$LAP AT ACTOR CUBA

Loses sex suit

Cuba Gooding Jr. will have to shell out $80,000 to a former bartender he allegedly groped at a Manhattan nightclub, a judge ruled Friday.

Judge Richard Latin ordered the embattled actor (inset) to pay the damages to Natasha Ashworth in a Manhattan civil suit that Gooding never responded to in court.

In the suit, Ashworth said the “Jerry Maguire” actor asked her if she wanted to see his penis and later pinched her butt in 2018 at Tao Downtown, where she worked at the time.

Before the damages were awarded Friday, Ashworth gave a statement at the virtual court hearing — for which Gooding did not show up — telling a judge she was humiliated, embarrassed and ashamed.

At first, she said, she wanted to keep everything quiet, but decided to report the incident to police in June 2019 because she saw other victims and sexual assault incidents related to Gooding. But, she said, footage of the incident was leaked to the media and she suffered online harassment as a result.

“Now, when you Google my name, it’s all about being a victim of sexual assault . . . it’s not rewarding,” she said.

Ashworth said she sought $80,000 because she heard a celebrity of Gooding’s stature could earn that in a single day.

She lamented that Gooding neither apologized nor made any statement.

“He didn’t learn the lesson. He had the perfect opportunity to apologize to me through video or other women . . . he said nothing,” she said.

Ashworth won a default judgment against the disgraced actor in June after the suit progressed for nearly two years without him responding to it.

Gooding’s criminal defense attorney told The Post at the time that “the claim is baseless and the judgment is worthless.”

In April, Gooding pleaded guilty to a misdemeanor forcible touching charge and avoided jail time for nonconsensually kissing a woman at a nightclub in 2018.