By MICHAEL R. SISAK, JAKE OFFENHARTZ and ERIC TUCKER (Associated Press)

NEW YORK (AP) — A New York judge has scheduled an April 15 trial date in former President Donald Trump’s hush money case.

Judge Juan M. Merchan made the ruling Monday. The judge earlier had scolded the former president’s lawyers as he weighed when to reschedule the trial after a last-minute document dump caused a postponement of the original date.

Merchan had bristled at what he suggested were baseless defense claims of “prosecutorial misconduct,” appearing unpersuaded by Trump team arguments that prosecutors had until recently concealed tens of thousands of pages of records from a previous federal investigation.

Prosecutors said only a handful of those newly records was relevant to the case, while defense lawyers contended that thousands of pages are potentially important and require a painstaking review. Merchan, who earlier this month postponed the trial until at least mid-April, told defense lawyers that they should have acted much sooner if they believed they didn’t have all the records they felt they were entitled to.

“That you don’t have a case right now is really disconcerting because the allegation that the defense makes in all of your papers is incredibly serious. Unbelievably serious,” Merchan said. “You’re accusing the Manhattan district attorney’s office and the people involved in this case of prosecutorial misconduct and of trying to make me complicit in it. And you don’t have a single cite to support that position.”

The presumptive Republican presidential nominee arrived in court for a hearing scheduled in place of the long-planned start of jury selection in the first of his four criminal cases to go to trial. It took place on a uniquely consequential day for Trump and his legal and political affairs as, besides a likely determination of a trial date, a New York appeals court on Monday granted him a dose of good news by agreeing to hold off collection of his $454 million civil fraud judgment — if he puts up $175 million within 10 days.

The hush money case, filed last year by prosecutors in Manhattan, has taken on added importance given that it’s the only one of the prosecutions against Trump that appears likely for trial in the coming months.

The district attorney’s office said there was little new material in the documents trove and no reason for further delay, with prosecutor Matthew Colangelo saying in court Monday that the number of relevant, usable, new documents “is quite small” — around 300 records or fewer.

“We very much disagree,” countered defense lawyer Todd Blanche, who said the number totaled in the thousands and continues to grow. Trump’s lawyers argued that the delayed disclosures warranted dismissing the case or at least pushing it off three months.

“We’re not doing our jobs if we don’t independently review the materials,” Blanche said. “Every document is important.”

But Merchan seemed unmoved, asking Blanche why the defense team, which subpoenaed for the records in January, didn’t bring up concerns about potentially missing documents weeks earlier.

“Why did you wait until two months before trial? Why didn’t you do it in June or July,” Merchan said.

Trump has pleaded not guilty to charges that he falsified business records. Manhattan prosecutors say Trump did it as part of an effort to protect his 2016 campaign by burying what he says were false stories of extramarital sex. Trump on Monday repeated to reporters his claims that the case is a “witch hunt” and “hoax.” The prosecutor overseeing the case, Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg, is a Democrat.

The case centers on allegations that Trump falsely logged $130,000 in payments as legal fees in his company’s books “to disguise his and others’ criminal conduct,” as Bragg’s deputies put it in a court document.

The money went to Trump’s then-personal attorney Michael Cohen, but prosecutors say it wasn’t for actual legal work. Rather, they say, Cohen was just recouping money he’d paid porn actor Stormy Daniels on Trump’s behalf, so she wouldn’t publicize her claim of a sexual encounter with him years earlier.

Trump’s lawyers say the payments to Cohen were legitimate legal expenses, not cover-up checks.

Cohen pleaded guilty in 2018 to federal charges, including campaign finance violations related to the Daniels payoff. He said Trump directed him to arrange it, and federal prosecutors indicated they believed him, but they never charged Trump with any crime related to the matter.

Cohen is now a key witness in Manhattan prosecutors’ case against Trump.

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Trump’s lawyers have said Bragg’s office, in June, gave them a smidgen of materials from the federal investigation into Cohen. Then they got over 100,000 pages more after subpoenaing federal prosecutors themselves in January. The defense argued that prosecutors should have pursued all the records but instead stuck their heads in the sand, hoping to keep information from Trump.

The material hasn’t been made public. But Trump’s lawyers said in a court filing that some of it is “exculpatory and favorable to the defense,” adding that there’s information that would have aided their own investigation and consequential legal filings earlier in the case.

Bragg’s deputies have insisted they “engaged in good-faith and diligent efforts to obtain relevant information” from the federal probe. They argued in court filings that Trump’s lawyers should have spoken up earlier if they believed those efforts were lacking.

Prosecutors maintain that, in any event, the vast majority of what ultimately came is irrelevant, duplicative or backs up existing evidence about Cohen’s well-known federal conviction. They acknowledged in a court filing that there was some relevant new material, including 172 pages of notes recording Cohen’s meetings with the office of former special counsel Robert Mueller, who investigated Russia’s 2016 election interference.

