Manhattan prosecutors knocked the smile off Cuba Gooding Jr.’s face on Thursday when they revealed the actor had been hit with a new charge just as his sex-abuse trial was set to begin.
The “Jerry Maguire” star was all smiles when he walked into Manhattan Criminal Court, but left with a frown after Assistant District Attorney Jenna Long told the judge that he had been indicted on at least one new charge.
“The defendant has been indicted on the charges included in this docket as well as an additional incident previously uncharged,” Long said.
Gooding, 51, wearing a striped jacket, black pants, a tie and white pocket square, looked on, stunned.
The Oscar-winning actor, already accused of fondling a 30-year-old woman at a Midtown bar in June, will now be charged over another incident in October 2018, police sources told The Post.
Long did not provide any more detail and said the circumstances would be unveiled when Gooding is arraigned on Tuesday.
His trial will now have to wait.
Gooding’s attorney maintained that the new charge was a stalling tactic by prosecutors.
“It has been 118 days since Cuba has been arrested, and we have seen the district attorney having compiled hundreds of pages of irrelevant and nonincriminating material,” the lawyer, Mark Jay Heller, said, calling his client “a beloved Bronx native.”
“They have conducted in excess of seven interviews. They actually put together 2,500 videos, which, having reviewed them, do not reflect any criminal conduct.
“Clearly, the district attorney, in my view, has used this as a strategy.”
“Nobody is convicting him without proof beyond a reasonable doubt,” Heller said.
Gooding was arrested four days after he allegedly groped the unidentified woman on June 9 at the Magic Hour Rooftop Bar and Lounge atop the Moxy NYC Times Square hotel.
He was charged with one count each of misdemeanor sex abuse and forcible touching.
The actor, who surrendered to police, has staunchly denied the allegation.
His girlfriend, Claudine De Niro, who is the estranged wife of Robert De Niro’s son, has backed his account.
Surveillance video obtained by TMZ and taken at around 10:15 on the night of the incident, shows Gooding sitting in the bar with Claudine De Niro when the alleged victim comes and sits next to them.
Gooding appears to put his hand on the woman’s thigh, then her chest.
The woman described Gooding as “highly intoxicated,” TMZ reported.
In a second video, taken a half-hour later, Gooding and De Niro are making out on the couch when the woman approaches and begins arguing with a security guard and tells the guard, “Yes, he did.”
Heller has argued in court papers that Gooding’s accuser is unstable.