N.Y. Radio Jock Gets ‘First Time, Long Time’ From Judge, Then Jail

(Bloomberg) -- Sentencing a criminal isn’t usually a joking matter.

U.S. District Judge Colleen McMahon couldn’t resist.

“Colleen from New York,” she greeted Craig Carton, once the co-host on the highest-rated morning-radio sports-talk show in the New York area, now a convicted fraudster. “First time, long time,” she said, using talk-radio shorthand for a first-time caller, long-time listener.

Then the judge got serious, and sent the radio shock jock to prison for 3 1/2 years 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, 50, 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.

McMahon said she was a former fan, generally listening to the show from 8:30 a.m. to 9:15 a.m. on her way to work. She said she was listening on the day in September 2017, when Carton had called in sick following his arrest.

McMahon said Carton could "be a jerk" on the air, but she liked him because she knew that he had used his celebrity status to help people. But then the judged laced into Carton for his crimes.

“Good intentions don’t excuse deceit, lies and theft," McMahon said. "The money always runs out at some point, and only then do you realize the road to your own personal hell was truly paved with your good intentions."

Carton was found guilty in November of using fake contracts to raise money from investors for his ticket-resale venture. Instead he spent the almost $7 million paying off gambling debts and other bills.

“You have indeed descended into a hell of your own making," McMahon said. "Everything you spent a lifetime of building up is gone. Your marriage is over. Your family is decimated. Your kids are terrified. Your career is in tatters. Your reputation is lost. You’re exposed as a fraudster, a criminal, a felon.”

In seeking leniency for Carton, his attorneys submitted letters from dozens of supporters, including former New Jersey Governor Chris Christie, former co-host Boomer Esiason and comedian Joe Piscopo. Christie had urged the court to "show compassion," saying significant prison time wouldn’t be in the interests of justice.

"Craig, by the loss of his career, the destruction of his reputation and the financial devastation that has occurred as a result of this incident, has already been taught a serious life lesson," Christie said. "I am confident that he has learned his lesson."

The business of reselling tickets

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.

“The talk-show host was all talk," U.S. Attorney Geoffrey Berman said in a statement after the sentencing. "He has learned that the price of defrauding investors is a term in prison.”

Under federal sentencing guidelines, Carton faced between six and seven years in prison. In asking the judge to sentence him within that range, prosecutors said his arguments that he gave to charities, had a gambling problem and suffered as a result of childhood trauma ignore the fact that he "perpetrated a deliberate, extended and serious fraud."

"Carton’s fraud was not the result of an isolated loss of impulse control or a one-time stumble,’" prosecutors said in a memo. "Nor was it an arms-length fraud against anonymous or faceless counter-parties. Instead, over a period of months, Carton repeatedly met with his victims, communicated with them and lied to them."

Carton’s lawyers had asked McMahon to order him to spend less time in prison than the guidelines had called for. One of his attorneys, Derrelle Janey, told the judge that Carton has a “severe gambling addiction” that stemmed from the trauma of a childhood rape and he sought treatment soon after he was arrested.

“Just because there is an outward appearance of success, in terms of money or property, does not mean that prior trauma would not lead them to commit wrongful acts,” Janey said. “Some people can not overcome that level of trauma and Mr. Carton could not and did not.”

Carton asked McMahon to spare him from prison, saying he could do much more to highlight the dangers of gambling addictions if he weren’t behind bars. He admitted he had made mistakes and wasn’t innocent, but said he has a disease that he is "truly powerless over" and used gambling as a way to cope.

"Nobody has any idea what it’s like when the lights go out and you lay in bed awake with your thoughts and the demons come," said Carton, who will have to report to prison on July 15. “Some people are fortunate enough to seek professional help. I didn’t. Others turn to drugs or alcohol to numb the pain. Some sadly take their own lives. I turned to gambling."

The case is U.S. v Carton, 17-cr-680, U.S. District Court, Southern District of New York (Manhattan).

To contact the reporter on this story: Chris Dolmetsch in Federal Court in Manhattan at cdolmetsch@bloomberg.net

To contact the editors responsible for this story: David Glovin at dglovin@bloomberg.net, Joe Schneider

©2019 Bloomberg L.P.