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More women are coming forward and accusing actor Cuba Gooding Jr. of ‘forcible touching and sexual misconduct,” bringing it to a total of 22 women according to NBC News.
As of recently, the 51-year-old “faces three misdemeanor counts of forcible touching and three misdemeanor counts of sexual abuse involving incidents with three women, who allege the actor groped them without their consent. He has pleaded not guilty.”
Mark Jay Heller, Gooding’s lawyer believes the new accusations are “ancient and outdated and lacking in details.” The prosecutors, on the other hand, say this is evidence of Gooding’s alleged “intent to gratify himself sexually” and a “lack of mistake or accident on his part.”
Heller said to The New York Times Monday (Dec. 9),
“Unfortunately, people come out of the woodwork, making false allegations against Cuba, as oftentimes happens when a celebrity is accused by the District Attorney’s Office in a Public Forum.
The spurious, uncharged allegations offered by the District Attorney’s Office are so ancient and outdated and lacking in details and impairs the Defendant from defending against them; thus, it demonstrates that the District Attorney’s Office’s motive in introducing these inflammatory, uncharged allegations is not for any probative value, but to merely gain an advantage against the Defendant and prejudice the Jury against the Defendant.’
Gooding’s next court date is set for January 22, 2020.