Boyz N The Hood star Cuba Gooding Jr. will finally have his day in court to defend himself against accusations that he’s a serial groper.
Judge Curtis Farber set a Feb. 1 trial date in the case, which involves allegations that Gooding violated three different women at three different Manhattan nightclubs in 2018 and 2019. Faber wanted to start the trial in December but Gooding’s lawyer Peter Toumbekis has other cases he’s working on that would have conflicted the dates.
“I want to lock this down for trial. This case has been on my calendar for two years, going on three years. If I give you a firm date, I don’t want to hear that the case in the Bronx didn’t go and the judge adjourned it to February. That’s not going to fly with me,” Farber stated Monday, Oct. 18 during the Manhattan court hearing.
The Academy Award-winning Jerry Maguire actor’s trial was originally scheduled for April 2020 but was pushed back due to the COVID-19 pandemic. According to The Associated Press, Gooding was arrested in June 2019 after a 29-year-old woman told police he squeezed her breast without her consent at Magic Hour Rooftop Bar & Lounge near Times Square.
He was later charged in two more separate incidents, as more women have come out to report his behavior in the wake of the #MeToo movement. A waitress at TAO Downtown in Manhattan accused the actor of pinching her buttocks and making lewd remarks, while another woman accused him of forcibly touching her at the LAVO New York nightclub. Both incidents allegedly occurred in 2018.
The 53-year-old Gooding is facing six misdemeanor counts in all, which could land him behind bars if convicted and leave him liable in a possible civil trial. He has pleaded not guilty and denies all allegations of wrongdoing. His lawyers have argued that overzealous prosecutors, caught up in the fervor of the #MeToo movement, are trying to turn “commonplace gestures” or misunderstandings into crimes.
Gooding’s woes don’t end there, however. In August, a default judgment was issued against him when he didn’t show up or respond to 2013 lawsuit in which a woman claimed he raped her. He and his lawyers are currently fighting that judgment as well.