Prosecutors argued that their adversaries have enough time to work with the relevant material before a mid-April trial date and are just raising a “red herring.”

Trump’s lawyers also have sought to delay the trial until after the Supreme Court rules on his claims of presidential immunity in his election interference case in Washington. The high court is set to hear arguments April 25.

Tucker reported from Washington. Associated Press writer Philip Marcelo contributed to this report.

By JENNIFER PELTZ and MICHAEL R. SISAK (Associated Press)

NEW YORK (AP) — A New York appeals court on Monday agreed to hold off collection of former President Donald Trump’s $454 million civil fraud judgment — if he puts up $175 million within 10 days.

If he does, it will stop the clock on collection and prevent the state from seizing the presumptive Republican presidential nominee’s assets while he appeals.

The development came just before New York Attorney General Letitia James was expected to initiate efforts to collect the judgment.

Messages seeking comment were sent to James’ office and to Trump’s lawyers.

Trump’s lawyers had pleaded for a state appeals court to halt collection, claiming it was “a practical impossibility” to get an underwriter to sign off on a bond for such a large sum.

The ruling was issued by the state’s intermediate appeals court, the Appellate Division of the state’s trial court, where Trump is fighting to overturn a judge’s Feb. 16 finding that he lied about his wealth as he grew the real estate empire that launched him to stardom and the presidency.

After James won the judgment, she didn’t seek to enforce it during a legal time-out for Trump to ask the appeals court for a reprieve from paying up.

That period ended Monday, though James could have decided to allow Trump more time.

James, a Democrat, told ABC News last month that if Trump doesn’t have the money to pay, she would seek to seize his assets and was “prepared to make sure that the judgment is paid.”

She didn’t detail the process or specify what holdings she meant, and her office has declined more recently to discuss its plans. Meanwhile, it has filed notice of the judgment, a technical step toward potentially moving to collect.

As Trump arrived Monday at a different New York court for a separate hearing in his criminal hush money case, he didn’t respond to a journalist’s question about whether he’d obtained a bond. Earlier Monday, he railed in social media posts against the civil judgment and the possibility that James would seek to enforce it.

Casting the case as a plot by Democrats, the ex-president asserted that they were trying to take his cash to starve his 2024 campaign.

“I had intended to use much of that hard earned money on running for President. They don’t want me to do that — ELECTION INTERFERENCE!” he wrote on his Truth Social platform. Referring to his properties as “my ‘babies,’” he bristled at the idea of being forced to sell them or seeing them seized.

Seizing assets is a common legal option when someone doesn’t have the cash to pay a civil court penalty. In Trump’s case, potential targets could include such properties as his Trump Tower penthouse, aircraft, Wall Street office building or golf courses.

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The attorney general also could go after his bank and investment accounts. Trump maintained on social media on Friday that he has almost $500 million in cash but intends to use much of it on his presidential run. He has accused James and New York state Judge Arthur Engoron, who’s also a Democrat, of seeking “to take the cash away so I can’t use it on the campaign.”

One possibility would be for James’ office to go through a legal process to have local law enforcement seize properties, then seek to sell them off. But that’s a complicated prospect in Trump’s case, noted Stewart Sterk, a real estate law professor at Cardozo School of Law.

“Finding buyers for assets of this magnitude is something that doesn’t happen overnight,” he said, noting that at any ordinary auction, “the chances that people are going to be able to bid up to the true value of the property is pretty slim.”

Trump’s debt stems from a monthslong civil trial last fall over the state’s allegations that he, his company and top executives vastly puffed up his wealth on financial statements, conning bankers and insurers who did business with him. The statements valued his penthouse for years as though it were nearly three times its actual size, for example.

Trump and his co-defendants denied any wrongdoing, saying the statements actually lowballed his fortune, came with disclaimers and weren’t taken at face value by the institutions that lent to or insured him. The penthouse discrepancy, he said, was simply a mistake made by subordinates.

Engoron sided with the attorney general and ordered Trump to pay $355 million, plus interest that grows daily. Some co-defendants, including his sons and company executive vice presidents, Donald Trump Jr. and Eric Trump, were ordered to pay far smaller amounts.

Under New York law, filing an appeal generally doesn’t hold off enforcement of a judgment. But there’s an automatic pause if the person or entity posts a bond that covers what’s owed.

The ex-president’s lawyers have said it’s impossible for him to do that. They said underwriters wanted 120% of the judgment and wouldn’t accept real estate as collateral. That would mean tying up over $557 million in cash, stocks and other liquid assets, and Trump’s company needs some left over to run the business, his attorneys have said.

Trump’s attorneys have asked an appeals court to freeze collection without his posting a bond. The attorney general’s office has objected.