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Westchester native and former radio/TV sports talk star Craig Carton was sentenced by a Manhattan federal judge for running a ticket-resale Ponzi scheme.
Carton, who grew up in New Rochelle, was ordered on Friday, April 5 to serve 42 months in prison.
In addition to the prison term, he was sentenced to three years of supervised release and ordered to pay $4,835,186.56 in restitution and to forfeit $4,590,000.
In a plea for leniency, the 50-year-old Carton, who co-host WFAN's “Boomer and Carton” morning show for a decade alongside retired NFL quarterback Boomer Esiason, claimed he suffered from an addiction to gambling.
"Gambling may be why you did what you did, but a gambling addiction is not an excuse for stealing from people,” U.S. District Judge Colleen McMahon said.
Following a weeklong trial that ended Nov. 7, 2018, Carton was found guilty of wire fraud, securities fraud and conspiracy for his role in the scheme, which was launched to clear his gambling debt.
He faced a maximum prison term of 45 years. Prosecutors requested at least 70 months.
“Carton solicited investments for his ticket-buying scheme by claiming to have an in with the operator of two New York-area arenas and a major concert promotion company," Manhattan U.S. Attorney Geoffrey S. Berman said. "He talked of his ability to buy blocks of tickets to live events and sell them for a profit on the secondary market.
"But the talk-show host was all talk. Carton’s purported agreements to buy blocks of tickets were part of an elaborate fiction. Today he has learned that the price of defrauding investors is a term in prison.”
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