Cuba Gooding, Jr. has been accused of sexual misconduct by seven more women.
The Oscar winner has pleaded not guilty to misdemeanor charges of forcible touching and sexual abuse relating to reported encounters with three women in New York City.
On Monday (December 9, 2019), prosecutors filed court papers detailing further claims from seven women, with the allegations dating back to 2003, and spanning six states including New York, California, and Texas.
One woman claims that when she was attending the Sundance Film Festival in 2009, Gooding invited her to another event, and the pair then went to a concert. When the woman said she was leaving, the 51-year-old actor allegedly “seemed agitated” and said he’d walk her out. Once they were in a secluded hallway, Gooding “began to kiss (her) without consent” and, when she pushed him away and noted he was married, he “placed his hand on her buttocks”.
He then pushed “his hand forcefully into the crotch area of her tights, placing his fingers on her anus”, ripping her tights in the process, according to the papers. The Jerry McGuire star only stopped when the woman bit his cheek and “caused him to recoil”.
Other allegations include one woman claiming Gooding groped her in 2011 and, when she confronted him, he said something like: “I know you want to be an actress; I can ruin you.”
And in Malibu, California in 2016, he is said to have told a woman and her friend: “You guys are peeing on me tonight.” Two years later, in the same bar, he allegedly told the same woman: “You’re going to sit on my face, pee in my mouth and pee all over me.”
The allegations were detailed in a bid by prosecutors to persuade a judge to allow them to introduce the other 19 women’s claims in court – to prove a pattern of sexual abuse.
“Defendant’s past behavior shows that he routinely approaches women while at bars or nightclubs with whom he has had limited or no prior interaction, and touches them inappropriately,” they state in the papers.
With the three New York women, seven new women and 12 claims about incidents Gooding has yet to be charged in, the number of his accusers now stands at 22.
Gooding has denied “all allegations of criminal conduct”, with his lawyer Mark Heller telling the New York Post’s gossip column Page Six: “Unfortunately, people come out of the woodwork, making false allegations against Cuba, as often times happens when a celebrity is accused by the District Attorney’s Office in a Public Forum.
The spurious, uncharged allegations offered by the District Attorney’s Office are so ancient and outdated and lacking in details and impairs the Defendant from defending against them; thus, it demonstrates that the District Attorney’s Office’s motive in introducing these inflammatory, uncharged allegations is not for any probative value, but to merely gain an advantage against the Defendant and prejudice the Jury against the Defendant.”
Gooding is next due in court on January 22, 2020.
