Donald Trump will testify at his civil fraud trial in New York on Nov. 6, following his three eldest children to the witness stand in a case that threatens to disrupt their family’s real estate empire, state attorneys said Friday.

The former president and sons Donald Jr. and Eric were already expected to testify. The timing became clear Friday, after Judge Arthur Engoron ruled that daughter Ivanka Trump must also appear and rejected her bid to avoid testing.

The scheme sets up a blockbuster stretch in the trial of New York Atty. General Letitia James lawsuit. She claims the former president, now the Republican frontrunner for 2024, overestimated his wealth for years based on financial statements provided to banks, insurers and others to secure loans and deals.

Trump denies any wrongdoing and calls the trial a politically motivated sham. The case could deprive Trump of some of his corporate assets and major properties such as Trump Tower. James and Engoron are Democrats.

Donald Trump and the two sons are defendants in the lawsuit, but the state initially calls them to the defense before the defense begins its case. The defense can then call them again.

In a surprise preview, Donald Trump briefly tested Wednesday to answer Engoron’s questions about whether an out-of-court comment was directed at his law clerk. The judge had previously banned trial participants from talking publicly about court personnel.

Trump said his comment was not about the clerk; Engoron called that testimony not credible and found Trump to pay $10,000, on top of a $5,000 fine imposed days earlier over an online post about the clerk. Trump’s lawyers paid both fines on his behalf but could still appeal, according to a lawsuit filed Friday.

Donald Trump Jr. will now testify next Wednesday, brother Eric Thursday and sister Ivanka on November 3, although her lawyers may appeal to try to block her testimony.

An appeals court dismissed her as a defendant in the lawsuit in June, saying the claims against her were too old. Ivanka Trump announced in January 2017, ahead of her father’s inauguration, that she would be leaving her job as executive vice president at the family business, the Trump Organization. She quickly became an unpaid senior adviser in the Trump White House. After her father’s term ended, she moved to Florida.

Her attorney, Bennet Moskowitz, told the judge Friday that state attorneys simply do not have jurisdiction over her. One of Donald Trump’s lawyers, Christopher Kise, claimed that state attorneys simply want to get off the hook again about another of President Trump’s children.

The idea that Mrs. Trump is somehow under the control of the Trump Organization or any of the defendants, her father, anyone who has raised a daughter over the age of 13 knows that they are not under their control, said Kise.

However, according to the state’s attorneys, Ivanka Trump was a key participant in some of the events discussed in the case and remains financially and professionally intertwined with the family business and its leaders.

Engoron sided with the state, citing documents showing that Ivanka Trump continued to have ties to a number of New York companies and still owns apartments in Manhattan.

Mrs. Trump has clearly taken advantage of the privilege of doing business in New York, Engoron said.

During her years at the Trump Organization, Ivanka Trump was involved in negotiating and obtaining financing for several properties, including a lease and loan for a hotel in Washington and loans for Trump’s Doral golf resort near Miami and a hotel and condo skyscraper of Trump in Chicago. , according to court documents.

According to the New York Attorney General’s office, even after he left for the White House, Ivanka Trump retained a financial interest in the Trump Organization’s operations, including through a stake in the now-sold Washington hotel.

In court filings that included emails and other documents, state attorneys said the Trump Organization and its staff also purchased insurance for Ivanka Trump and her businesses, managed her household staff and credit card accounts, rented her apartment and paid her legal fees have paid.

In 2021 federal disclosures, she reported $2.6 million in income from Trump entities, including income from a vehicle known as TTT Consulting.

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. A company accountant tested that TTT was set up for her and her brothers to receive a share of the fees from some licensing agreements.