Actor Cuba Gooding Jr. has hired prominent Manhattan criminal defense attorney Edward Sapone after a federal judge found him civilly liable for allegedly raping a woman in a New York City hotel room in 2013.

The move, docketed Monday in a Manhattan federal lawsuit, came in response to a July 29 order from U.S. District Judge Paul A. Crotty of the Southern District of New York, which entered default judgment against Gooding for “completely failing to engage” with the case for nearly a year.