Cuba Grinding Jr. Actor denies guilt, dozen more vics surface
He’s no man of honor.
Cuba Gooding Jr. pleaded not guilty Tuesday to misdemeanor charges he fondled women in two separate Manhattan incidents — and prosecutors hope to use a dozen similar and shocking complaints at trial from women across the country who say the “Men of Honor” star groped, grinded and grabbed them against their will.
The district attorney’s office detailed a series of raunchy and unwanted sexual overtures to women at parties and nightclubs beginning in 2001, when he allegedly grinded against a woman’s rear at the W Hotel in Los Angeles, according to a court document.
In 2011, he forced his hand up the blouse of a woman at a Los Angeles bar and squeezed her breast, asking her to “sit on my face, pee in my mouth,’” the paper says.
“You’re so nasty!” the alleged victim fired back at the “Gifted Hands” actor.
The litany of lewd behavior includes him lurking behind accusers and biting their shoulders, grabbing their privates and forcing his tongue down their throats in abrupt efforts to kiss them, the document says.
The acts took place throughout the country including in Dallas, New Mexico, New York and Los Angeles. None of the described allegations amounted to rape or forced sex acts.
“You’ve got a good piece of a—,” the pervy performer allegedly told another accuser in 2003 after posing for a photo with her at a party at the Yard House in Long Beach, Calif., and copping a feel.
He was belligerent at times, according to the court papers, calling a woman a “f——-g c—t” and “stupid b—-h” when she scolded him for reaching up her friend’s dress, following other unwanted moves.
That same friend says she was groped by Gooding six months prior to her calling him out.
“All you divorced women are the same,” he once said to a woman in Santa Monica, Calif., insulting her after grabbing her butt and chest and forcibly planting a kiss, according to the document.
In court Tuesday, prosecutor Jenna Long said she would seek to use the testimony of these “12 additional complainants” when Gooding’s trial begins in Manhattan Supreme Court.
The 51-year-old Oscar-winner was indicted by a grand jury in connection to two incidents, including a June episode at the Magic Hour Rooftop Bar he was previously arrested for.
The accuser in the first incident was a 29-year-old bar patron at the Times Square-area hangout who told cops Gooding squeezed her breast and pawed at her chest while visibly drunk June 9. Gooding faces forcible touching and third-degree sexual abuse charges.
The second set of charges involve Gooding allegedly pinching another victim’s butt at TAO downtown on Oct. 24, 2018. When the victim confronted him “immediately after being pinched” he said he’d “only pinched her back, not her buttocks.”
Prosecutors said he then went into diva mode, loudly insisting to the room that he “would never return to that nightclub again.”
His lawyer Mark Jay Heller said Tuesday the second accuser in the indictment tried to shake him down for a settlement before going to police.
The Oscar-winning actor wore a dark suit and was in handcuffs as he was walked into the courtroom Tuesday afternoon and confidently said “not guilty” to the court clerk. He had surrendered to the district attorney’s office earlier in the day to be processed for the additional incident.
Since his arrest four months ago, similar complaints have piled up, a high-ranking police source said Tuesday.
A total of six complaints have been filed against the “Jerry Maguire” star, including some for which videotape is available, the source said.
Gooding was released without bail by Justice Curtis Farber and was greeted by fans as he left court.