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FIRST ON FOX: Cuba Gooding Jr. has hammered out a no-jail plea deal with Manhattan prosecutors nearly three years after he made international headlines when he was arrested on misdemeanor sex abuse charges, Fox News Digital has learned.
The “Jerry Maguire” actor, 54, is scheduled to plead guilty to one misdemeanor count Wednesday afternoon in Manhattan Supreme Court, avoiding a potentially embarrassing trial. If he complies with the terms of his deal, in six months the misdemeanor will be reduced to a violation, which is not a crime.
Cuba Gooding Jr. leaves criminal court in New York June 13, 2019.
(AP Photo/Frank Franklin II)
The deal allows Gooding to avoid a criminal record, giving him a shot at salvaging his career, sources told Fox News Digital.
CUBA GOODING JR. ACCUSED OF 2013 RAPE IN CIVIL LAWSUIT
Under prior DA Cyrus Vance Jr., prosecutors played hardball with the “A Few Good Men” actor, refusing to make any offer that didn’t involve jail time.
But the Oscar-winner fired his defense lawyer Mark Heller and hired bail bondsman and fixer Ira Judelson and attorney Frank Rothman. The pair were able to negotiate the more favorable agreement under new DA Alvin Bragg who took office in January. Rothman and Judelson did not return requests for comment.
Cuba Gooding Jr. and girlfriend Claudine De Niro attend an event on Sept. 16, 2019, in New York City.
(Mike Coppola/Getty Images)
Gooding was indicted on six misdemeanor counts for inappropriately touching three women in separate incidents. He was first arrested in June 2019 – but the case and his career have languished ever since. The trial date was repeatedly pushed back due to the coronavirus pandemic.
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Prosecutors had sought to call 19 additional accusers, whose claims did not result in criminal charges, but the judge ruled that only two of them could testify at trial. Gooding’s girlfriend, Claudine De Niro, the ex-wife of actor Robert De Niro’s son, has stood by him since the allegations first surfaced.
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Gooding is accused of squeezing a 30-year-old woman’s breast at the Moxy Hotel in Times Square in June 2019, pinching the behind of a TAO Downtown server in October 2018 and subjecting a woman to “sexual contact without consent” at LAVO Nightclub on the Upper East Side in September 2018.
Fox News Digital wasn’t able to immediately determine which incident Gooding’s expected guilty plea relates to.
