David Frost, former agent and coach for former NHL player Mike Danton and others, has resurfaced. This time in the Los Angeles area.
The man known as David Frost/Courtesy: truehockey.com
For those unfamiliar with the story of Frost and Danton, check out our archive RIGHT HERE. This story has more about Danton RIGHT HERE and the end story is RIGHT HERE
Okay. So now you have a little background on what is a somewhat confusing and strange story. We'll try and summarize: Danton says he wanted to kill Frost, gets arrested for it and then says he didn't and gets paroled. Frost, for his part was charged with child molestation of the players when they were in the junior leagues. He was acquitted of those charges.
Now comes word that Frost has resurfaced, using an alias. Yes, we know this is getting really strange. He is apparently, under the name Jim McCauley, working at the Laguna Hockey Academy.
Read more about this from TrueHockey.com RIGHT HERE
Brother Jon is much more the expert on this story than we are, but it strikes us as being very, very odd. There may be multiple reasons that Frost is using an alias. It could be totally innocent....or not. We don't know.
We will continue to follow this story and see if there is more to it.
He's 29... and he gets to back a step in the process so he can reclaim his goal of playing professional hockey again.
Former St. Louis Blues winger Mike Danton ((pictured, thanks CBC Creative)), convicted in a reported murder-for-hire plot against his agent David Frost five years ago, has received an official okey-dokey to enroll at St. Mary's University in Nova Scotia. It's good enough for three classes and a shot at playing college hockey...
The HQ continues to remind everyone Danton is 29 and has ALREADY played professional hockey. Now, he gets to go backwards to go forwards...???
"I thought long and hard about it,” SMU AD Steve Sarty said Monday. "I've had a few sleepless nights about it. I've done a lot of research on the situation and I think people deserve a second chance.
"If we say no to Mike Danton, who are we going to say yes to?”
How about kids between the ages of 18 and 22...??? Just a thought...
"There's no question it's the right thing to do," SMU head coach Trevor Steinburg. "He has paid the price for a mistake he's admitted was a huge mistake. He's already been punished for it."
That's cool and all, but hasn't Danton heard of minor league hockey...? Either pursue a degree and get on with your life academically or pursue a career as a hockey player the way of the "lifer."
Danton seems to be turning in to "Graduate Student Guy." You hide in school to avoid the real world until the absolute moment you have to move out of your parent's basement. It's hockey's current version of "Failure to Launch."
The HQ is certain that Matthew McConaughey could play the role if only he figured out the whole skating thing...
Former NHL player Mike Danton was granted full parole Friday after telling the National Parole Board the target of his murder-for-hire plot was his father, and not his controversial and oft-scrutinized former agent, David Frost.
As conditions of his release, Danton is to have no direct or indirect contact with his father, Steve Jefferson, and no face-to-face contact with Frost, unless pre-approved by his parole officer.
Danton said he hopes to return to playing hockey.
“Given the opportunity I know I’ll be able to play somewhere, at some level,” he said. Yet Danton admitted the parole board was correct in that it would be impossible to play in the NHL if he can’t leave the country while on parole.
Danton, sporting a shaved head and crisp collared shirt, said he wants to get a post-secondary degree, noting he’s interested in psychology, and that he loves teaching kids.
A native of Brampton, Ont., Danton pleaded guilty in 2004 in the United States in the failed plot that prosecutors alleged targeted Frost, his former junior coach and NHL agent.
But at Friday’s hearing, Danton said the intended target was his father, not Frost.
While American authorities had alleged Frost was the target, Danton said Frost “turned out to be” the victim, but he was not the “intended victim.”
The confusing distinction was clarified after a somewhat combative discussion with board member Michael Crowley at the hearing, which was otherwise largely congenial.
Danton, who spent parts of three seasons playing for the St. Louis Blues and New Jersey Devils, explained that after canvassing a St. Louis club he frequented, trying to recruit a hit man, he called a girl he had been dating and she put him in touch with someone.
“The agreement was there would be $10,000 (U.S.) paid out to have the person I believed was coming to kill me taken care of,” Danton said.
He said paranoia had gripped him, which he blamed partly on the use of stimulants and sleeping pills, and he believed someone was going to his apartment to murder him.
“Why on Earth would you believe that?” Crowley asked. “That’s like talking about the bogeyman.”
“Over the years there were conversations that pointed to someone who would have interest in ending my life and ending (Frost’s) life,” Danton said, adding he received “verbal confirmation” from a family member.
He told the hit man to kill someone who would be in his apartment over two days, and Crowley noted Frost was there at the time. But Danton said Frost wasn’t the person he believed was coming to kill him.
