NYC Radio: Trial For Craig Carton Gets Underway

Craig Carton

Former WFAN Sports radio personality Craig Carton used his popularity to commit fraud when he convinced people to turn over millions of dollars for an investment — only to spend it on himself, prosecutors said at the start of his fraud trial Monday, reports The NY Post.

“The defendant had one of the most influential radio shows in the country,” prosecutor Brendan Quigley told the Manhattan federal jury in opening remarks.

“People liked him, people listened to him, people trusted him — and he lied to those people,” Quigley said.

Instead of spending the money he raised — including $4.6 million from a single hedge fund — to buy bulk event tickets as promised, the 49-year-old Carton spent it on himself, including landscaping costs, to repay casinos and to pay off earlier investors, Quigley told the jury.

Wearing a sharp blue suit, Carton shook his head as Quigley told the jury they should find Carton “guilty as charged” at the end of the trial, which is expected to last roughly three weeks.

Carton then scrunched his face and frowned as his lawyer told the jury he was simply a victim of other men, including Katie Couric’s brother-in-law, film financier David Molner.

Molner has not been accused of any wrongdoing but he has been accused in a civil lawsuit in Manhattan Supreme court of being deeply involved in the shenanigans of convicted fraudster Joseph Meli, who is serving a six-and-a-half year prison sentence for a $100 million ticket-selling scheme that the feds say overlapped with Carton.

“The government is dead wrong and has been wrong about this case since they arrested Mr. Carton in 2017,” Carton’s lawyer Robert Gottlieb told the jury.

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.”