Danton seeks resentencing, release

EAST ST. LOUIS, Ill. -- Former St. Louis Blues player Mike Danton wants a federal judge to reconsider the 7 1/2-year prison sentence he got for plotting to kill his agent, saying he unfairly has not been transferred to prison in his native Canada as promised.

In papers filed Nov. 18 in U.S. District Court here, Danton -- now imprisoned in Fort Dix, N.J. -- has asked Judge William Stiehl to order a new sentencing and free him in the meantime.

Danton pleaded guilty in July 2004 to murder conspiracy charges related to what prosecutors said was his failed plot to kill his agent, David Frost.

When sentenced last November, federal prosecutors agreed not to oppose Danton's deportation to Canada, where he wants to get surgical treatment for a shoulder injury and therapy for what his sentencing request calls his "grave mental disorders."

But, according to Danton's resentencing request, the Justice Department still hasn't decided whether to allow Danton to leave the country despite his claims that "similarly situated applicants have been approved for removal to their home nations, which include Canada."

No regulations require action on international transfers within a specified time. And Danton's deal did not require a transfer -- only that he be considered for one. Danton claims in his resentencing request that his lawyers have been told that if the Justice Department was to be pressed about the deportation matter, "the most likely outcome would be an outright denial of the requested transfer."

Messages left Wednesday with the U.S. Attorney's Office in Fairview Heights, which prosecuted Danton, and the Justice Department were not immediately returned.

Mike Truman, a spokesman for the U.S. Bureau of Prisons, declined to comment Wednesday, saying that agency does not publicly discuss specific inmate cases.

No hearing on Danton's request has been set.

Danton, 25, was convicted of orchestrating a conspiracy to commit interstate murder -- a plot that targeted Frost after Frost had threatened to tell Blues management about Danton's self-destructive behaviors. The plot eventually unraveled, and Frost was unharmed.

In September 2004, a federal jury here acquitted Katie Wolfmeyer, 19, of Florissant, Mo., of charges she took part in the plot. Wolfmeyer claimed she did not know Danton was trying to hire a hit man when she introduced him over the phone to an acquaintance, Justin Levi Jones. Prosecutors said Danton offered Jones $10,000 to kill Frost.

The plot was defused when Jones, a police dispatcher, went to authorities.

While Danton was being prosecuted, Frost insisted publicly that Danton sought to have him killed, but Danton never acknowledged in court that Frost was the intended victim. In Danton's resentencing request, however, Danton acknowledges he "engaged in an ill-considered plot to have killed his sports agent and longtime mentor, David Frost."