FESSING UP

Cuba Gooding Jr. Won’t Face Jail After Pleading Guilty to Forcible Touching

He admitted to kissing a waitress “on her lips” without her consent and pleaded guilty to one count of forcible touching.

Actor Cuba Gooding Jr. will avoid jail time after he pleaded guilty on Wednesday to one count of forcible touching in a case involving three women who accused him of sexual misconduct at various New York City nightclubs between 2018 and 2019. The criminal case has been delayed multiple times as Gooding’s lawyers unsuccessfully attempted to get the charges reduced or dismissed altogether. In addition to the criminal case, Gooding has been targeted in an ongoing lawsuit in which he was accused of raping another woman in 2013. The actor was originally arrested in June 2019 after a 29-year-old woman told police he squeezed her breast at a club near Times Square. Two additional women came forward with their own claims in the months that followed. Those charges alleged that Gooding Jr. had pinched a server’s buttocks after making sexual comments at her and that he’d forcibly touched another woman. On Wednesday, the actor pleaded guilty to just one count of forcible touching, admitting to the judge that he “kissed the waitress on her lips” at an NYC club.