(Bloomberg) -- Donald Trump won’t be joined by his children when he goes to trial in a civil suit alleging he ripped off viewers of his Celebrity Apprentice TV show for years by pitching investments in a doomed desktop videophone — a device he insisted was the next big thing.
Former Trump fans who filed the suit five years ago voluntarily dropped Donald Trump Jr., Eric Trump and Ivanka Trump as defendants to streamline the dispute ahead of a trial set for January, according to a stipulation between the parties signed Friday by the judge overseeing the case.
The sworn depositions of the Trump children “made clear” that the former president “was the architect, principal actor, and largest beneficiary of the fraudulent scheme,” plaintiffs’ lawyer Roberta Kaplan said in a statement.
As part of the agreement, depositions testimony from the three children — who worked closely with their father while his TV show aired — can still be used at trial. The former president and his company, Trump Corp., remain defendants.
Read More: Trump’s Doomed Video Phones Loom in Backdrop of Media Foray
“That is why we proposed this stipulation in the first place: Donald J. Trump and the company he used to carry out the scheme, The Trump Corporation, are the right defendants as we move toward a jury trial,” Kaplan said.
The case is one of several legal fights Trump faces as he seeks to return to the White House in 2024. Trump earlier this month was found liable in a civil sexual-abuse trial in the same Manhattan court. Kaplan also represents the plaintiff in that case, New York author E. Jean Carroll.
Trump’s lawyer, Alina Habba, didn’t immediately respond to a message seeking comment on the videophone suit. Trump has denied wrongdoing and argues the case — like the others — is part of a political “witch hunt.”
“It’s about time,” said Clifford S. Robert, a lawyer for the Trump children. “They never should have been in this baseless lawsuit in the first place.”
The plaintiffs, who seek to represent potentially thousands of others like them, claim they were duped by Trump’s promotions into paying thousands of dollars to become independent sellers with ACN Opportunity LLC, which sold a desktop videophone that the future US president touted as the next big thing. The clunky devices were made obsolete by smartphones.
According to the suit, Trump lied about his faith in and knowledge of ACN’s products and failed to disclose that he was being paid millions of dollars to promote them. Trump himself starred in promotional videos that were shown to thousands of investors and appeared in person at events for the company.
“Trust me — it’s changing everything,” Trump, who was paid almost $9 million to promote ACN products from 2005 to 2015, said in one of the promotional videos. “The absolute truth is that this technology will be present in every home within the next several years.”
The case is McKoy v. Trump Corp., 18-cv-9936, US District Court, Southern District of New York (Manhattan).
(Updates with detail on the lawsuit.)
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