A total of 22 women have come forward to report accounts of unwanted sexual touching by Hollywood actor Cuba Gooding Jr.
The Jerry Maguire actor has been charged with groping three of the women at Manhatten restaurants and nightclubs in 2018 and 2019.
The New York Times reported that the other 19 have accused him of unwanted contact. Those accusations, which come from several states, have not resulted in charges because, for the most part, they took place too long ago. But the paper says prosecutors in Manhattan are hoping to persuade a judge to allow the women to testify.
Prosecutors had previously revealed 12 additional accusers, and in a court filing obtained Monday by The New York Times, they listed seven more.
In one accusation detailed in the court filing, a woman said that after she met the 51-year-old actor at the Sundance Film Festival in Park City, Utah, in 2009, he took her to a concert, where he began to kiss her in a secluded hallway as she was attempting to leave.
The court filing say he placed his hands on her buttocks and pushed himself forcefully on her, and she had to bite him on the cheek so she could escape.
It said another woman accused him of sliding his hand down her pants and cupping her buttocks at a restaurant in Atlanta in 2011.
The other four women said Mr. Gooding had groped or kissed them without their consent in Manhattan, Los Angeles and San Francisco, and at a nightclub near the Sundance festival in 2003, according to the court filing.
Mark J Heller, a lawyer for Mr Gooding, has previously said that his client denied any criminal wrongdoing and that when a celebrity is charged, people often “come out of the woodwork with allegations that are all over the place and, for the most part, aren’t provable.”
Mr Gooding has been formally charged in three reported incidents, each resulting in misdemeanor charges of forcible touching and third-degree sexual abuse. He has pleaded not guilty. The maximum penalty for the top charge, forcible touching, is a year in jail.
