The last day of Donald Trump’s fraud trial set off a frenzy in New York Thursday morning, with a bomb squad called to the home of the New York judge overseeing the case and crowds of reporters and spectators packing the courtroom to see the trial’s end.

Thursday was the last chance for Trump’s team to make an appeal to judge Arthur Engoron, who will decide whether Trump will be fined as much as $370m for falsifying financial statements to inflate his net worth.

Ahead of the hearing police in Nassau county on Long Island said they responded to a security incident at Engoron’s residence at 5.30am. Engoron and his staff have been frequent targets of vitriolic criticism from Trump throughout the case and his office has been bombarded with death threats.

Trump sat in the courtroom in a navy suit and red tie, flanked by his lawyers. On Wednesday, Trump’s legal team and Engoron clashed again over Trump’s unusual request to deliver his own closing arguments at the trial. Engoron refused to allow Trump to speak after his lawyers declined to confirm he would not use the opportunity to deliver “a campaign speech”, or “impugn myself, my staff, plaintiff, plaintiff’s staff, or the New York state court system”.

But Trump took the opportunity to express his feelings nevertheless. “What has happened here is a fraud on me,” Trump angrily told the judge. “This is a political witch hunt, and that should be set aside. We should receive damages for what we went through.”

The packed courthouse was reminiscent of other key days in the trial, when former Trump fixer Michael Cohen testified in October and Trump took the stand in November.

A small group of anti-Trump protesters briefly blocked traffic in front of the courthouse holding a banner and chanting “No dictators in the USA!”. When New York attorney Letitia James – who brought the case against Trump – descended the small crowd chanted: “Thank you, Tish!”

In a statement ahead of the trial, James said her team “revealed the full scale and scope of that fraud” and that she is “proud of the case we presented”.

“I am confident that the facts and the rule of law are on our side,” she said.

Trump sat facing judge Engoron with a stoic expression as his lawyer, Christopher Kise, called the case “insane” and said James was prosecuting a “victimless” offense.

“If there was a jury in that box, I’d be looking at them right now,” Kise said as he started his closing arguments. The hearing is a civil trial, meaning Trump does not face jail time if found guilty, and a bench trial, meaning the judge is the sole decider of the case.

Kise said that New York prosecutors are “dragging Trump through the door” in the case. He repeated arguments that Trump’s legal team had made throughout the trial: that lenders were not harmed by the Trump Organization, that the company’s accounting firm was responsible for the financial statements at the center of the trial and the statements came with a disclaimer that Trump has argued made them “worthless” – an argument Engoron has already rejected.

“Trump is an industry expert. He’s been dealing with banks for 50 years,” Kise said.

Many of these arguments were struck down by Engoron in his pre-trial ruling, issued in late September. In his ruling, he also put sanctions on Trump’s lawyers, worth $7,500 each, for repeating arguments that he struck down.

Undeterred, Kise ended his argument by appealing to Engoron, who he said had issued a“corporate death penalty” to Trump. In his pre-trial ruling, Engoron ordered that Trump and the other defendants, including his two adult sons, lose their New York business licenses, making it impossible for him to do real estate in the state. Trump’s team is appealing the decision.

“This is an extremely dangerous path, it’s a weaponization [of the law],” he said, adding that it “impacts every corporation in New York. “If you do this, it’s opening the floodgates for a commercial exodus” in the city.

After Kise finished his nearly two-hour speech, Engoron lightly quipped “that was quite a feat of endurance”.

It is unclear when Engoron will issue a verdict, though he has suggested he will do so by the end of January. Trump could face four other trials this year, including criminal trials in Washington and Georgia for attempts to overturn to the 2020 election and another criminal trial in Florida over mishandling classified documents. Trump also has another trial in New York scheduled for allegedly using campaign funds for hush money to a porn star. Trump has pleaded not guilty in all those cases.