A Manhattan federal jury has convicted sports radio personality Craig Carton of fraud — setting the fallen “Boomer and Carton” co-host up for as much as 45 years in prison.
After less than a day of deliberations, the jury of three men and nine women found Carton guilty on all counts, including securities fraud, wire fraud and conspiracy to commit fraud.
Carton looked straight ahead as the jury read the verdict.
The roughly one-week trial included testimony from hedge fund executives who said they gave Carton millions as an investment in bulk event tickets, including a national tour by Metallica and two Barbra Streisand concerts.
Documents showed that the money instead went to pay Carton’s personal expenses, including his gambling loans.
At the time, Carton was spending big bucks at casinos — even borrowing money from loan sharks to fund his casino trips, according to witness testimony.
One of those loan sharks was Desmond Finger, a general manager of Upper East Side strip club Sapphire 39, who told the jury he gave Carton several short-term, high-interest loans to finance his casino trips in 2016 and 2017. Finger lost money in 2017, however, when Carton failed to make good on a $500,000 loan, the strip club manager testified.
The men held a sit-down at the jiggle joint — along with Michael Wright, who has pleaded guilty to helping Carton’s fraud — but it went nowhere, Finger said.
“He yes’d me and yes’d me and yes’d me,” he said.
The feds also submitted as evidence doctored emails by Carton, including one he pretended was from Fred Mangione, chief of staff of Brooklyn Sports & Entertainment, which owns the Barclays Center and the Nassau Veterans Memorial Coliseum.
The allegedly fake Mangione email included minor mistakes in Mangione’s signature section of his email, including listing his title as “Chief of Staff” instead of “Chief Of Staff,” the government’s evidence showed.
Carton resigned from WFAN’s top-rated “Boomer and Carton” radio program a week after his arrest.
He currently has a show on the FNTSY Sports Network called “Carton & Friends.”
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