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NEW YORK — <\/span>NEW YORK (AP) \u2014 Harvey Weinstein<\/a> ‘s lawyers questioned his accuser at his rape retrial<\/a> Thursday, making clear they planned to explore her conflicted feelings and complex history with the onetime Hollywood powerbroker.<\/p>\n It’s the third time Jessica Mann has had to answer his lawyers’ questions in a New York court. But different attorneys<\/a> are now defending the ex-studio boss whose downfall powered the #MeToo movement<\/a> against sexual misconduct. It remains to be seen whether their inquiries will hit the emotional boiling points of Mann’s prior cross-examinations<\/a>.<\/p>\n Weinstein lawyer Teny Geragos<\/a> began questioning Mann on Wednesday by seizing on her complicated feelings about Weinstein during a knotty relationship<\/a> that involved some consensual sexual encounters. <\/p>\n Under prosecutors’ questioning earlier, Mann said that despite the alleged rape, she loved \u201ca part of him\u201d because he could be kind and encouraging about her personal struggles and professional dreams, and that the two had \u201csome pretty human moments\u201d together. <\/p>\n \u201cWhat did he do for you that made parts of you really love him?\u201d Geragos asked. <\/p>\n \u201cIt was the validation,\u201d Mann said. <\/p>\n When Geragos went on to ask about the \u201chuman moments,” Mann said she once slapped Weinstein, thinking he was inviting it as sex play, but that he later told her, \u201cJess, that’s not you.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cSo when you were talking about the validation that you received \u2026 and the human moments that you shared with Harvey, it was that you slapped him?\u201d Geragos asked.<\/p>\n Mann said she instead was referring to his remark that \u201cthat’s not you.\u201d <\/p>\n Court ended for the day soon afterward. <\/p>\n Weinstein, 73, is on trial for the third time on a charge accusing him of raping Mann in a New York hotel in 2013. He was initially convicted in 2020<\/a>, but an appeals court overturned that verdict<\/a>. During his first retrial, the jury couldn’t reach a decision<\/a> on the rape charge.<\/p>\n Mann also alleges that Weinstein raped her again in Beverly Hills, California, in late 2013 or early 2014. He has never been charged with any crime related to that allegation. <\/p>\n