has pleaded guilty to one count of forcible touching following his arrest in 2019 when he was accused of groping a woman’s breast in a bar.
The actor, 54, was accused of violating three different women at nightspots in Manhattan, New York in 2018 and 2019, but has pleaded guilty to only one of the allegations.
The guilty plea comes almost three years after his arrest, due to several delays to his case as his
Gooding Jr also admitted to non-consensual physical contact with two other women in October 2018 and June 2019.
He told the court, per The : ‘I apologise for ever making anybody feel inappropriately touched.’
The Oscar-winner’s plea deal means he avoids jail time but he must continue with the alcohol and behaviour modification treatment he began in 2019 for a further six months and have no new arrests.
The case had previously been scheduled to go to trial at least twice before, with the original April 2020 date pushed back due to the coronavirus pandemic causing most court matters to be put on hold in New York.
Gooding Jr was arrested in June 2019 after a 29-year-old woman told police he squeezed her breast without her consent at Magic Hour Rooftop Bar & Lounge near Times Square.
He was charged a few months later in two additional cases as more women came forward with accusations of abuse.
Gooding Jr was accused of pinching a server’s buttocks after making a sexually suggestive remark to her at TAO Downtown and forcibly touching a woman inappropriately at the LAVO New York nightclub in 2018.
The incident at LAVO is the one which he pleaded guilty to, after previously pleading not guilty to six misdemeanour counts and denying all allegations of wrongdoing.
Gooding Jr’s lawyers have argued that prosecutors were caught up in the #MeToo movement and were trying to turn ‘commonplace gestures’ or misunderstandings into criminal acts.
