Cuba Gooding Jr to host NYC STRIP CLUB event days after pleading guilty to groping
Cuba Gooding Jr has been hired by a New York strip club to host an event just weeks after he admitted to forcibly touching a woman at Manhattan nightspots. The 'Jerry Maguire' star pleaded guilty on April 13 to touching a woman forcibly at a New York nightclub in 2018. He was arrested in the case nearly three years ago, following which his lawyers constantly sought to get the charges dismissed or reduced.
Gooding has now agreed to host an event at the Sapphire Gentlemen's Club. The strip club is just five minutes away from the place where one of the groping incidents involving Gooding took place.
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The 54-year-old was accused of violating three different women at various Manhattan night spots in 2018 and 2019. However, he pleaded guilty to only one of the allegations, telling the judge that he “kissed the waitress on her lips” without consent at the LAVO New York nightclub. Gooding's plea deal does not call for any jail time, and he can in fact withdraw the misdemeanor plea and plead guilty to a lesser violation of harassment if he continues counseling for six months.
An attorney for Gooding, Frank Rothman, said he is "relieved that the DA’s office has finally seen what this case is really about and its true value." "He’s in therapy," Rothman was quoted as saying of Gooding. "He’s done everything right. And it’s the appropriate resolution to not give somebody a criminal record that’s stayed out of trouble for years, done everything correctly and had very questionable allegations levied against him. This was the appropriate resolution. This was the right compromise."
A few months after the 2019 arrest, Gooding was charged in two additional cases as more women accused him of sexual abuse. He was accused of making a sexually suggestive remark to a server and then pinching her buttocks. He also allegedly forcibly touched a woman at the LAVO nightclub. Both the incidents took place in 2018. Previously, Gooding had pleaded not guilty to six misdemeanor counts. He had denied all allegations of wrongdoing, with his lawyers arguing that the prosecutors were swayed by the #MeToo movement and were trying to turn “commonplace gestures” or misunderstandings into criminal offenses.
The judge had ruled that two additional women could have been called to testify about the abuse they faced if Gooding's case went to trial. These women's claims, however, did not result in criminal charges. They were among 19 others who were being sought by prosecutors as witnesses. Gooding is also accused in a lawsuit of raping a woman in New York City in 2013. Since the actor failed to respond to the lawsuit, a judge went on to issue a default judgment. The actor retained a lawyer and is fighting the allegations now.