A trial that promises to offer the first public airing of convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein’s activities with teenage girls at his Palm Beach mansion is to be held in December, a Palm Beach County circuit judge agreed Thursday.

The malicious prosecution lawsuit that attorney Bradley Edwards filed against the Palm Beach billionaire has been on hold for years while various appeals were filed. With the issues resolved by the Florida Supreme Court last month, Circuit Judge Donald Hafele said the jury trial should begin Dec. 5.

While attorney Jack Scarola, who represents Edwards, had put President Donald Trump on the witness list, he has said he won’t need Epstein’s fellow part-time Palm Beacher to prove his case. The legal hurdles he would face to try to force a sitting president to take the witness stand are unnecessary, he said.

"We can prove our case without Donald Trump’s testimony," Scarola said in May.

Scarola claims Epstein sued Edwards in 2009 to punish him for representing roughly a half-dozen women against Epstein. The women claimed Epstein paid them for sexually charged massages at his mansion when some were as young as 14. Epstein eventually dropped his lawsuit against Edwards, but the state Supreme Court recently ruled Edwards could still pursue the 64-year-old politically connected money manager for malicious prosecution.

As part of a plea deal in 2008, Epstein settled the lawsuits that more than two dozen young women, including Edwards’ clients, had filed against him. The settlement agreements were confidential.

When he agreed to plea guilty to charges of solicitation of prostitution and soliciting minors to engage in prostitution, he also agreed not to contest the women’s claims. In what Edwards and others have described as a "sweetheart deal," Epstein served 13 months of an 18-month sentence. He was allowed to leave the Palm Beach County jail during the day to work, but he has been forced to register as a sexual offender.

That deal is the subject of a separate lawsuit now pending against the U.S. government in federal court. Edwards claims the U.S. Attorney’s Office violated the federal Crime Victims Rights Act by signing off on the deal, which allowed Epstein to plead guilty to minor charges in Palm Beach County Circuit Court. In exchange, federal prosecutors said they wouldn’t pursue charges against him.

In court papers, federal prosecutors recently disputed Edwards’ claims, insisting they kept victim’s informed as the nonprosecution agreement took shape. They said many of the victims refused to testify. They claimed they negotiated the deal because they wanted to assure that the traumatized young women received money to rebuild their lives and that Epstein would be forever branded a sex offender to protect other young women.

Edwards is to file his response to their claims by the end of the month.

Details of Epstein’s lifestyle were expected to be divulged in a federal courtroom in May in New York City. But on the eve of trial, the defamation suit Edwards filed against Epstein’s longtime friend, British socialite Ghislaine Maxwell, was settled. The terms are confidential.

Edwards filed the suit on behalf of Virginia Giuffre, who previously came out of hiding to claim that in addition to abusing her, Epstein let his high-placed friends use her as a sex toy. The men Giuffre identified, who denied the allegations, included Great Britain’s Prince Andrew. She also said former President Bill Clinton was a regular visitor to Epstein’s estate in the Virgin Islands, where Epstein now lives. Flight logs from Epstein’s private jet show Clinton was a frequent flier.

When Maxwell called Guiffre’s claims "obvious lies," Edwards sued her.

While all the dozens of other lawsuits Epstein has faced have been settled, Scarola vows the malicious prosecution one will go to trial.

Editor’s Note: An earlier version of this story incorrectly stated that Virginia Giuffre said she had sex with former President Bill Clinton. She said Clinton was at Epstein’s private estate when she was also there.