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Actor Cuba Gooding Jr pleads guilty to forcing himself on a woman
Actor Cuba Gooding Jr. entered a guilty plea on Wednesday in relation to an incident in which he forcibly touched a woman at a New York nightclub in 2018.
The guilty plea came nearly three years after the arrest of the Jerry Maguire star, who was facing several allegations of violating multiple women at various Manhattan nightspots between 2018 and 2019.
Of the multiple allegations against him, Gooding only pleaded guilty to one of the charges.
He confessed to the judge that he had “kissed the waitress on her lips” without her consent at the Lavo New York nightclub.
According to the plea deal, Gooding will not serve any jail time. However, if he attends counseling for six months, he has the opportunity to change his plea from a misdemeanor to a lesser violation of harassment.
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In June 2019, Gooding was arrested after a 29-year-old woman reported to police that he had squeezed her breast without her consent at the Magic Hour Rooftop Bar & Lounge near Times Square.
A few months later, he faced two additional charges as more women came forward with accusations of abuse.
The new charges included pinching a server’s buttocks after making a sexually suggestive remark to her at Tao Downtown and forcibly touching a woman inappropriately at the Lavo nightclub, both incidents occurring in 2018.
Gooding had previously maintained his innocence, pleading not guilty to all six counts of the misdemeanor charges.
His lawyers had argued that the prosecutors were trying to make “commonplace gestures” or misunderstandings into crimes, and were caught up in the fervor of the #MeToo movement.
However, if the case had gone to trial, the prosecution could have called two additional women to testify about their allegations that Gooding had also violated them.
These two women, whose claims did not result in criminal charges, were among 19 other accusers whom prosecutors were seeking to call as witnesses.
In addition to the criminal case, Gooding is facing a lawsuit in which he is accused of raping a woman in New York City in 2013.
After a judge issued a default judgment in July due to Gooding’s lack of response, the actor has retained a lawyer and is now fighting the allegations.
