Carton Convicted In Ponzi Scheme Trial

• Craig Carton, former longtime co-host of the Boomer & Carton morning show for many years on WFAN/New York, was convicted on Wednesday in Manhattan federal court of a multi-million-dollar fraudulent Ponzi scheme for misleading investors in his ticket re-sale business. According to The New York Post, Carton was found guilty on all three counts against him, including securities fraud, wire fraud and conspiracy to commit fraud. He could be looking at as much as 45 years in prison.

Newsday reports jurors delivered their verdict on the second day of deliberation after a weeklong trial on charges that Carton had used deceit to raise over $4 million to buy blocks of event tickets to be resold at a profit, and then diverted the money to pay gambling debts and pay off prior investors. According to evidence presented at trial, Carton had used his industry connections for years to buy and re-sell small blocks of tickets, and in 2016 began working with two alleged co-conspirators — Michael Wright and Joseph Meli, to expand the business model. Not a great choice of partners, as it turned out — Wright has since pleaded guilty, while Meli is now in prison for running a separate Ponzi scheme.

Carton, 49, co-hosted Boomer & Carton on WFAN for ten years alongside former NFL quarterback Boomer Esiason until Sept. 6, 2017, when he was arrested and charged with running a Ponzi scheme, along with securities and wire fraud. He was subsequently suspended by CBS Radio and resigned a week later.

Carton’s investors included Brigade Capital, a hedge fund that invested $4.6 million in his enterprise. A Brigade official testified the money was only for tickets, and said Carton claimed he had deals to buy large blocks of tickets with a promoter and an arena operator, but two executives from Brooklyn Sports and Entertainment, the operator of the Nassau Coliseum and Barclays Center, testified that emails Carton gave Brigade had been altered or invented, and a purported agreement with them to buy $2 million in tickets for Barbra Streisand and Metallica concerts was fabricated.

After the verdict, Carton made brief remarks outside the courthouse, saying he was disappointed. “I need to let it sink in now,” he told reporters. “I’ll have nothing else to say other than my plans… I’m going to go home and hug my kids and let my lawyers deal with the rest of it.”