Cuba Gooding Jr has pled guilty to a misdemeanour count of forcibly touching a waitress at a New York nightclub in 2018.
The Oscar-winning actor, 54, agreed to plead guilty as part of an agreement with prosecutors that would spare him any immediate jail time.
Cuba also admitted in court to subjecting two other women to “non-consensual physical contact” in 2018 and 2019.
The guilty plea comes three years after he was arrested, according to the Manhattan District Attorney’s Office.
Under the plea agreement, if the actor continues to undergo court-ordered counselling for six months, he can withdraw his misdemeanour plea and plead guilty to a lesser violation of harassment.
If Cuba fails to comply to the rules of the agreement, he faces up to one year in jail.
Although he had been accused of violating three different women in various New York venues in 2018 and 2019, he only pled guilty to the most serious charge of forcibly kissing a woman at a nightclub in September 2018, according to a Manhattan District Attorney spokesperson.
According to The New York Times, Cuba said in court: “I apologise for ever making anybody feel inappropriately touched.”
Shortly after the plea, a Manhattan federal judge rejected Cuba’s bid to dismiss a $6 million civil lawsuit by a woman who claimed that he raped her twice in 2013 at The Mercer hotel in the SoHo district.
US District Judge Paul Crotty said the woman waited to sue until 2020 to invoke a NYC law protecting victims of gender-motivated violence.
Cuba argued that a different law with a one-year statute of limitations should have applied, and he denied the accuser’s allegations.
The actor rose to fame through his roles in the 1996 film Jerry Maguire and television miniseries The People v OJ Simpson.