“It’s clear that you thought it was your father who would do you harm,” Crowley said. “Right,” Danton replied.
The target of his plot was not contained in the agreed facts when he pleaded guilty to conspiracy to murder and Friday was the first time Danton has publicly said it was his dad.
The revelation illustrates the bizarre saga of Mike Danton, his father and Frost.
Danton said his childhood was dysfunctional and the relationship between him and his parents, Steve and Sue Jefferson, became so strained that he changed his last name from Jefferson, hasn’t talked to his father since he was about 15 and admitted to tearing up and sending back the letters they wrote to him in prison.
“I refer to biological family as Steve and Sue,” Danton said. “I don’t think of them as family.”
He alleged Steve Jefferson was physically abusive and that Sue Jefferson did drugs. None of the allegations has been proven in court. The Jeffersons could not be reached for comment.
Danton alleged his father subjected him to repeated beatings and would force him to stay home from school if marks or bruises were too apparent, or was told to blame them on hockey injuries. He claimed his father beat up his mother too, but that she had problems of her own.
Speaking about his mother, Danton said he would come home from school in the afternoons and the house would reek of marijuana, then his mom would stay up at night, vacuuming the whole house. But he also alleged a lack of hygiene in the house, saying he didn’t even know how to brush his teeth until Frost and his wife took him in.
There was no affection, no bedtime stories or kisses goodnight in his house, Danton said. But he said he didn’t know his family’s alleged behaviour wasn’t normal until he had sleepovers at friends’ houses and didn’t see drug paraphernalia lying around or kitchen plates thrown across the room.
Turning to Frost as a father was a “no-brainer,” Danton said.
“Do you stick with someone who abuses you every chance (they) get?”
When Frost became his coach at age 11, Danton clung to him as a role model, someone to trust. He said the way Frost has been portrayed in court testimony and in the media — as a violent and controlling, all-encompassing presence in his players’ lives — is a big misconception.
Frost was acquitted last year of four counts of sexual exploitation relating to his tenure as coach of the Junior A Quinte Hawks team in eastern Ontario in 1996 and 1997, a team of which Danton was a member.
In oral reasons for the decision Friday, the board said while it was a very serious offence, Danton has clearly benefited from therapy and would be a low risk.
He won’t be physically released for another few days and will be under parole supervision until Jan. 21, 2011.
Danton was sentenced to 7 1/2 years in prison in the United States and was transferred to a Kingston-area facility in March, when he reached full parole eligibility.
Former NHL player Mike Danton ((pictured, thanks Jamie Squire/Getty Images)) will likely spend at least several months in Canadian custody even though his time in an American prison for a failed murder-for-hire plot has made him eligible for parole, correctional officials said Wednesday.
Danton, a native of Brampton, Ontario, pleaded guilty in November 2004 in a plot that allegedly targeted his former agent, David Frost, and was sentenced to 7 1/2 years in a U.S. federal prison.
The American sentence translates to six years, two months and 14 days, said Holly Knowles, spokeswoman with Correctional Services Canada.
"Essentially, he's subject to Canadian law now, which means there can be changes in terms of the sentencing length," Knowles said. "According to our sentences, he has reached his (parole) eligibility date."
Danton had been petitioning for transfer to a Canadian prison since 2005 and was transferred to an assessment centre in the Kingston, Ontario, area on March 19, the date he reached full parole eligibility.
Carol Sparling, a spokeswoman for the National Parole Board, said no dates have been set for a hearing but added a review was automatic given the almost 4 1/2 years Danton served in the U.S.
"When someone is past their full parole eligibility date, the board is required to conduct a hearing -- the offender doesn't have to make an application," Sparling said.
Danton could possibly waive his right to parole.
In any event, correctional services would first make a "thorough assessment" of his case for presenting to the parole board.
Such an evaluation could include risk and psychological assessments as well as checking with the community Danton might hope to live in after his release to see what kind of housing or employment supports he might have.
"It does take time to prepare," Knowles said. "I would definitely say a period of a few months is appropriate."
Danton's plea agreement in 2004 did not identify Frost as the intended victim, and Frost has denied he was the target of the plot. But U.S. prosecutors said in open court that Frost was the man Danton wanted killed.
Frost was acquitted in November at a trial in Napanee, Ontario, of the sexual exploitation of two of his young charges, who cannot be named, when he coached the junior A Quinte Hawks, a team that Danton once played for.
In February, he was acquitted in court in Kingston of fraudulently using Danton's credit card.
TSN has learned that former NHL player Mike Danton, who has been serving time in a Federal prison in the United States, is back in Canada and could be a free man very shortly.
