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Billy McFarland has defrauded investors tens of millions of dollars.
October
12 2018
2 min read
This story originally appeared on Engadget
Billy McFarland, founder of the disastrous 2017 Fyre festival, was sentenced to six years in prison in a federal prison, The New York Times reports. The 26-year-old was found guilty of defrauding investors, an act he acknowledged earlier this year.
McFarland then told prosecutors that Fyre Media had secured $ 26 million from lenders by lying and falsifying documents, for what was then touted as "the cultural experience of the decade". As we now know, Fyre Festival was finally the opposite, leaving participants stranded at airports and eating sad cheese sandwiches instead of the five-star meals that McFarland and his group had promised them.
Groups like Blink 182, supposed to perform during this event, never showed up in the Bahamas, where the Fyre festival was held. "The organizers assured us that all measures had been taken to ensure the safety and success of the event," said the Bahamas Tourism Ministry in a statement in 2017, "but they clearly did not have any the capacity necessary to organize an event of this scale ". Thousands of people also bought tickets thinking that they were hanging out with models such as Kendall Jenner, but that was obviously just another lie.
"The defendant is a serial fraudster," said Manhattan federal judge Naomi Reice Buchwald Thursday, according to a statement. ABC News. "Mr. McFarland is a fraudster and not just a misplaced young man, bad intentions have existed for a long time."
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