The attorney defending a man accused of raping a woman at gunpoint told a jury Thursday that the accuser was most likely a prostitute whose story about the attack should not be believed.

"It was a business deal that went wrong," the lawyer, Ivan J. Bates, said in Baltimore County Circuit Court in the trial of Rhasaan Harcum, 31, who was charged along with another man with abducting, beating and sexually assaulting the woman Sept. 28, 2000, in a Gwynn Oak park. "For all we know, she's a prostitute."

In closing arguments, Bates suggested that the woman - who acknowledged working at the time as a stripper in downtown Baltimore but denied selling sex for money - concocted the story about a rape after a paid liaison with the two men went awry. Pointing to variations in the woman's accounts of the attack immediately after it occurred and when she took the stand on Tuesday, Bates repeatedly called her a liar.

"It was a working day," Bates said. "She acted like this was the most traumatic experience of her life."

Prosecutor Rachel Karceski challenged that. "The defense wants you to believe that because there are inconsistencies, it's all a lie," she said. Referring to the woman's testimony, she said that "the most genuine thing you heard in the last few days was fear."

Karceski said the assault was so traumatic that recollections of details were smothered in confusion. "The impossible thing to forget is the heinous act," she said. Because the woman was "consumed with fear," and in an effort at self-preservation, her mind blocked out some of the incident's more disturbing experiences, the prosecutor said.

Harcum and Charnard Demon Jones, 31, were charged after DNA matches in 2007 linked them to the case. Just before their joint trial was to have begun Tuesday, Jones pleaded guilty to first-degree rape and was given a life sentence with all but 20 years suspended. Harcum elected to proceed with the trial.

Karceski contended that the two men went to The Block specifically to abduct a woman "to rape and attack," a woman whose absence "no one would notice," about whose welfare "no one would care."

When the prosecutor concluded her remarks, the case was given to the jury, which was to begin deliberations today.