The man who hosted the notorious Fyre Festival and was later convicted of fraud charges has been moved out of solitary confinement six months after he was placed there for giving a podcast interview from prison.
Billy McFarland, 29, had been held in solitary confinement in FCI Elkton prison in Lisbon, Ohio after he appeared from prison in a podcast called Dumpster Fyre in October in which he apologized for the April 2017 festival.
In a database managed by the Bureau of Prisons to locate inmates, he is now listed as being held in FTC Oklahoma City after getting transferred, Insider first spotted.
‘He’s got his freedom back,’ McFarland’s attorney, Jason Russo, told the outlet.
Fyre Festival host Billy McFarland, 29, has been moved out of solitary confinement six months after he was placed there for giving a podcast interview from prison
McFarland, 29, had been held in solitary confinement in FCI Elkton prison in Lisbon, Ohio
In a database managed by the Bureau of Prisons to locate inmates, he is now listed as being held in FTC Oklahoma City
Russo claims his client was slapped with administrative charges as punishment for participating in the podcast, with prison administrators claiming he violated inmate rules in order to participate in the podcast.
There are many podcasts that feature prison inmates, including Pulitzer Prize nominated podcast Ear Hustle from inmates in San Quentin prison and Sounds From the Slammer – a podcast that lets listeners hear music performed and written by inmates in prisons across the country.
‘It was punitive. At first, they said he violated rules by speaking to the media — which there is no such rule,’ Russo told Insider.
‘Then they accused him of doing three-way calls, which you’re not allowed to do — but these were not three-way calls.’
Russo also said that prison administrators punished him for photos of himself that were posted to Instagram. He told the outlet that he doesn’t know who is in charge of the account, which claims to be managed by ‘Billy’s Team.’
However, Russo said that inmates are allowed to take and share photos with disposable cameras sold in the prison commissary, Insider reported.
‘Every picture that was sent out was taken with a commissary camera and approved to be distributed,’ Russo said.
All of the administrative charges but one were dropped, Russo told Insider. He was put into solitary confinement for 90 days on a rule that prohibits inmates from sharing commissary funds.
Disastrous Fyre Festival in Bahamas is a major fail and canceled as guests who paid $13,000 for a trashy unfinished site and canceled performances
A picture shows a ‘sandwich’ at the infamous Fyre Festival in the Bahamas in 2017
Created by Billy McFarland and rapper Ja Rule, Fyre was promoted as a luxury music festival on a private island in the Bahamas featuring bikini-clad supermodels. It was not.
People arrived on the island of Great Exuma to find a scene more closely resembling a disaster relief camp than a luxury festival
Billy McFarland is pictured in a Netflix documentary about the disastrous Fyre Festival
McFarland’s stay in solitary confinement was then extended before he was ultimately transferred to the Oklahoma prison, according to the outlet. It was not immediately clear why his stay in solitary confinement was extended.
A group of 277 Fyre Festival ticket holders are set to receive a pay-out of around $7,220 each following a class action lawsuit, four years after the disastrous event left guests stranded on an island in the Bahamas.
The settlement comes after a $2 million class-action lawsuit brought against the organizers of the event came to a conclusion on Tuesday in U.S. Bankruptcy Court in the Southern District of New York. The final amount is pending approval.
McFarland and rapper Ja Rule obtained millions in investment with the promise of putting on a first-of-its-kind, luxury music festival event in The Bahamas with models, DJs, luxury dwellings and extravagant meals.
They paid models like Kendall Jenner to promote the event on Instagram and blasted seduction promo videos and pictures to lure people into buying tickets that were sold at thousands of dollars each.
A photo posted to an Instagram account run by ‘Billy’s team’ shows him in prison
But the event was a disaster, with people arriving on the island of Great Exuma to find a scene more closely resembling a disaster relief camp than a luxury festival.
Court filing documents described the scene met by concert goers upon their arrival as ‘total disorganization and chaos.’ The ‘luxury accommodations’ were FEMA disaster relief tents, the ‘gourmet food’ was barely passable cheese sandwiches served in Styrofoam containers and the ‘hottest musical acts’ nowhere to be seen.
The festival sold a total of around 8,000 tickets for two weekends. With attendees having spent between $1,000 to $12,000 on ticket to the festival, it was cancelled on its opening day, leaving people stuck on the island without many basic amnesties.
Two documentaries, one on Netflix and another on Hulu, were made detailing the event’s organization and ensuing chaos.
McFarland was arrested in June 2017 and pleaded guilty to numerous fraud charges relating to both the Fyre Festival and his company NYC CIP Access, which also sold fake tickets to events such as the Met Gala.
He was sentenced to six years in prison in October 2018 and ordered to pay $5 million to two North Carolina residents who spent about $13,000 each of VIP packages to the Fyre Festival. Ja Rule was cleared of any wrongdoing a year later.
Numerous lawsuits were also filed against the pair, and McFarland apologized.
‘I cannot emphasize enough how sorry I am that we fell short of our goal,’ McFarland said in a statement in 2017, but he declined to comment on specific allegations.
‘I’m committed to, and working actively to, find a way to make this right, not just for investors but for those who planned to attend.’
The organizers attributed the event’s cancellation to a number of factors, including the weather. But some employees of the Fyre company said its bosses has invented features of the event – such as $400,000 accommodation called the ‘Artist’s Palace ticket package – just to see if people would by them.
While the final amount of compensation given to attendees could be lower pending the outcome of Fyre’s bankruptcy case with other creditors, a lawyer representing the ticket holders said he was happy with the outcome.
A vote to approve the final amount will take place on May 13.
