Oscar winner Cuba Gooding Jr. settles civil intercourse abuse case, averting trial

NEW YORK (AP) — Just as a trial was to start, it was revealed Tuesday that Cuba Gooding Jr. has settled accusations that he raped a lady in a New York City resort a decade in the past, based on court docket data. The actor had insisted via attorneys that his encounter with the lady was consensual after the 2 met at a close-by restaurant.

The trial was to begin with jury choice in New York federal court docket because the Oscar-winning “Jerry Maguire” star confronted allegations that he met the lady in Manhattan, persuaded her to affix him at a resort, and satisfied her to cease at his room so he might change clothes.

Minutes after jurors had been to start assembling in a courtroom, a calendar entry within the official court docket document stated: “TRIAL OFF.” It added: “Reason for cancellation (on consent): the parties have resolved the matter.”

The lady had proceeded anonymously till final week, when Judge Paul A. Crotty dominated that she must reveal her title at trial. She stated in her lawsuit that Gooding raped her in his room. His attorneys, although, insisted that it was consensual intercourse and that she bragged afterward to others that she had intercourse with a star.

The lawsuit sought $6 million in damages. Attorney Gloria Allred, one in every of a number of representing the lady, declined remark. Other attorneys, together with these representing Gooding, didn’t instantly reply to requests for remark.

The lawsuit was filed in opposition to a person who authorities say has been accused of committing sexual misconduct in opposition to greater than 30 different girls, together with groping, undesirable kissing and different inappropriate habits.

Late final week, the choose appeared to strengthen the lady’s hand at trial and in settlement negotiations by ruling that he would let three girls testify that additionally they had been subjected to sudden sexual assaults or tried sexual assaults after assembly Gooding in social settings similar to festivals, bars, nightclubs and eating places.

One of the ladies who had deliberate to testify on the trial was Kelsey Harbert, who informed police Gooding fondled her with out her consent at Magic Hour Rooftop Bar & Lounge close to Times Square in 2019.

Harbert stated final yr after Gooding pleaded responsible in New York state court docket to a cost that spared him from jail or a felony historical past that by no means getting her day in court docket was “more disappointing than words can say.”

The Associated Press doesn’t sometimes determine individuals who say they’ve been sexually assaulted except they grant permission, as Harbert has finished.

Gooding, a star in movies together with “Boyz n the Hood” and “Radio,” was permitted to plead responsible in April 2022 to a misdemeanor, admitting that he forcibly kissed a employee at a New York nightclub in 2018.