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**Trigger Warning: Description of Sexual Assault/Rape**
Cuba Gooding Jr. has, on Tuesday (June 6), settled a 2020 civil lawsuit that accused him of rape.
As reported by the New York Times, the settlement officially averts a trial filed in the Federal District Court in Manhattan on behalf of a woman who said that the Oscar winner raped her in 2013. The trial would’ve included testimony from three other women who said he abused them between 2009 and 2019.
This is the latest (and most severe) in a series of accusations of Gooding’s alleged misconduct towards women. Last year, he plead guilty to a charge of kissing a woman without her consent.
Jury selection in the trial was scheduled to begin at 10 AM Tuesday. However, Gooding and the plaintiff’s attorney, women’s rights advocate Gloria Allred, were not present.
The court received an entry on the electronic docket that morning, saying that the parties resolved the matter.
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The suit was seeking unspecified damages as a result of the alleged event, said to have taken place in the summer of 2013. The plaintiff (described in court as “Jane Doe”) said that Gooding introduced himself at a restaurant & lounge in Greenwich Village and later invited her to the Mercer Hotel in Soho for drinks.
The lawsuit then states that the “Jerry Maguire” star told the woman that he escorted her to his hotel room, claiming that he needed to quickly change clothes. As he began to undress, the woman tried to leave. That’s when, according to the suit, Gooding blocked her and pushed her onto the bed. He then, allegedly, began to rape her, despite her repeated objections.
A lawyer representing Gooding at the time that the lawsuit was filed said that the allegations were “completely false and defamatory.”
