NEW YORK (Reuters) – A Playboy model said on Wednesday she feared she would die while trapped in a luxury hotel room with former boxing champ Oscar De La Hoya during a night of drugs and kinky sex.
Angelica Cecora, 25, in a lawsuit filed in state Supreme Court in Manhattan, accused the former Olympic gold medalist and world champion of multiple weight divisions of dressing in women’s underwear while trying to force her to engage in “disgusting” sexual acts in March 2011.
Cecora spoke to reporters outside a court hearing during which De La Hoya’s lawyers asked to dismiss the lawsuit, which seeks $5 million for emotional distress, false imprisonment, assault and battery.
“Once 12 o’clock hit that night, he just started doing more and more drugs and wanted me to do more and more things,” she said.
De La Hoya, 38, the so-called “Golden Boy” who for years was the biggest name in boxing, did not appear in court Wednesday but after the hearing his attorney Judd Burstein said the encounter was consensual and he’s confident the court will dismiss the lawsuit.
“These allegations are offensive and frivolous,” he said, declining to elaborate.
The complaint says Cecora and De La Hoya had sex and shortly afterward the boxing champ put on her underwear and walked around the room at the Ritz Carlton Hotel in New York City. De La Hoya then picked up a phone and ordered around $300 worth of cocaine and marijuana to be delivered to his room, the complaint said.
The intercourse was consensual but De La Hoya’s increasingly strange behavior and sexual requests afterward were against her will, Cecora said.
She feared for her life, afraid to run away, when “things took a wild turn that I didn’t sign up for.”
De La Hoya met Cecora in March of last year and invited her to meet for dinner at his hotel. After a long conversation, he invited her up to his room, according to the lawsuit.
Cecora, whose lawyer said she has modeled for magazines including Playboy and Maxim, said she accepted the offer to his room but was unaware he was married at the time.
Attorney Tony Evans said De La Hoya used his fame to manipulate her, promising to use her as a ringside girl in his boxing promotion ventures.
“It’s the old Hollywood show business story,” he said. “Find a girl who wants to be a model and say ‘Oh you can come work for me.'”
De La Hoya was 39-6 in his professional boxing career, winning world boxing titles in several weight classes before retiring in 2008.
De La Hoya has gone through drug rehabilitation since the incident and is turning his life around, his attorney said.
“His life was spiraling out of control,” Burstein said. “He’s a changed person now.”
(Editing By Barbara Goldberg and Daniel Trotta)
