NEW YORK — Five years after producer Harvey Weinstein’s since-overturned landmark #MeToo conviction, a prosecutor unveiled new sexual assault allegations involving a minor in opening statements Wednesday at his Manhattan retrial.

The ailing and jailed Weinstein was once a Hollywood power player who preyed upon young women in a “profoundly psychological” manner while holding their dreams in his hands, Assistant District Attorney Shannon Lucey told jurors in Manhattan Supreme Court, who said three of them would testify at the trial.

“Why did the defendant hold this level of power and control in the eyes of these three women?” Lucey said. “It’s because Harvey Weinstein defined the field. … He knew how tempting promises of success were. He produced. He choreographed. He therefore directed their ultimate silence for years.”

Lucey said that throughout the trial, jurors would hear from Kaja Sokola, a native of Poland who is now 38, about Weinstein allegedly molesting and sexually assaulting her multiple times starting when she was 16 and in the city alone working on one of her first modeling jobs. Jessica Mann and Miriam Haley are also set to take the stand to allege they were raped and sexually assaulted by Weinstein in 2013 and 2006, respectively.

The fallen moviemaker’s landmark 2020 conviction and subsequent 23-year prison sentence were thrown out last year by New York’s Court of Appeals, which found that trial court judge James Burke erroneously permitted a jury to hear prejudicial testimony concerning incidents for which Weinstein was not charged. He had been convicted on counts stemming from allegations involving Haley and Mann.

Describing Weinstein as now “a frail man in a wheelchair,” Lucey said evidence would make clear that he was once “one of the most powerful men in show business” who “was so used to getting what he wanted when he wanted. Even when the women he wanted told him no and resisted him.”

In a spirited opening statement, defense attorney Arthur Aidala accused the women of lying and manipulating his client. He said all three had engaged in yearslong, “mutually beneficial” relationships with Weinstein.

“He gets them jobs, and in return, they fool around — consensually,” Aidala said, adding the “casting couch” was not a crime scene and had been going on “since the beginning of time.”

“Was it immoral? One-hundred percent,” Aidala, said, at times growing hoarse. “Immoral on both ends.”

The defense attorney said Mann, Haley and Sokola had “four million reasons” to lie, due to their collecting a total of $4 million in civil matters for Weinstein’s abuse.

Sokola is expected to testify about Weinstein first molesting her when he was in his fifties and she was 16, visiting the city for the first time for a modeling job, allegations that have featured in separate civil litigation. Four years later, in 2006, he would subdue her in a Manhattan hotel room and forcibly perform oral sex on her “while she cried and said, ‘Please don’t do this,’” Lucey alleged Wednesday. Prosecutors have criminally charged Weinstein for that alleged incident.

Lucey told the jury they’d hear from Haley about how Weinstein began preying upon her after getting her a production job on “Project Runway” and forcing oral sex on her after luring her to his SoHo loft in 2006.

Lucey said Mann would testify about a toxic relationship with Weinstein, who was nearly twice her age, that began after she moved to Los Angeles from Washington state, where she grew up poor in an evangelical family.

When the Oscar-winning “Shakespeare in Love” producer sought to mentor Mann after they met at an event, she dodged Weinstein’s advances successfully until she didn’t, the prosecutor said, acknowledging several of their sexual encounters were consensual.

Lucey said jurors would hear from Mann and an expert about the confusing dynamic she had with her abuser, including a disturbing incident at at Midtown hotel in 2013 when Mann said no and Weinstein didn’t listen, raping her.

“She will explain in her own words why she attempted human connection with a man who was abusing her,” the ADA said.

Weinstein’s downfall came in 2017 when more than 80 women accused him of sexual misconduct in exposés in the New Yorker and The New York Times, supercharging the #MeToo movement against sexual harassment in the workplace.

The 73-year-old will be detained at Bellevue for the remainder of his trial as he receives treatment for chronic myeloid leukemia and heart issues. He’s pleaded not guilty to all charges in the case being retried by Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg, who attended openings Wednesday.

In December 2022, Weinstein was convicted a second time at a separate Los Angeles trial and sentenced to another 16 years in prison, a term he’s set to continue serving regardless of the outcome of his retrial.

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