Judge Engoron kept a back-up plan to keep Trump from any 'funny business': ex-prosecutor

Donald Trump may be on an invisible leash.

The former president was recently hit with an order requiring him to pay hundreds of millions of dollars for fraud in New York state. But Justice Engoron "for now" stopped short of ordering the "corporate death penalty," which he previously signaled he would, instead simply limiting Trump's business activities for three years.

Tristan Snell, who prosecuted Trump University when he was an assistant attorney general in the office of New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman, appeared on MSNBC's Alex Witt Reports to discuss the issue.

Snell said he doesn't "necessarily agree with Judge Engoron's decision to walk this back."

"I think Trump qualifies as the recidivist and repeat offender, engaging in fraud and illegality, not just in this case, but in the Trump University case I worked on, the Trump Foundation case -- in the Manhattan D.A.'s prosecution of Trump and organization for tax fraud and executive compensation," he said. "We're talking about somebody who is well beyond three strikes. We're talking about somebody, maybe this is the fourth or fourth strike. He is out."

Still, Snell said he had a guess as to what the motive was.

"However, what I guess Judge Engoron did here was to pull that back to use it as a bit of a sword of Damocles to hang over Trump, as a deterrent to hopefully cause him to not do anything else in the way of funny business, with regard to these assets, while this is pending appeal and to make sure that he's complying with the court-ordered monitor and all of the restrictions that were put in place regarding these assets that Judge Engoron already put into place."

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