Cuba Gooding Jr. receives no jail time following guilty plea in forcible touching case
The actor pleaded guilty in April to a misdemeanor charge that he forcibly kissed a worker at a New York nightclub in 2018.
After complying with the terms of a conditional plea deal made in April, actor Cuba Gooding Jr. completed his New York City forcible touching case Thursday with a guilty plea to a lower felony and no jail time.
According to Prosecutor Coleen Balbert, Gooding has kept out of trouble and completed six months of alcohol and behavior management counseling, which has allowed him to withdraw his misdemeanor plea and plead guilty to a harassment offense.
Balbert stated that Gooding’s therapist has given her “good reports for the last six months.” According to Balbert, the actor is continuing his treatment beyond the time specified in his plea agreement.
Gooding, 54, will face no additional penalties and will not have a criminal record because he replaced his misdemeanour plea with a plea to a noncriminal offence. If Gooding had not followed the terms of the agreement, he might have faced up to a year in prison.
Gooding pled guilty to a misdemeanour charge of forcibly kissing a worker at a New York nightclub in April 2018. That was just one of the scores of complaints of inappropriate behaviour made against the Oscar winner in recent years.
Some of Gooding’s accusers have attacked the “Jerry Maguire” star’s mild penalty, and some have filed legal lawsuits against him.
While his victims “experienced few punishments,” Gooding “had minor ramifications.” dealt with the aftermath of his actions, the nightclub worker said in a victim impact statement that Balbert read into the court record.
Arrested in 2019, Gooding was among a profusion of Hollywood heavyweights accused of wrongdoing in the #MeToo movement.
As Gooding was in court Thursday wrapping up his case, another Oscar-winning actor, Kevin Spacey, was on trial down the block in a civil lawsuit alleging that he sexually assaulted actor Anthony Rapp.
Meanwhile, in Los Angeles, former studio boss Harvey Weinstein and “That 70’s Show” star Danny Masterson are in the midst of separate rape trials. Weinstein was convicted of similar charges in New York in 2020 and is serving a 23-year prison sentence.
Gooding’s case has taken more than three years to play out, prolonged by court delays related to the COVID-19 pandemic.
Gooding was arrested in June 2019 after a 29-year-old woman told police he fondled her without her consent at Magic Hour Rooftop Bar & Lounge near Times Square. That incident wasn’t the one in his guilty plea.
A few months later, authorities accused Gooding of grabbing a server’s buttocks after making a sexually inappropriate remark to her at TAO Downtown, as well as forcibly kissing a waitress at LAVO New York in midtown Manhattan, to which he pleaded guilty.
Both instances are said to have happened in 2018.
Gooding stated at a plea hearing in April that he “kissed the waitress on her lips” without her consent and told Judge Curtis Farber during Thursday’s harassment plea: “I kissed a waitress, your honour.”
In her victim impact statement, the waitress stated that Gooding unexpectedly thrust his tongue into her mouth as she poured beverages. She stated that she was aware of instances involving Gooding and three other women at the club.
Gooding had previously pleaded not guilty to six misdemeanor counts and denied all allegations of wrongdoing. His lawyers argued that overzealous prosecutors, caught up in the fervor of #MeToo, were trying to turn “commonplace gestures” or misunderstandings into crimes.
If the Gooding case had gone to trial, Judge Curtis Farber had previously ruled that prosecutors might have called two additional women to testify about their allegations that Gooding had abused them. Prosecutors claim the court later altered his ruling, prompting them to seek a plea bargain.
In addition to the criminal case, Gooding is accused of raping a woman in New York City in 2013. After a judge issued a default judgment against Gooding in July because he had not responded to the lawsuit, the actor hired an attorney and is challenging the charges.