Carton lawyer: He’s the victim
Disgraced WFAN host Craig Carton is accused of stealing millions of dollars, which his lawyer called a “gross misunderstanding” Friday. However, he’s already guilty of breaking the hearts of some of his biggest fans.
“I am a little bit let down,” Mikey Nichols told The News.
Nichols was paralyzed while playing ice hockey for Monroe High School three years ago. His foundation has benefitted from charity hockey games Carton helped to organize.
“It’s really unfortunate what happened,” Nichols said. “I understand why people want to look at him and say he stole money and whatnot. I don’t have an argument against that.”
Like Carton’s co-host Boomer Esiason said on the air this week, Nichols still “loves” Carton, who is accused of securities and wire fraud and could face up to 45 years in jail.
“The government’s allegations against Craig Carton demonstrate a gross misunderstanding of what happened,” his lawyer, Robert C. Gottlieb, of Gottlieb & Janey, LLP, said in a statement provided to The News. “Craig is a victim who was deceived, manipulated and used by individuals seeking to gather assets for their own fraudulent schemes.
“Craig is a good man, devoted to his family with a long-time personal commitment to giving back to his community.”
Carton was also known as a staunch police supporter. The celebrity softball games he helped to organize raised money for NYPD and the Port Authority police, another group scorned by this week’s stinging allegations.
“We’re shocked as much as Boomer was,” said one law enforcement source, alluding to Esiason learning on the air of his partner’s demise. “We had no knowledge of anything like this. Are we surprised? Yeah, sure we are. But we’re cops. Human nature never disappoints a cop. We’re disappointed every day by just what we have to deal with.”
Authorities said this week Carton was running a $5.6 million ticket-reselling scam that he was using to pay off staggering gambling debts. He’s accused of stealing money from investors, some of whom were also involved with his charity work, which puts his non-profit foundation, and the many fundraisers he worked so close to over the years, under a microscope.
Carton’s Tic Toc Stop works to improve the lives of those with Tourette syndrome, which he and two of his children have. The charity is also a link between Carton and alleged mark Doug Pardon, a hedge fund manager at Brigade Capital Management, which published reports indicate was a target of Carton’s alleged scam. According to Sports Illustrated, the fund may have been swindled out of $4.6 million. Pardon served as a cochair of the Tic Toc Stop charity golf outing in June.
On Friday, Carton’s name was taken off the TicTocStop.com website. A large quote on its homepage from Carton was replaced around midday with a video of kids attending Camp Carton. TicTocStop.org, another site operated by the charity, appeared to be down Friday afternoon.
A call to Pardon’s Park Avenue office was transferred to Brigade’s chief compliance officer and general counsel Aaron Daniels, who did not respond to a voicemail.
According to 990s filed with the IRS, most of Tic Toc’s revenues were spent on golf outings and an annual gala, making it seem the foundation didn’t truly improve many of the lives of those suffering from TS. Tic Toc reported $682,308 in revenues in 2015 and spent most of that on a golf outing at Trump National in Westchester ($231,667) and an annual gala ($285,700).
Tic Toc also sends a group of children away to sleepaway camp each July for a week at Camp Kinder Ring in Upstate New York, known as Camp Carton. Kinder Ring director March Rauch did not respond to a request for comment. Tic Toc also has not responded to multiple requests for comment. Charity hockey games Carton helped to organize the last three years raised close to $200,000 for the Mikey Strong and the Christopher and Dana Reeve Foundations that work to improve the quality of life of those with spinal injuries and also discovering a cure for paralysis.
“It was Craig’s idea,” Nichols said of the fundraisers. “When I went on their show, he was like, ‘We’re going to have a charity hockey game.’ It was his idea, first and foremost. I know Craig was very hands-on, putting things together.”
According to the Reeve Foundation, Carton never had any access to the money that was raised at those hockey games. Carton also did not have access to funds raised in a series of celebrity softball games he headlined the last few years that raised money for the widows and children of fallen police officers, according to the Port Authority Police. Last year, a softball game against cops helped to raise $25,000 for the families of five Dallas police officers cut down by a sniper while on duty.
In 2015, the “True Blue” celebrity softball game at Yankee Stadium, organized by WFAN, “The Boomer & Carton Show,” and the Yankees, honored slain NYPD officers Brian Moore, Rafael Ramos and Wenjian Liu, who were all killed in the line of duty. The event drew 17,000 fans to the Stadium.
There is no mention in court papers of Carton leveraging his fundraising as part of the scam. The federal case is ongoing.