(Bloomberg) -- Harvey Weinstein was a “predator” who used his position as a powerful Hollywood producer to attack women he viewed as disposable, prosecutor Joan Illuzzi told jurors at the movie mogul’s rape trial.

He “was a master of his universe and the witnesses were merely ants he could step on without consequence,” Illuzzi told jurors in her closing argument Friday.

Weinstein is accused of raping aspiring actor Jessica Mann in a Midtown Manhattan hotel room in March 2013 and performing oral sex on “Project Runway” assistant Miriam “Mimi” Haley in July 2006. Prosecutors also called actor Annabella Sciorra who said Weinstein raped her in the early 1990s and sexually assaulted three other women.

Illuzzi said Weinstein had what she called “a surefire insurance policy” to ensure that aspiring actors he assaulted would never come forward. He knew they were vulnerable and feared that he could ruin their careers, she said.

He kept tabs on the women he assaulted, she said, “to make sure that one day they wouldn’t walk out of the shadows and call him exactly what he was, an abusive rapist.” That included hiring private detectives, including the Black Cube firm -- founded by former Israeli intelligence officers -- to investigate the actor.

“Well, he was wrong,” Illuzzi said.

To contact the reporter on this story: Patricia Hurtado in Federal Court in Manhattan at pathurtado@bloomberg.net

To contact the editors responsible for this story: David Glovin at dglovin@bloomberg.net, Joe Schneider

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