From Honig article
“ So, to inflate the charges up to the lowest-level felony (Class E, on a scale of Class A through E) — and to electroshock them back to life within the longer felony statute of limitations — the DA alleged that the falsification of business records was committed “with intent to commit another crime.” Here, according to prosecutors, the “another crime” is a New York State election-law violation, which in turn incorporates three separate “unlawful means”: federal campaign crimes, tax crimes, and falsification of still more documents. Inexcusably, the DA refused to specify what those unlawful means actually were — and the judge declined to force them to pony up — until right before closing arguments. So much for the constitutional obligation to provide notice to the defendant of the accusations against him in advance of trial. (This, folks, is what indictments are for.)
In these key respects, the charges against Trump aren’t just unusual. They’re bespoke, seemingly crafted individually for the former president and nobody else.”
Not only were the underlying 'crimes' alleged to be covered up by the bookkeeping entries not specified until closing arguments, in New York state court the defense presents closing arguments first, then the prosecution presents closing arguments last, opposite of almost every other state and federal procedure.
So not only was defense not on notice as to what specific crime was alleged, the defense had no opportunity to rebut any of the prosecution's allegations made in closing arguments to the jury.