Cuba Gooding Jr. Accused Of Raping Woman Twice In Hotel Room
Cuba Gooding Jr. has been accused of new sexual assault allegations. The Academy Award-winning actor has been accused of raping a woman twice in 2013, according to a new civil lawsuit that was filed on Tuesday (Aug. 18), as Variety reports.
The woman, who was unidentified, claimed that the incident occurred in Gooding’s hotel room in New York City after meeting the actor at a lounge in Greenwich Village. Gooding allegedly invited the woman and a friend of hers for drinks at the Mercer Hotel in SoHo, where the actor was residing.
Gooding then asked the woman up to his room, so he could change his clothes. The woman insisted on leaving the room to meet her friend downstairs once Gooding began to undress in front of her, according to the lawsuit. The actor allegedly blocked the door, pushed the woman onto the bed, and touched her inappropriately without consent.
“Plaintiff was wearing a halter top dress that evening,” the suit reads. “Defendant finished taking off his clothes (he was now completely naked) and forcibly and without consent put one hand in her halter top to touch Plaintiff’s breasts and one hand up her dress.”
He then allegedly raped the woman vaginally and anally, despite the woman pleading for him to stop, according to the lawsuit. Gooding’s lawyer, Mark Jay Heller, denied the claims against the actor.“We never received the complaint, but the allegations are completely false and perjurious,” he told Variety. “The contentions that he acted inappropriately in the complaint are completely inappropriate and untruthful.”
Now, the woman is suing Gooding for a “crime of violence” committed on the basis of gender, asserting a claim under the New York City Victims of Gender-Motivated Violence Protection Act. The alleged victim is seeking a jury trial, as well as unspecified compensatory and punitive damages.
The actor is already facing six counts of sexual abuse and forcible touching. In 2019, Gooding pleaded not guilty to charges of groping three different women in incidents at New York City nightclubs the year prior.
