- Trump lawyers will defend him and his business empire in 3 New York City courthouses this week.
- Testimony is beginning in the Manhattan DA's tax-fraud case against the Trump Organization.
Donald Trump's lawyers will be in a New York state of mind this week, when they'll argue on behalf of the former president and his company before state judges in three courthouses within the city limits.
Just one of the three cases could ultimately do Trump severe damage — New York Attorney General Letitia James' $250 million fraud lawsuit, which seeks to run him, his three eldest children, and his company, the Trump Organization, out of New York state.
That lawsuit is before a civil judge in Manhattan for a court hearing on Thursday, when Trump lawyers will fight the attorney general's latest moves in the matter.
James wants state Supreme Court Justice Arthur Engoron to quickly appoint an independent monitor to keep an eye on the company's finances. She also wants the judge to bar Trump from moving assets to something called "Trump Organization II," a new entity Trump registered in New York on the same September day her lawsuit was filed.
But the other cases in New York City courthouses this week could cause significant reputational damage and several million dollars in penalties if their juries reach guilty verdicts.
There is the Trump Organization criminal tax-fraud trial just up the street, which will start its second week Monday with opening statements by company lawyers and Manhattan prosecutors.
Trump's company faces nearly $2 million in potential penalties if found guilty in an alleged payroll tax-dodge conspiracy.
Prosecutors allege that for 15 years, executives received significant amounts of their pay off the books, in perks such as rent-free Trump-branded apartments that were then never claimed as income to the IRS or to state and city tax authorities.
The Manhattan judge in that case, state Supreme Court Justice Juan Merchan, will preside as a jury of four women and eight men hear prosecution testimomy by at least three company executives involved in the alleged scheme.
They'll also hear an aggressive defense that appears poised to insist these executives acted without the knowledge of anyone named Trump.
Then there is the third Trump case, a 2015 civil lawsuit which begins jury selection in state court in the Bronx on Monday.
The former president is accused in the lawsuit of siccing his security staff on protesters of Mexican heritage to attack them as they held a peaceful mock "Make America Racist Again" rally outside Trump Tower a few months after Trump announced his presidential run by calling immigrants from Mexico rapists and drug dealers.
That jury will eventually watch a pair of dueling video depositions, to be screened in a Bronx courtroom after being kept under wraps since their taping.
One from Trump will show him swearing under oath nearly a year ago that he didn't even know about the protest until the next day.
A more recent videotaped deposition from Michael Cohen will show the Trump attorney-turned-nemesis swearing under oath that the opposite is true — that the then-presidential candidate was the one who ordered his security to "get rid of them," meaning the protesters and their signs.
Trump's lawyers have repeatedly insisted on his innocence, and Trump himself is not required — nor is he expected — to attend court in any of the three New York City-based cases.