Cuba Gooding Jr. Settles Rape Lawsuit Ahead of Trial

Actor Cuba Gooding Jr. has settled a lawsuit accusing him of rape just as the case was set to head to trial, according to a recent report from the New York Times.

The trial, which was was set to begin on Tuesday in New York City federal court, will instead be resolved as the New York Times’ report notes that, on Tuesday morning, an entry appeared noting that “the parties have resolved the matter.”

In the lawsuit, a woman claims that the incident occurred in Gooding’s New York City hotel room after a meeting with him at a lounge in Greenwich Village in 2013. According to the lawsuit, Gooding invited the woman and her friends for drinks at The Mercer Hotel in SoHo, and then invited the woman into his room where he raped her.

At the time of the lawsuit, Gooding denied the allegations through his attorney Mark Jay Heller. In a statement to Variety, Heller called the allegations “completely false and perjurious,” and said there was no truth to the matter. “We never received the complaint, but the allegations are completely false and perjurious,” Heller said. “The contentions that he acted inappropriately in the complaint are completely inappropriate and untruthful.”

Neither Gooding’s attorneys or the plaintaff’s lawyer, Gloria Allred, issued a statement on the settlement reached Tuesday.

Last year, Gooding pleaded guilty to a single count of forcible touching a woman, which alleged that the actor had kissed a woman at a Manhattan nightclub without her consent in 2018.