The indictment came almost three years after Gooding was arrested in a case that had several delays as his lawyers tried to reduce or dismiss the charges. Gooding, 54, accused of harassing three different women at various Manhattan nightclubs in 2018 and 2019, pleaded guilty to only one of the charges. He told the judge that he “kissed the waitress on her lips” without his consent at the LAVO nightclub in New York. The Gooding deal does not require imprisonment. If he continues to give advice for six months, he can withdraw the misdemeanor complaint and plead guilty to a lesser violation of harassment. Oscar-winning star Jerry Maguire was arrested in June 2019 after a 29-year-old woman told police he had tightened her chest without her consent at the Magic Hour Rooftop Bar & Lounge near Times Square.
Still is facing a civil lawsuit for rape
A few months later, he was charged in two additional cases, as more women showed up to accuse him of abuse. The new allegations claim that he bit the buttocks of a server after he made a sexually suggestive comment to her at TAO Downtown and violently touched a woman at the LAVO nightclub, both in 2018. Gooding had previously pleaded not guilty to six counts of misdemeanor charges and denied any wrongdoing. His lawyers argued that the overzealous prosecutors, trapped in the heat of the #MeToo movement, were trying to turn “common gestures” or misunderstandings into crimes. The judge had ruled that if Gooding’s case led to a trial, prosecutors could call two additional women to testify about their allegations that Gooding also violated them. These women, whose claims did not result in criminal charges, were among 19 other prosecutors whom prosecutors tried to call as witnesses. Along with the criminal case, Gooding is accused of raping a woman in New York in 2013. After a judge ruled in absentia in July that Gooding had not responded to the lawsuit, the actor kept a lawyer and the allegations clash.
