Cuba Gooding Jr. pleads not guilty to sexual abuse charges
Attorney for actor Cuba Gooding Jr. says surveillance video will clear his client; Jacqui Heinrich reports from New York.
The woman who says she was groped by Cuba Gooding Jr. has “certain mental characteristics” that make her likely to falsely accuse someone famous, court papers filed on behalf of the Oscar-winning actor allege.
Gooding’s accuser wrote online that she’s been diagnosed with anxiety, depression and other mental health problems, and “basically learned that my brain was one big fat mess,” the Manhattan Criminal Court filing says.
In blog posts, the unidentified woman allegedly revealed that “being different always felt like I was begging to be rejected by a world that, it felt like, was always on the verge of kicking me off the cool kids’ table at any moment.”
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“And, in a world of extensions and fake boobs, my short haircut paired with my moderate breast size makes me feel invisible,” court papers quote her saying. “Some people are scared of others and want nothing more to be invisible. I am not that type of person. I am starving to be seen.”
In the Friday court filing, defense lawyer Mark Jay Heller wrote that, “The Interests of Justice are SCREAMING OUT FOR THE EXONERATION OF CUBA GOODING, JR. and calling for a critical examination of this case and the Accuser whose personal blogs have included statements which clearly reveal the metamorphism of a troubled mentality.”
Heller also said her writing shows why “an individual with certain mental characteristics would be predisposed to make a false accusation against someone because, for example, they rejected her, or she was jealous of them or was envious of their fame.”
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Gooding, 51, was arrested earlier this month on misdemeanor charges of forcible touching and sexual abuse for allegedly grabbing the 30-year-old woman’s breast inside the Magic Hour Rooftop Bar and Lounge in the Moxy Times Square hotel on June 9.
Their encounter was caught on surveillance video that appears to show the hard-partying “Jerry Maguire” actor reach across Claudine DeNiro — the estranged wife of Robert DeNiro’s son Raphael — and touch the woman after she sat down next to them on a sofa.
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In an affidavit supporting of a motion to dismiss the charges, former NYPD Special Victims Squad Det. John Baeza said he “closely viewed, reviewed and evaulated the surveillance video in the case, numerous times, frame-by-frame.”
Baeza, who now works as an expert witness on police practices, said it’s his “professional opinion” that Gooding “did not ‘place his hand on the Accuser’s breast and squeeze’ as is alleged” by authorities.
De Niro and another man who’s seen in the video, Matthew Assante, also signed affidavits denying the allegations against Gooding.
De Niro added that she saw the woman watching and following her and Gooding around the bar, and that De Niro “ultimately, in essence,” asked her to leave them alone.
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The Manhattan District Attorney’s Office declined to comment.
Following the incident that led to Gooding’s arrest, another unidentified woman told cops that Goodinggroped her more than a decade ago, beyond a two-year statute of limitations, law-enforcement sources have said.
Social media star Claudia Oshry, 24, also told the “The Morning Toast” podcast that when she was 16, Gooding “put his finger up my butt.”
Heller has denied Oshry’s claim and said of the other woman allegation, “No one has brought any of that to my attention.”
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No charges have been filed in those alleged incidents.
This article originally appeared on Page Six.
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