-winning squad in 2018.
He last played for City against Tottenham Hotspur in August 2021 and was suspended by the Premier League club later that month when he was arrested over the rape charges. City released him when his contract expired last month.