(Photo credit: Bang Media)
Actor Cuba Gooding Jr. has pleaded guilty to one count of forcible touching.
The guilty plea came nearly three years after Gooding’s arrest in the prolonged case. It had been scheduled to go to trial at least twice with an April 2020 trial date that was postponed because of the coronavirus.
In 2019 at a nightclub, Gooding, now 54, was accused of squeezing a 29-year-old woman’s breast without her consent. A few months later, two more women came forward to accuse him of abuse. One woman, a server, claimed he pinched her buttocks after making a sexually suggestive remark to her. Another woman claimed he forcibly touched her inappropriately at the LAVO New York nightclub in 2018; he pled guilty to kissing the woman without her consent.
The Radio and Boyz N the Hood entered a re-plead deal. “Cuba Gooding Jr. entered into a re-pleader today whereby in six months his case will be disposed of with a violation, which is not a crime, resulting in no criminal record,” Gooding’s attorney, Peter Toumbekis, said in a statement to CNN.
Gooding has been accused of 12 separate incidents since 2001, but avoided any charges in those scenarios. Gooding was also accused of raping a woman in 2013.
