Harvey Weinstein's defense urged jurors Tuesday to acquit him and put an end to a #MeToo-era rape case that has gone to trial three times, while prosecutors pressed to restore a onetime conviction that got unwound.

Weinstein, the former Hollywood honcho who has been imprisoned on various sex crime convictions since 2020, watched quietly as the two sides made their closing arguments about whether he raped hairstylist and actor Jessica Mann in a New York hotel in March 2013.

"She has taken on a false narrative about all of this," Weinstein lawyer Marc Agnifilo said.

"She has absolutely no motive to lie. None," prosecutor Nicole Blumberg countered, noting that Mann went through five days of grueling, deeply personal testimony.

Jurors, who are expected to start deliberating Wednesday, will have to sift through the complexities of a yearslong relationship between Weinstein, 73, and Mann, 40.

They met in early 2013, when she was trying to make it big in Hollywood. She testified that she anticipated a professional connection, was taken aback when he started making sexual advances but decided to have a relationship with the then-married, Oscar-winning producer.

A few weeks later, according to Mann, Weinstein abruptly took a room at a Doubletree hotel where she and a friend were staying. When she accompanied Weinstein upstairs to tell him she didn't want a sexual interlude, she testified, he trapped her in the room, grabbed her arms, insisted she undress, went into the bathroom for a time, and then raped her.

"He just treated me like he owned me," she testified last month.

Weinstein didn't testify, but his defense contends the encounter was consensual and part of a caring relationship that Mann fostered and leaned on... Read More