A Polish woman who thinks she might be Madeleine McCann has reportedly been threatened with legal and criminal action over some of her claims.
Julia Wendell, 21, claimed she was molested as a child by someone who looked similar to a police sketch of a former suspect in Madeleine's disappearance.
But now a lawyer representing the man she accused of abusing her has reportedly demanded she stops associating his client with the unsolved mystery of the missing child.
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"I call on you to immediately stop the grave violation of his personal rights – defaming him, publishing in the media a verdict from many years ago and implying that he has something to do with the missing Madeleine McCann," the lawyer said in a letter obtained by RadarOnline.com.
"If you do not stop such actions – I will file a lawsuit against you for violations of personal rights and consider further steps on the criminal level."
The letter, dated March 2, 2023, comes after Julia told private investigator Dr Fia Johansson the man had abused her when she was seven-years-old and claimed he looked similar to someone who was previously a suspect in Madeleine's disappearance.
She said she found a photo of the man who abused her in her grandmother's house, and that her grandmother told her "something" about the case of the missing Brit.
And Dr Johansson, who is now in the US with Julia working to uncover the truth about her identity through DNA testing, said the letter was sent to "intimidate" the woman from revealing an alleged sex trafficking ring.
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"They are trying to scare the c**p out of her," Dr Johansson told RadarOnline.com.
“The lawyer wants her to stop talking about [her alleged abuser] and the Madeleine McCann case. They are telling her 'you need to shut up!'
"That’s just another sign to me that something is going on. If they don’t have anything to hide, why are they so scared of Julia talking about Madeleine McCann while she’s in the United States?"
Julia believes the abuse she says she experienced is just one piece of evidence pointing to her possibly being Madeleine, who was taken from her bedroom while on holiday with her parents in Praia da Luz, Portugal, in 2007.
She also claims they look similar and that she and the child both have the same rare eye condition – a coloboma in her right eye, which occurs when part of the eye tissue is missing.
Close-up images Julia shared don't appear to show a coloboma as obvious as the one seen in pictures of Madeleine, but the misshapen pupil can be made to "look rounder" with coloured contact lenses or surgery, according to the National Eye Institute.
Julia also claims to have very few memories of her childhood, and Dr Johansson found there were no hospital records in Wroclaw – the city she supposedly grew up in – from the first five years of her life, making her believe Julia was trafficked to Poland as a child.
Despite the supposed evidence, however, experts have been sceptical about Julia's claim.
Super-recogniser Simone Malik told the Daily Star she doesn't believe the woman is Madeleine and said the pair don't look alike "at all".
She said: “I believe that this isn’t Madeleine McCann – obviously DNA is the only thing that would prove it.
“If she could get a DNA that would be fantastic because it would put to rest the distress she is going through.
“On first impressions, when I looked at Julia Wendell I didn’t see any kind of family resemblance – at all.”
Julia has taken a DNA test, the results of which will finally give her some clarity about her true identity.
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