Billy McFarland Pleads Guilty After Fyre Festival Fiasco

• March 06 2018
• Bob Van Voris

The millennial entrepreneur whose 2017 Fyre Festival began with promises of music and luxury in the Bahamas and descended into a chaos of badly constructed tents, cold cheese sandwiches and a lack of sufficient bathrooms may soon find himself in the no-frills…

The millennial entrepreneur whose 2017 Fyre Festival began with promises of music and luxury in the Bahamas and descended into a chaos of badly constructed tents, cold cheese sandwiches and a lack of sufficient bathrooms may soon find himself in the no-frills accommodations of a federal prison.

Billy McFarland pleaded guilty to two counts of wire fraud on Tuesday during a federal court hearing in Manhattan. Each count carries a maximum 20-year prison sentence, although he’s likely to be given much less.

McFarland became instantly notorious when patrons paying as much as $12,000 for a "life-changing" Caribbean music festival deplaned on the island of Great Exuma in April 2017, only to find port-a-potties instead of bathrooms and tents instead of private villas.

The festival, which McFarland organized with rap star Ja Rule, was to feature bands including Blink-182. It collapsed at the last minute, with people stuck on the island left to chronicle the lack of preparations on social media and to find their own way home.

Two Counts

McFarland was arrested on June 30 on charges he defrauded investors who bought a $1.2 million stake in Fyre Media. He was charged with two counts of wire fraud and two counts of making false statements to a bank. Prosecutors claim he provided false documents to investors in which he claimed his company, Fyre Media Inc., had taken in millions of dollars from thousands of artist bookings in a single year. In reality, they alleged, the total was about $60,000 from just 60 performances.

The U.S. claimed McFarland also altered a stock ownership statement to make it appear that stock he owned that was worth less than $1,500 was actually worth $2.5 million, allowing him to personally guarantee an investment. Organizers borrowed as much as $7 million in a last-minute bid to fund the doomed festival.

“McFarland promised a ‘life changing’ music festival but in actuality delivered a disaster,” former acting U.S. Attorney Joon Kim said in a statement at the time of McFarland’s arrest.

McFarland is free on bail. He was released on $300,000 bail July 1 after spending a night in custody, forced to leave behind his a $21,750-a-month Manhattan penthouse and $110,000 Maserati to take up temporary residence in his parents’ home in New Jersey.

In addition to possible prison time, McFarland and Fyre Media face more than a dozen civil suits and an ongoing bankruptcy liquidation, as investors and ticket buyers try to recover some of their losses.

The case is U.S. v. McFarland, 17-cr-00600, U.S. District Court, Southern District of New York (Manhattan).