Cuba Gooding Jr. avoids jail time in forcible touching case

Cuba Gooding Jr. has been hit with a number of misconduct allegations over the last few years involving unwanted groping and forcible touching, leading to one criminal case. Back in April, Gooding entered a guilty plea to a lesser charge of forcibly kissing a woman who was working at a nightclub in 2018, and after six months of “alcohol and behavior modification counseling,” his plea agreement has been accepted by a prosecutor.

This comes from New York’s local ABC affiliate, which also reports that the prosecutor has been getting “positive reports” from Gooding’s therapist and that he intends to continue seeing them past the time required by his plea agreement. If he had failed to adequately complete the terms he agreed to, ABC says he could’ve been facing up to a year in jail. However, now, he will face no other penalties from this case and will not get a criminal record.

Because of this, Gooding will face no additional penalties from this case and will not get a criminal record from it. Meanwhile, ABC notes that “some of Gooding’s accusers” believe he is getting a “light punishment,” and the nightclub worker involved in this case even wrote a victim statement that the prosecutor read in which she noted that Gooding “saw minimal repercussions” from his actions while—as ABC puts it—“his victims dealt with the aftermath of his actions.”

Other accusers are moving forward with suits against Gooding, including one woman who accused him of raping her in 2013. Earlier this year, Gooding tried to get that case dismissed on the grounds that the accuser waited seven years before filing it and had no “exceptional circumstances” that had forced her to wait. The accuser’s lawyers rejected that and also fought back against an attempt to force her to be identified.