Earlier this month, news broke that New York sports-talk radio host Craig Carton had been arrested after allegedly running a Ponzi scheme of sorts involving a fraudulent ticket broker business in order to pay off gambling debts. Now, one week after his arrest, Carton has resigned from his position at WFAN, announced by the New York Post.
In a statement released through a publicist, Carton calls the radio gig his “dream job” and assures he has “nothing but love and respect for my co-host, the show, and the entire CBS Radio family”. He continues: “Unfortunately, the unfounded legal issues currently plaguing me will only be a distraction to everyone at WFAN and the show I helped build. With that in mind, I have submitted my resignation to the station and they accepted”. Read the full statement in a tweet from ABC producer Matt Stone below:
https://twitter.com/MattStoneABC/status/908121493242073090
Carton has been the co-host of a show on New York’s WFAN with former NFL quarterback Boomer Esiason since 2007. He was suspended from the show the day he was arrested and the morning after his resignation, the once Boomer and Carton Show debuted on the station as The Morning Show with Boomer. “I think it’s a good move for Craig”, Esiason told the NY Daily News after the announcement. “That’s the one thing he has to take care of and that’s the one thing we want him to do. We want him and his family to get through this. He’s going to have to put all his energy in that”.
The name was not the only change the station made post-arrest and resignation. Esiason told his audience on that first morning as a solo host that, “they came in here and scrubbed this studio. Anything that Craig was part of in-studio unfortunately has been taken down”.
Carton is charged with conspiracy, securities fraud, and wire fraud after taking investments of up to $5.6 million he claimed would go into a secondary ticket operation that did not actually exist in order to pay off his own debts. He was released on $500,000 bail, but along with co-defendant Michael Wright, could face up to 45 years in jail if convicted. His lawyer, Robert C. Gottlieb, calls the government’s allegations “a gross misunderstanding of what happened.”
Read more about Carton’s ticketing scheme in this post special to Ticket News from Dave Wakeman.
