Last-minute motions were filed this week with the U.S. District Court in Dallas as the tax evasion-related trial for North Idaho legislator John Green was scheduled to start.

A clerk at the court said Friday the trial was not on the docket, although it had been set to begin Jan. 6.

The trial for Green, who was indicted in 2018 in Texas for conspiracy to defraud the U.S. government, was initially scheduled for September. It was moved to January after U.S. attorneys asked for more time to prepare.

U.S. District Judge Karen Green Scholer granted the motion, calling the case complex enough that “the failure to grant a continuance would deny counsel the reasonable time necessary for effective preparation” by both parties.

Green, of Rathdrum, who is in his first term representing District 2 House seat B, is also a Kootenai County sheriff’s candidate and an attorney licensed to practice in Texas.

He has pleaded not guilty to the federal charges against him.

Tim Kastning of Rathdrum was sworn in Monday in Boise to temporarily fill in for Green during the latest session. Kastning is the retired owner of Grace Tree Service and a former aide to Congressman Russ Fulcher.

Green did not return phone calls Friday but filed a motion to compel a witness to testify on his behalf.

The motion, filed late Friday, asked the court to compel testimony from Don Gary, a Spokane attorney and former tax preparer who had called on his Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination to prevent testifying. According to court records, Gary had spoken with Green and the co-defendants in the past about preparing taxes for the defendants.

Similar compel motions were filed Wednesday and Thursday, and proposed jury instructions were filed Friday with the court.

Green has in the past maintained his innocence, saying he is being targeted by the federal government because he has litigated many tax cases involving the Internal Revenue Service.

“They don’t like it when you stand up to them,” Green said last year. “I’ve said this before. The IRS is a criminal organization...They don’t care about the law. They do what they want to do.”

A federal grand jury in Texas indicted Green a year earlier as he campaigned for the Idaho House of Representatives seat that he won.

Co-defendants in the case against Green, Thomas and Michelle Selgas, have been charged separately with tax evasion.

“The allegations are all absolutely false,” Green said last spring.

The parties are accused of defrauding the U.S. government by hiding money from the IRS in a bank account used by Green to hold money in trust for clients. Green is accused of maintaining several lawyer-client accounts as part of the alleged tax evasion scheme and of filing false tax returns. If found guilty he and the co-defendants could face five-year prison terms.