By Luc Cohen

NEW YORK (Reuters). Cuba Gooding Jr. requested that a U.S. court dismiss a civil lawsuit for $6 million filed by a plaintiff who claimed the Oscar-winning actor raped her twice in 2013 and said she waited nearly seven years to file suit.

The woman, known in court papers by the pseudonym Jane Doe, sued https://www.reuters.com/article/us-people-cuba-gooding-jr/actor-cuba-gooding-jr-accused-of-2013-rape-in-lawsuit-filed-by-unnamed-woman-idUSKCN25E2IZ Gooding in August 2020 for allegedly raping her in August 2013 at a hotel room in Manhattan’s SoHo neighborhood, soon after she met him in a Greenwich Village restaurant and lounge. Gooding denied the claims.

Gooding’s attorneys stated that laws permitting rape victims to sue their perpetrators after years of experience only applied to victims who have suppressed or not realized they were being raped.

According to them, allowing Doe to invoke the statute of limitations for seven years under New York City’s law protecting victims of violence motivated by gender violated Gooding’s due process rights as a New York State citizen and the U.S. Constitution.

Gooding’s attorneys stated that she was not forced to wait because of “exceptional circumstances.” “Plaintiff suing Mr. Gooding, Jr. almost seven years after the fact will not correct any serious injustice. The opposite is true.”

Doe’s lawyers argued that the seven year statute of limitations applies to this case. The defense requested their client not reveal her name.

Last year, U.S. District Judge Paul Crotty in Manhattan granted https://www.reuters.com/lifestyle/new-york-judge-finds-cuba-gooding-jr-liable-rape-accusers-civil-lawsuit-2021-07-29 a default judgment on Gooding’s liability, but both parties later agreed https://www.reuters.com/lifestyle/cuba-gooding-rape-accuser-agree-set-aside-liability-finding-against-actor-2021-09-22 to set that judgment aside because Gooding’s failure to formally respond to Doe’s accusations was not willful.

Gooding, 55, was nominated for a Best Supporting Actor Oscar in 1997 for his role as Jerry Maguire. He also portrayed O.J. Simpson appeared in “The People V. O.J.” Simpson.”