Billy McFarland, the fraudster who was jailed for his role in the failed Fyre Festival, threw a massive party to celebrate his release from prison.
McFarland was jailed after he was adjudged to have defrauded $27.4 million from investors into the ill-fated music festival, as well as selling tickets to the festival and other similar events.
He was sentenced to six years in federal prison back in 2018, but is now out and decided to celebrate his release by holding a get-together at a cocktail lounge in Manhattan.
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McFarland’s publicist also arranged a photoshoot and interview with the New York Times too, during which he announced that he’s planning for a career rebound in technology, and that he’s dropped his plan to write a memoir.
That last part is because it is unlikely to be able to help him pay off the huge bill that he owes to investors into Fyre Festival.
During his time in prison, it is believed that McFarland spent quite a bit of time in solitary confinement because of his refusal to respect prison rules.
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First, he allegedly attempted to smuggle a USB stick into the prison, before he then recorded a podcast on a prison payphone, which is also in contravention of the penitentiary rules.
In the interview, he also revealed that his apartment in New York’s Bedford-Stuyvesant neighbourhood is being paid for by his parents, and his $700 trainers are from before he entered his guilty plea.
After his release, he had to spend six months living at a halfway house in New York whilst wearing an ankle bracelet, and clearly he was upset at the circumstances by which it was removed.
McFarland said: “I thought it was going to be a big process, but it turns out they just hand you scissors and you cut it off.”
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Explaining his future plans for tech business, he said: “If I worked in finance, I think it would be harder to get back. Tech is more open.
“And the way I failed is totally wrong, but in a certain sense, failure is OK in entrepreneurship.”
Of his jail time, he said: “I deserved my sentence. I let a lot of people down.”
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McFarland also said that a lot of his choices were made through inexperience and ‘immaturity’, adding: “I didn’t know what I didn’t know.
“I lied, think I was scared. And the fear was letting down people who believed in me — showing them they weren't right.”
Fyre Festival was billed as a luxury event when it was launched in 2017.
Alongside rapper Ja Rule, McFarland paid huge celebrities to publicise the event in the Bahamas, luring people into paying thousands for tickets with false promises.
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In the end, it turned out to be a disaster, described in court documents as ‘total disorganisation and chaos’.
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Tom Wood