NEW YORK (AP) — Actor Cuba Gooding Jr. experienced consensual sexual intercourse with a girl who has accused him of raping her in a New York Town resort a decade ago, a law firm instructed a federal choose Monday as a demo on her civil assert was scheduled for June.
Legal professional Gary Becker built the assertion in Manhattan federal court docket as Judge Paul A. Crotty reported a demo on the claims of a woman identified only as Jane Doe can commence the initially 7 days of June, though an precise date was not finalized.
The Oscar-successful actor when burnished a name as a superior man in movies including “Jerry Maguire” and “As Very good As It Receives.”
But a slew of harassment statements towards Gooding have turned him into a #MeToo defendant in many courts.
In a prison circumstance in condition court in Manhattan final tumble, Gooding pleaded guilty to a non-legal harassment violation in a deal that spared him from jail time.
Authorities say promises of groping, undesired kissing and other inappropriate actions by Gooding have been created by at minimum 30 girls, often just after encounters with him at New York Metropolis nightspots.
The introduction to Jane Doe happened in August 2013 when she satisfied the actor in the VIP lounge of a cafe in the Greenwich Village portion of Manhattan and agreed to be part of him with a pal of hers at a close by hotel bar, according to court papers.
But, the moment at the lodge, and ahead of her friend arrived, Jane Doe was inspired to move forward to Gooding’s resort space so the actor could adjust his outfits and they could return downstairs to meet her friend, the court papers explained.
The lawsuit alleged Gooding received violent in the space, pushing the female on to the bed and forcibly raping her when disregarding her pleas for him to cease.
The woman’s attorneys did not immediately comment.
On Monday, Gooding’s lawyer said the defense at demo would assert that sex was consensual, relying in portion on testimony by two previous homeowners of the cafe exactly where she satisfied Gooding who will say she returned late that night to boast that she’d experienced intercourse with a celebrity.
Outside court, Becker and yet another defense attorney, Edward Vincent Sapone, said that a third witness, a previous woman bartender at the cafe, could also testify about the woman’s return to the restaurant and what she explained.
In court papers, lawyers for the girl have stated she is entitled to $2 million in compensatory damages and $4 million in punitive damages for the “significant emotional distress” she endured immediately after assembly Gooding.
The lawyers wrote that she commenced binge feeding on just after the attack, has felt suicidal at instances and has confronted flashbacks that make her extremely nervous, together with inner thoughts of worthlessness, distrust and reduced self esteem.
“To this day, it is tricky for her to say the phrase ‘rape’ as it provides upon her an powerful sum of disgrace,” her lawyers wrote in a July 2021 courtroom filing.
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