Cuba Gooding Jr., the actor accused by more than 20 women of groping or forcibly kissing them during encounters dating back more than two decades, will plead guilty to one count of violent touching, a Manhattan prosecutor said Wednesday in the court of law. †
Gooding had faced criminal charges in 2018 and 2019 on charges of sexually assaulting three women in Manhattan restaurants and nightclubs. accuse Mr. Gooding of such conduct.
Gooding’s “past acts show that his contacts with their private parts are intentional, not accidental, and that he is not mistaken about their lack of consent,” the district attorney’s office wrote in a court filing in October 2019.
The judge ultimately ruled that two of the additional prosecutors could testify at Mr. Gooding’s trial, which would have allowed the prosecutors to argue in court that Mr. Gooding had engaged in similar behavior for years.
Mr. Gooding has appeared in court, Curtis Farber of the Manhattan Supreme Court, to introduce his plea and is likely to speak briefly in court to explain why he pleads guilty. The judge would then have to accept the plea.
Gooding was originally charged in connection with an encounter on the night of June 9, 2019, during a party at the Magic Hour Rooftop Bar, an expensive lounge at the Moxy NYC Times Square hotel in Manhattan. The prosecution said Mr Gooding put his hand on her chest without her consent and squeezed, according to one indictment.
He was later charged with squeezing a woman’s buttocks at a Manhattan nightclub in October 2018 and in a September 2018 incident at Lavo, an Italian restaurant on East 58th Street.
Born in the Bronx, Gooding had his first major success playing the lead role in the 1991 film Boyz n the Hood and he won an Academy Award in 1997 for his supporting role in Jerry Maguire. He played OJ Simpson in the 2016 television series “The People v. OJ Simpson: American Crime Story”.