One of Trump’s attorneys believes Epstein was murdered, the other declined to prosecute Cosby

One of two attorneys named to defend Donald Trump in his second impeachment trial represented Roger Stone, believes Jeffrey Epstein did not kill himself and numbers among his clients “all sorts of reputed mobster figures”, including “a guy the government claimed was the biggest mafioso in the world”.

Related: Donald Trump hires new impeachment defence team after lead lawyers quit

The other declined to prosecute Bill Cosby.

Trump’s trial starts next week. He is due to respond to the charge on Tuesday. At the weekend his first team of lawyers quit, reportedly because he insisted his defence against a charge of inciting the deadly US Capitol attack on 6 January should be based on the lie that his defeat by Joe Biden was the result of electoral fraud.

Given that 45 of 50 Republican senators voted against even holding a trial, Trump seems likely to escape conviction. But the Ohio senator Rob Portman told CNN on Sunday it would not help Trump “if the argument is not going to be made on issues like constitutionality”.

The same day, Trump announced the appointment of Bruce Castor, from Pennsylvania, and David Schoen, of Georgia.

Castor is a former district attorney known for his decision not to prosecute Cosby in 2005 after Andrea Constand accused the comedian of sexual assault. In 2017, Castor sued Constand for defamation, claiming she destroyed his political career. Cosby was convicted and sentenced the following year.

Last September, Schoen told the Atlanta Jewish Times: “I represented all sorts of reputed mobster figures: alleged head of Russian mafia in this country, Israeli mafia and two Italian bosses, as well a guy the government claimed was the biggest mafioso in the world.”

He also discussed his work on police misconduct, but opposition to the movement to “defund the police”, and the Stone case. The confessed political dirty trickster was convicted of lying to Congress in the Russia investigation but Trump pardoned him in December. Schoen called Stone “very bright, full of personality and flair” and the case against him “very unfair and politicised”.

Schoen said he trained as an actor, “at the Actors Studio and Herbert Berghof Studio”, which he said helped when he appeared in a Discovery Channel documentary about Epstein, a well-connected convicted sex trafficker who killed himself in custody in New York in 2019.

Schoen said promotional work included interviews with “Fox, Good Day New York, and [the] Daily Mail” but said he had “had enough. Takes too much time away from legal work. Three different agents have called.”

Asked for a “last word on Jeffrey Epstein”, Schoen said: “I still think he was murdered.”