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A man implicated in the rape case of fallen former Manchester City and Real Madrid star Robinho has been found dead in Brazil, per reports by the Mirror.
Rudney Gomes' body was discovered on Tuesday night in the port city of Santos, in the state of Sao Paulo, and police say they are treating his death as a suicide.
Robinho, who named 46-year-old Gomes as one of the men who had sex with the woman, he was eventually convicted of sexually assaulting alongside another pal, is currently serving a nine-year prison sentence in Brazil handed down to him by an Italian court.
The ex-Brazil international continues to protest his innocence and claims the woman he was found guilty of forcing himself on had engaged in a consensual orgy after getting drunk on vodka at a club in Milan.
Gomes, accused but never tried over his alleged involvement like three other men named by Robinho, left Italy before he could be summoned to court. The only other man convicted, another friend of the footballer's called Ricardo Falco, is also serving a nine-year prison sentence in Brazil.
One of Robinho's former bodyguards, Gomes plunged from the 11th floor of an apartment block in Santos, it's claimed. Emergency responders including police and paramedics rushed to the scene after the alarm was raised but there was nothing they could do.
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What led to Robinho's conviction
The crime Robinho was convicted over occurred after the footballer met up with friends to celebrate Gomes' 34th birthday at the Sio Cafe, where the rape took place. Gomes had largely remained out of the public eye since the trial's conclusion.
Robinho implicated Gomes after being summoned to make a formal statement about his role in what happened that night. In phone conversations obtained by investigators the footballer was heard bragging to another friend how difficult it would be for the woman to successfully press charges if she hadn't fallen pregnant and there were no cameras recording the night's events.
Robinho's and Falco's failed appeals in Italian courts lasted years and they both returned to Brazil while they awaited the final decision after being bailed.
The disgraced former football star has been behind bars in Tremembe Prison near Sao Paulo since March 21 last year after Brazil's High Court of Justice ended up accepting Italy's request to make him serve his jail sentence in his homeland.
He has fought to try to get out of the prison he is in early on a technicality and is currently appealing a court decision last November rejecting his requests for freedom.
Robinho swapped a luxury seafront home in Santos for 10 days of full isolation after his transfer to jail before being moved to a shared tiny eight square metre cell with another inmate.
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Although his current accommodation is far removed from the mansion he used to call home, the jail he is being held in is known in Brazil as 'The Prison for Famous People' and offers inmates better conditions than at other lock-ups in the state of Sao Paulo.