Radio host devastated by fraud accusations
NEW YORK – Craig Carton became one of New York sports talk radio’s most prominent and successful hosts by talking. A lot. Loudly, often and in soundbites filled with provocative opinion laced with snappy humor.
Yet for the last two months, after being accused of involvement in an alleged Ponzi scheme involving concert tickets, he has been silent. After his arrest Sept. 6 he was suspended from the Boomer and Carton show that he co-hosted for a decade with former NFL quarterback Boomer Esiason. Carton resigned a week later. Since then, until an interview with USA TODAY Sports on Monday after-
noon, Carton’s only comments have come in a statement or through his legal representation.
“It is killing me,” Carton, 48, said while sitting in a room at his attorney’s offices near Wall Street. “I made my living speaking and being opinionated on whatever it was I was speaking about. Now I am the focus of that. I am the subject that people are talking about. It is extraordinarily frustrating. It is maddening. It was beyond difficult to keep my lips tight for the last two months.”
If you’re not familiar with Carton or his unapologetically forthright approach to talk radio, chances are you’re not from New York. He’s a big deal in the Big Apple, a city that loves sports and enjoys debating about them even more. Carton and Esiason were a strong and high-energy double act, having jointly taken over the morning spot on leading sports radio station WFAN after shock jock Don Imus’ show got canned following racially insensitive comments in
2007.
Boomer and Carton grabbed the morning commuter crowd and generated a vibrant local following, then got picked up for a televised simulcast by the MSG Network and later CBS Sports Network.
Two hours before the Sept. 6 show, Carton was taken from his apartment in Manhattan’s Tribeca district and into custody before being released on a
$500,000 personal recognizance bond. Last Friday, a federal indictment charged him with wire fraud, securities fraud and conspiracy. If found guilty, he faces up to 45 years in prison and heavy fines.
The indictment accuses Carton and co-defendant Michael Wright of fraudulently procuring $4.6 million from a hedge fund. They allegedly duped investors by offering them large quantities of face value tickets for highly sought-after concerts to be later sold at a profit. According to prosecutors, the funds were instead partly used to settle gambling debts accrued by Carton.
According to his attorney Robert Gottlieb, Carton will plead not guilty at his arraignment Wednesday. Gottlieb said last week Carton will “fight these false charges with every ounce of his being.”
Although the fight has just begun, Carton said the accusations have had a deep impact on him, his wife, Kim, and their four children.
“It is devastating,” Carton said. “There is no other word for it. It has thrown my entire life upside down — I have to talk to my kids about things that they might not understand but that I know they are reading … adult things that no kid should ever have to read about, especially when you are talking about their father.”
He continued: “As far as the personal toll, I was employed for 10 years at my dream job. I have no income now. My life unfortunately is kind of on hold. The last two months have been hell.”
Chris Christie stands by him
On the morning of the arrest, Esiason, one of the nation’s most prominent football broadcasters, announced to listeners that “Numb nuts is under the weather and he’s not here,” a roast fully in keeping with their ongoing big brother/little brother shtick. Later in the show, having been told of Carton’s arrest, Esiason informed the audience that his partner was not out sick.
Since then, instead of giving his take on the sports news, Carton is part of the news. The New York Post alone has published no fewer than 33 stories about his troubles.
Geno Smith, the New York Giants backup quarterback and a frequent target for Carton’s scorn, jumped in on Twitter, gleefully posting that it’s “funny how life works.”
But Carton has supporters, too. In a telephone conversation with USA TODAY, New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie spoke of their close friendship, which stretches back 13 years to when Carton was on the radio in Trenton, N.J., and Christie was a United States attorney for New Jersey.
“I believe in Craig, and I believe in his goodness as a person,” Christie said. “I asked him when this all broke to be hon- est with me, and he said he has done nothing wrong and he is the victim here. Craig has never lied to me before, and so if a friend of mine tells me they are being wronged and I believe them — and I do believe Craig — (then) friendship is not just for good times but for difficult times too. That’s when you need to stand up.”
Christie appeared as both guest and stand-in co-host on Carton’s show during which Carton would mischievously try to bait the politician into saying something controversial. Recently, ahead of August’s Floyd Mayweather Jr. vs. Conor McGregor boxing match, Carton pranked Christie by thanking him on-air for supposedly agreeing to let Carton host a wild watch party complete with dancers and a DJ at the official governor’s residence. They did watch the fight together, but at a quiet family barbecue with Christie’s wife, Carton’s father-in-law and the children of both families.
Christie, as a former federal prosecutor, has urged his friend to have faith in the system.
“I have explained this to him,” Christie said. “There is a process you have to go through here. I still believe in the process. I told him there are no shortcuts on this, it is never fun or easy, but this is how it works.”
Many figures in the New York sports scene and beyond have loaned their support. On the day before the interview with USA TODAY, former Mets GM Omar Minaya phoned Carton and NBA icon Charles Barkley texted, both telling him to keep his head up.
‘I will do it again at some point’
In his 2013 book, Loudmouth: Tales (and Fantasies) of Sports, Sex, and Salvation, Carton wrote about being incarcerated. “My single fear is being locked up in jail. It’s irrational, but I think about it often.”
Now he is trying to take his mind off that very thing. Cases like this often move at pedestrian pace, meaning legal motions might not be filed until early 2018 and a trial might not take place until a year from now.
Carton passes his time with his family, but it goes slow. He watches sports still — even though it stings some. Old habits die hard. Which means the television stays on, albeit observed less intently than when he’d take in baseball games until midnight, then be up at
3 a.m. to prep for the show. And when the topic of his Twitter antagonist Smith is raised, Carton snaps back, delivering punchy verbal jabs.
“Geno Smith?” Carton said. “Who’s that — is he still playing football? It says a lot about Geno Smith’s career that I made him relevant again. (The Giants) lost by 34 points (on Sunday), and he still had negative stats. So I don’t worry about Geno Smith. Geno Smith’s career speaks for itself and mine does as well, and I would put mine against his any day of the week.”
Carton has a tough exterior, but his supporters stand behind the way he parlayed some of his notoriety for meaningful benefit. A Tourette’s Syndrome sufferer and with two children also afflicted, he heads a charity named TicTocStop. The organization hosts an annual children’s summer camp for Tourette’s sufferers and has also funded development of a mouthpiece designed to help reduce Tourette’s symptoms that is awaiting FDA approval.
“This is sad for everyone involved,” said Connie Smith, a Brunswick, N.Y., mother whose 14-year-old son, Ethan, has attended Camp Carton three times and forged a personal relationship with the broadcaster. “The camp has helped Ethan feel less alone and he has fed off what Craig has told him, that Tourette’s doesn’t define who he is.”
Carton has been a vocal supporter of New York police officers and organized a
2015 charity softball game that drew
18,000 spectators to Yankee Stadium and honored three slain members of law enforcement.
More recently, he took coffee and doughnuts to first responders at last week’s terror attack near his home in Lower Manhattan.
It was an act of kindness, and Carton was happy to do it. But in the back of his mind, he knows where he’d rather be.
“I think about (being on sports radio) every minute of every day,” he said. “You can bet your (butt) that I will do it again at some point.”