Craig Carton, once the co-host on the highest-rated morning-radio sports-talk show in the New York area, was sentenced to 3 1/2 years in prison for fleecing investors who gave him and his cohorts millions of dollars to buy and resell tickets to prominent concerts, musicals and sporting events.
Carton, who was heard daily on WFAN-AM’s "Boomer and Carton," was the highest-profile defendant in a crackdown on the largely unregulated $15 billion ticket-resale industry, where middlemen snatch up blocks of tickets and resell them at inflated prices.
He was sentenced by a former fan -- U.S. District Judge Colleen McMahon -- who said she generally listened from 8:30 a.m. to 9:15 a.m. on her way to work.
“Hello, Mr. Carton. Colleen M. from New York. First time, long time,” the judge said, before handing down the sentence. But then she got serious.
“You’ve lost everything worth having,” McMahon said. “It’s pretty horrible. And you did it to yourself.”
“If it sounds like a little bit like what a guy named Madoff did, that’s because it is,” McMahon continued.
Carton was found guilty in November of defrauding investors by using fake contracts to raise money for the ticket venture, and then using it himself.
In seeking leniency for Carton, 50, his attorneys submitted letters from dozens of supporters, including former New Jersey Governor Chris Christie, former co-host Boomer Esiason and comedian Joe Piscopo.
“His ability to entertain and engage an audience separates him from most other radio performers, especially in a competitive era where standing out is more and more difficult based on a plethora of media options,” Mark Chernoff, WFAN’s senior vice president of programming, said in a letter to the judge.
Jurors deliberated for less than five hours before convicting Carton of conspiracy, wire fraud and securities fraud. Prosecutors painted Carton as a desperate gambler continually seeking funds to satisfy a mountain of debt, going from one investor to another looking for more sources of capital.