Wednesday, November 30, 2005

The troublesome case of Mike Danton

The CBC's Fifth Estate examines the controversial life of former NHLer Mike Danton, the young man presently serving time in an American jail, for putting a hit out on his former agent.

It's a convoluted story line, with former agent David Frost seemingly taking on a much more important role in the young mans life, much beyond that of an agent and former minor hockey coach. A situation that gave Danton's family cause for concern over the years.

FBI surveillance tapes will be featured in the CBC program, tapes which shows an unusual amount of control by Frost over the life of the young man who would eventually seek out someone to kill his agent. Interestingly enough those tapes include jailhouse conversations between Danton and Frost, shortly after he's been arrested for conspiracy to murder charges. It's certainly a strange situation when the target of a murder, continues to offer advice and representation to the person who tried to have him killed. A situation that has raised more than a few eyebrows and red flags over the last couple of years.

The background aspects of this story paint a picture of a troubled young man, who's family life seemed to disintegrate as his time with Frost went on. As time went on Danton would become self destructive and more distant from his family, eventually changing his surname from his birth name of Jefferson, to the name of Danton that he goes under now.

For his part Frost suggests that this story is not over yet by a long shot, stating that once Danton is back on Canadian soil the real story will come out, which according to Frost involves wrongdoing by the FBI. Danton, presently incarcerated in New Jersey, is seeking out the opportunity to serve his sentence out in a Canadian jail which he says was promised to him at the time of his sentencing, which is a regular practice when nationals of each country are convicted in the other.

The show airs across Canada at 9 pm local time on the national CBC. It should make for quite a bit of conversation over the next while, as the Fifth Estate investigates a troublesome relationship between player and agent.

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