Harvey Weinstein's defense has urged jurors to bring an end to a #MeToo-era rape case that has now gone to trial three times, arguing that the former Hollywood producer should be acquitted. During closing arguments on Tuesday, lawyer Marc Agnifilo told the jury that the allegations were false. "It's just not true," he said, referring to the claim that Weinstein raped hairstylist and actor Jessica Mann in a New York hotel in 2013. "She has taken on a false narrative about all of this."
Prosecutors are set to present their case later in the day, leaving the jury to navigate the complexities of a yearslong relationship between Weinstein and Mann. The two met in early 2013 when Mann was pursuing a career in Hollywood. She testified that she expected a professional connection but was surprised when Weinstein made sexual advances. Despite this, she decided to engage in a relationship with the then-married, Oscar-winning producer. According to Mann, a few weeks later, Weinstein abruptly booked a room at a hotel where she and a friend were staying. When she accompanied him upstairs to decline a sexual encounter, she testified, he trapped her, grabbed her arms, insisted she undress, and raped her after briefly leaving the room. "He just treated me like he owned me," she said during testimony last month.
Weinstein did not testify, but his defense maintains that the encounter was consensual and part of a caring relationship that Mann fostered and relied upon until Weinstein's #MeToo downfall in 2017. News reports about allegations against him at that time sparked a global movement against sexual assault and harassment. Weinstein has acknowledged behaving "wrongly" but denies any assault. He was convicted in 2020 of raping Mann, but that conviction was overturned. A retrial last year ended in a deadlocked jury.
In his closing argument, Agnifilo highlighted what he described as inconsistencies in Mann's account, noting that her warm email exchanges and continued meetings with Weinstein both before and after the alleged rape suggested a consensual relationship. "Throughout the four years, she is going to Harvey Weinstein for things that she needs, and Harvey Weinstein is doing the best that he can," Agnifilo said, referring to Weinstein's support for her acting ambitions and emotional needs. "They are emotionally close. She relies on him. He is a very important person in her life, and she lets him know that."
Regardless of the trial's outcome, Weinstein remains convicted of other sex crimes in New York and California, though he is appealing those convictions. The Associated Press typically does not identify individuals who report sexual assault unless they consent to be named, as Mann has done.
