Cuba Gooding Jr. pleads not guilty as 12 other women come forward with groping allegations

By Sam Barsanti | October 15, 2019 | 8:23pm

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Cuba Gooding Jr. pleads not guilty as 12 other women come forward with groping allegations

Photo: Mike Coppola

Last week, we reported that the groping case against Cuba Gooding Jr.—in which he was accused of grabbing a woman at a bar—had been put through a couple of delays as prosecutors sought additional evidence and added a “previously uncharged incident” to the existing misdemeanor charge. Now, we not only know what that previously uncharged incident was, but we know that the prosecution intends to prove this is part of a pattern of inappropriate behavior for Gooding. As reported by Variety, Gooding is now facing two charges related to a second incident, in which he allegedly “pinched a woman’s butt” at a nightclub, and prosecutors intend to call another 12 women to testify that Gooding also grabbed or pinched or bit them inappropriately while at busy bars or nightclubs after having “limited or no prior interaction.”

One of the accusers claims that she met Gooding at a party, and after talking for a bit, he “asked her to lean in so he could tell her something” and then “grabbed her buttocks and her breast and forcibly kissed her.” Another says Gooding reached under her skirt and touched her at a bar, and after seeing him again a year later, she “punched him in the neck or chest and yelled at him about the incident.” A third says that Gooding bit her on the shoulder from behind at a restaurant, and when she turned around and confronted him, he just shrugged. Then, when she turned back, he allegedly did it again and started to try and “pull her shirt up and thrust himself against her leg.” She claims that he only stopped when “a companion pulled him away.”