Cuba Gooding Jr. charged with misdemeanor forcible touching
The actor is accused of fondling a woman at a club.
Cuba Gooding Jr. was formally charged Thursday with misdemeanor forcible touching stemming from an alleged groping of a woman in a Manhattan bar last Sunday.
He pleaded not guilty in Manhattan criminal court.
The Oscar winner's attorney, Mark Jay Heller, has said that his client didn't do anything wrong.
“It’s a no-brainer,” Heller said Thursday. “It’s clearly a case of overzealous policing and based on the video there will be total exoneration here.”
Earlier this week, an unnamed woman told police that Gooding, 51, grabbed her breast at a New York City club.
"I have been hopeful, after I spoke to various witnesses and viewed the video, that the prosecutor would vet this case out and investigate it a lot more then apparently was done," Heller said in an interview with ABC News.
Heller accused the woman of stalking Gooding.
"When I viewed the video and spoke to actual eyewitnesses, it was very clear and apparent the lady who made false charges was stalking Mr. Gooding," he said of the night in the club. "She followed him all over the club, invaded his privacy and she was very persistent in pursuing some type of interaction with him."
The new charge is not the first time that the "People vs. O.J. Simpson" star has been accused of touching a woman inappropriately.
In 2012, a group of women claimed he fondled them in a New Mexico bar, but Gooding told TMZ at the time that the allegations were "b-------." No charges were ever filed in that case.
That same year, he was also accused of pushing a female bartender in New Orleans and a warrant was issued for his arrest. The bartender later dropped all charges, according to reporting from CNN.
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