Actor Cuba Gooding Jr. pleads guilty to ‘non-consensual contact’ at nightclub

Actor Cuba Gooding Jr. pleaded guilty Wednesday to one count of forcibly touching a woman at a New York nightclub in 2018, as part of a plea deal with prosecutors that spares the Oscar-winning artist any immediate arrest.

The guilty plea, in which Gooding also admitted in court to subjecting two other women to “non-consensual physical contact” in 2018 and 2019, came three years after he was arrested, the Manhattan district attorney said in a statement.

Under the plea agreement, if Gooding, 54, continues to receive legal counseling for six months, he will be able to withdraw his misdemeanor allegation and plead guilty to a minor violation of harassment. If he doesn’t comply, he could face up to a year in prison.

The actor was accused of raping three different women at various Manhattan nightclubs in 2018 and 2019. He pleaded guilty to the most serious charge of forcibly kissing a woman at a nightclub in September 2018, a spokesperson for the district attorney said. .

“I apologize for making anyone feel inappropriately touched,” Gooding told the New York Times in court as he entered his guilty plea.

A representative and attorney for the actor could not immediately be reached for comment.

Gooding won the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor for his role in the 1996 romantic comedy “Jerry Maguire” as a volatile football player who becomes his sports agent’s only client, demanding that Tom Cruise “show me the money.”

Two decades later, Gooding played OJ Simpson in the television miniseries “The People v. OJ Simpson”.

Hours after the order, a federal judge in Manhattan rejected Gooding’s offer to file a $6 million civil suit from a woman who said Gooding raped her twice in 2013 at the Mercer hotel in Manhattan’s SoHo district.

US District Judge Paul Crotty said the woman did not take long to sue, waiting until 2020 to invoke a New York City law that protects victims of gender-motivated violence.

Gooding said a different law with a one-year statute of limitations should have applied. He denied the charges.

Source: CNN Brasil

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