If that is so, then Trump's lawyers were given a favor.There was no choice.
It would have been relatively easy for the prosecutors to turn this into playing on the jurors' emotions of the super-rich getting unfair special breaks and the mentality of too-big-to-fail. Bench trial limits the hearings to pure legal arguments and if the judge doesn't play it straight his decision can be straightforwardly appealed on the merits of the law.