The Brampton, Ontario native pled guilty to "murder-for-hire" charges in November of 2004. He has served over four years of his seven and a half year sentence at FCI Sandstone, a Minnesota prison. After petitioning to be moved to a Canadian prison since 2005, Danton finally got his wish on March 19th as he was transferred to Kingston Penitentiary.
Under Canadian law, Danton ((pictured, thanks Jamie Squire/Getty Images)) is now eligible for full parole.
A source has told TSN that Danton, who spent parts of three seasons playing for the St. Louis Blues and New Jersey Devils, is now seriously considering a return to professional hockey. In 87 career NHL games, the 28-year old has nine goals and five assists while picking up 182 penalty minutes. He was the Devils fifth round pick, 135th overall in the 2000 NHL Entry draft.
Here are audio copies of the fourth jailhouse phone call Danton had with agent David Frost- the man who Danton wanted killed.
Former junior hockey coach and NHL player agent David Frost ((pictured, thanks Adrian Wyld/CP)), who had been charged with four counts of sexual exploitation, was acquitted on Friday of all charges by an Ontario court judge in the town of Napanee.
Frost was found not guilty by a judge, in cases arising from his term as coach of the junior A Quinte Hawks club in Eastern Ontario in 1996 and 1997.
The charges stemmed from alleged incidents involving two former Hawks players he coached.
The young women who dated the players when they were 16 gave emotional testimony during the trial, contending Frost masterminded and participated in sexual threesomes with the Hawks players and their teenage girlfriends.
One of the women said Frost, age 29 at the time, persisted in having group sex with her and her boyfriend for a number of years.
The defence conceded that group sex is common among hockey players, but vehemently denied Frost ever took part in the sex acts.
Judge Geoff Griffin of the Ontario Court of Justice cleared Frost of the charges, adding the trial "exposed a dark and very unhealthy side of hockey."
"It's extremely offensive and must be denounced," Griffin said in giving his verdict.
The women testified that Frost held great power over the young players and controlled every part of their lives, including telling them when they could have sex with their girlfriends and instructing them about specific positions.
Frost faced two counts alleging he directly or indirectly sexually touched the two players, while the other two counts alleged he instructed the players to sexually touch their girlfriends.
In his ruling, Griffin suggested the women's testimony was "possibly tainted by collusion."
Tom Harrington reports from the site of the trial for the CBC.
The biggest revelation brought about by the defense and their lead attorney, Marie Henein, is that David Frost did not invent group sex among hockey players. More specifically, according to Henein, group sex "is common in the hockey world."
Good to know...
Both sets of attorneys wanted to cause question with some of the witnesses in the case. Frost's lawyers are looking to discredit the Crown's female witnesses who were brought to the stand to give details about Frost's control over his players and the incidents recounted covering group sex with Frost and his players.
The Crown is looking to discredit defense witnesses who were the former players testifying they knew of what was going on since they were, indeed, former players who have been under Frost's guidance since the age of 11.
From the article...
"The players, ((Crown attorney Sandy)) Mr. Tse said, were unwilling to give any details about incidents involving Mr. Frost that would put him in a bad light. One of the players, he said, was 'seeking to protect' Mr. Frost."
"Ms. Henein said testimony from the women was inconsistent, and questioned their credibility - at one point raising a theory that one of the women had heard about the case involving Mike Danton (formerly Jefferson) and wanted to help him. Mr. Danton, one of Mr. Frost's players, was sentenced in 2004 to seven years in prison for trying to hire a hitman to kill Mr. Frost, who was by then his agent.
Ms. Henein also said the women's allegations may have been influenced by collusion, noting they had been friends since Grade 2 and had talked to each other about the case.
Mr. Tse, however, said their recollections of the events contained "details of truth," citing their memories of discussing with each other the possibility of a threesome, details of the alleged events, and one woman saying she slipped a bottle of bubble bath into her coat on her way to her first threesome." Judge Geoffrey Griffin is set to render a verdict November 28.
Neco Cockburn's coverage of the David Frost trial in Napanee, Ontario continues today with two more witnesses in the sexual exploitation trial. In the Ottawa Citizen article the former player under examination Thursday denied being under any control by Frost while Frost was the coach for the Quinte Hawks in 1997.
From the Cockburn piece...
"In testimony at Mr. Frost's sexual exploitation trial Thursday, both players contradicted evidence from several witnesses when they vehemently denied being controlled by Mr. Frost, seeing him assault other players or participating in three-way sex with their then-girlfriends and former coach."
That player had said previously that there had been a threesome with Mike Jefferson ((now Danton)) and the unnamed player's girlfiend at the time. The second former player testimony detailed an alleged three-way relationship with another player and his own brother, but not one with Frost and/or Jefferson ((Danton)). Both denied any kind of involvement or encouragement by Frost into that kind of activity.
