Disgraced former radio host Craig Carton will break his silence Monday, when he joins ESPN’s “The Michael Kay Show” at 5 p.m. Question is, why isn’t Carton’s first conversation happening with his former employer, WFAN, and with his former broadcast partner, Boomer Esiason?
Esiason, the former Jets quarterback and Carton’s tag-team partner at WFAN for almost a decade, offered up an explanation, per Newsday:
“People are like, ‘He’s backstabbing WFAN by doing that.’ No he’s not," Esiason said on the air Monday. “He actually wanted to come on our show and I didn’t want that because I sit here with a new partner now and I don’t necessarily know that that would have been the right thing to do. And I don’t mean to get you into this and get you awkward and make you weird and all that other stuff ... At the end of the day, I didn’t feel like it was the right thing for him to come in here and be a part of this today. Not that I don’t love Craig or that I hope that he gets some back some day, I do. I really do. And I think he will be back. He’s just talented not to be back.”
The New York Post’s Andrew Marchand was the first to report that Carton would talk Monday with Kay. In fact, he tweeted the news during Carton’s sentencing in federal court.
On Friday, Kay explained how he landed the Carton interview. “He reached out to us. He wanted to tell his story, so we’ll allow it,” Kay said, according to Newsday. “If you have any kind of journalistic blood in your bones, of course, that’s an interview you accept. And you go for it. And you ask him the hard questions.”
For his role in a ticket brokering scam, Carton was sentenced to 42 months in prison and three years of probation. In addition, he was ordered to make complete restitution to his victims – most of the $4.8 million he owes has since been repaid – and serve 150 hours of community service speaking out about addictive gambling, which he claims spurred him to commit his crimes.
WFAN program director Mark Chernoff, morning show producer Al Dukes and former CBS Radio executive Chris Oliveiro attended Friday’s sentencing, but like Carton, left the courthouse without addressing the media.
Before Friday’s sentencing, Esiason, said he saw trouble coming for Carton, a self-professed gambling addict, per the New York Post:
“He was gambling up until last summer and I remember coming back here and saying, ‘I don’t think he has really changed that much,’” Esiason said. “His personality is still the same. Then I read he had a bet June 22nd of last summer and that’s right around when we were playing golf. Maybe that’s what he was alluding to because he actually did make a bet on the golf course. And I was like, ‘Whoa, wait a minute here.’”
Carton, 50, was arrested by the FBI on Sept. 6, 2017 in an early-morning visit to his Manhattan apartment and resigned from his co-host position on “Boomer and Carton” a week later.
Mike Rosenstein may be reached at mrosenstein@njadvancemedia.com. Follow him on Twitter @rosenstein73. Find NJ.com on Facebook.