Actor Cuba Gooding Jr. has pleaded guilty to forcibly touching a woman at a New York club in 2018. The actor was arrested almost three years ago and his guilty plea is part of an agreement that spares him any immediate jail time, Reuters reported. He can reportedly withdraw the misdemeanor plea and plead guilty for a lesser violation if he attends counseling for six months. Gooding has been accused of abuse by three women for three separate incidents at various places in Manhattan in 2018 and 2019. Gooding pleaded guilty for one of three charges. The actor told the judge that he “kissed the waitress on her lips” without her consent.
"I apologize for ever making anybody feel inappropriately touched," the New York Times quoted Gooding as saying in court. The actor had pleaded not guilty to six counts of misdemeanor and had denied all the allegations leveled against him. His lawyers had also accused the prosecutors of trying to turn “commonplace gestures” into crimes. Cuba Gooding Jr. won the Academy Award as best supporting actor for his role in the 1996 romantic comedy Jerry Maguire as a volatile football player. Two decades later, Gooding portrayed O.J. Simpson in the television miniseries The People v. O.J. Simpson. Hours after the plea, a Manhattan federal judge rejected Gooding’s bid to dismiss a $6 million civil lawsuit by a woman who said Gooding raped her twice in 2013 at the Mercer hotel in Manhattan’s SoHo district.