Justice Geoffrey Griffin is expected to give his decision on Nov. 28.
Neco Cockburn's coverage of the David Frost trial continues as two former player for the Quinte Hawks testified about Frost's ((pictured, thanks Ottawa Citizen/Lars Hagberg)) coaching style and alleged outbursts that he had related to that activity.
Jason Flick and Colin Scotland, two players under Frost for Quinte, relayed the following when Frost took over the team:
"Frost appeared to take over the coaching role when he came into the dressing room during one game, broke a stick to get the boys' attention and told them they were playing terribly and needed to tighten up their game, Flick recalled Friday.
"Flick said during one incident, Frost grabbed ((Mike Danton then)) ((Mike)) Jefferson by the jersey and punched him in the face in the dressing room. Flick said he didn't react for fear the same thing would happen to him.
Frost swore at players, called them "pussies" and would "kind of degrade people," Flick said, calling him "tougher than any coach I've played for."
During one incident, Frost pushed an injured Jefferson against a wall in the dressing room and said something to the effect of, "You think you're hurt? I'll show you f-king hurt," said Scotland, a former forward.
"I was a 16-year-old kid, first time away from home. I was intimidated and afraid of Mr. Frost," he said, adding that he feared being sent home - which would be a sign of failure - or being yelled at.
Friday's testimony will come from former Frost players Colin Scotland and Jason Flick. It is believed that those two will relay in open court that Frost threatened and intimidated his junior players that he coached.
Justice Geoffrey Griffin also ruled that the names of the witnesses in the case can be published. Two of the women are set to testify that they were involved in "three-way sex" with their hockey-player boyfriends and Mr. Frost. This argument is one of the keys in the sexual exploitation charges brought forth by the Crown in the case.
From Cockburn's article... ahem... quote...
"The Crown had sought the ban to cover the names of Jennifer Hicks and Kristy Boyer, both now 28, who, as teens, were allegedly involved in the threesomes with their then-hockey playing boyfriends and Mr. Frost.
"The Crown also wanted the ban to cover the name of Marcia DiFazio, also now 28, who was allegedly invited to the hotel where Mr. Frost and some of his players lived and arrived with Ms. Hicks and another woman to find players involved in sex in the room, the court has heard.
The request had also covered two women, not yet named, aged 26 and 24, who would be expected to say that they were encouraged by Mr. Frost to engage in "two-on-one" sex, although not with him."
"Judge Griffin ruled that the nature of Mr. Frost's relationship with his players matters to the case, trusting that the Crown believes it can bridge the gap between the coaching style and the alleged offences.
"In doing so, the judge decided that evidence from former team trainer Charles Morgan and former players Ian LaRocque, Mr. Scotland and Mr. Flick can be heard. They are expected to testify about incidents in which Mr. Frost allegedly berated players, hit them with hockey sticks and dumped garbage on them. He allegedly punched a boy and threw a water bottle at another, the court has heard."
More from Cockburn on the specifics of the case in black...
The trial of hockey coach/agent David Frost ((pictured, thanks Ottawa Citizen)) began Monday in Nepanee, Ontario. Frost is accused of four counts of sexual exploitation involving two teenage boys and two teenage girls. It is alleged that Frost engaged in three-way sexual encounters with the teens. Frost answered "not guilty" to each of the charges when read in the courtroom.
The names of the accused can not be named because of a court order.
If the name of David Frost seems familiar, he is the alleged victim in a murder-for-hire scheme involving then St. Louis Blues player, and former Frost-coached athlete, Mike Danton. Danton is now serving a seven-and-a-half year sentence after pleading guilty to trying to kill Frost who had become Danton's agent after their junior hockey days.
Frost coached Danton in the mid 1990s when Danton, then known as Michael Jefferson, was a teenage player on the Quinte Hawks, a junior team of 15 to 21 year olds in Deseronto, Ontario.
Prosecutors allege it was during that period that Frost exploited teens, while he was living in a Deseronto motel and coaching the Quinte Hawks.
Crown lawyer Melanie Adams said prosecutors should be permitted to call witnesses to Frost's coaching tactics because the incidents demonstrate the degree of control he exerted and the authority he had over his teenage charges. "He always told them that he had the ability and the authority to send them home and end their hockey careers," Adams said.
The trial is expected to last until the end of the month.
REQUIRED VIEWING: Bob McKeown's series on CBC's "Fifth Estate" program. The most recent episode in the series is "Inside Room 22"
The series, that started the whole landslide of information, is "Rogue Agent"
Neco Cockburn's coverage from the CanWest News Service is in black...
The CBC's Tom Harrington has your preview piece below...
