Cuba Gooding Jr. has been accused of raping a woman twice in 2013 in a new civil lawsuit filed on Tuesday, Variety reports. The actor is awaiting trial for separate charges of misdemeanor forcible touching and sexual abuse in the third degree from 2019.
According to the new lawsuit via Variety, an anonymous woman claims the incident occurred in Gooding’s Mercer Hotel room in New York, after they met at a Greenwich Village lounge. The actor invited the woman and her friend for drinks at the hotel, but escorted the accuser up to his room beforehand so he could change, according to the suit.
Per the suit, the woman tried to leave the room as Gooding undressed so she could meet her friend, but Gooding allegedly blocked her from leaving and raped her despite her repeatedly telling him to stop. She alleges he raped her twice.
Mark Jay Heller, Gooding’s attorney, denied the claims against his client. “We never received the complaint, but the allegations are completely false and perjurious,” he told Variety. “The contentions that he acted inappropriately in the complaint are completely inappropriate and untruthful.”
The woman is suing Gooding for violating New York City’s Victims of Gender-Motivated Violence Protection Act, which seeks to protect victims of gender-based violence.
Gooding is awaiting trial for previous groping charges that were filed in 2019. He is facing six counts of forcible touching and sexual abuse after being accused of groping three different women at various nightclubs in New York. Gooding has pleaded not guilty to the 2019 charges.
