Billy McFarland is a free man. The mind behind the infamously fraudulent Fyre Festival was in the custody of New York’s Residential Reentry Management, the federal agency responsible for placing released prisoners into halfway houses for the past couple of months, after being released from federal prison. McFarland was sentenced to six years in prison in October 2018.
Initially, McFarland was supposed to stay incarcerated until August 2023. However, the law “allows inmates to earn increased good conduct time,” and “expands opportunities for inmate placement into residential reentry centers or home confinement”. The terms of Mr. McFarland’s six-month house arrest allowed him to go outside only to go to the grocery store or the gym. The entrepreneur still has 26 million in financial amends to make.
A few days ago, McFarland sat down for an interview with the New York Times. The piece revealed that he lives in a small second-floor apartment in Brooklyn. Apparently, the rent is paid by “family and friends”. He plans to rebuild himself a career in tech. However, he still does not know if he is going to start his own company or work at one.
As part of his plea, Mr. McFarland is prohibited for life from serving as a director of a public company. His earnings will be garnished until he pays back the full amount he owes his victims. He wanted people to know that he was sorry for what went wrong with the festival and for his actions.
“I deserved my sentence,” he said. “I let a lot of people down.”
Billy McFarland properly celebrated his jail release. In fact, reports showed that the entrepreneur threw a party in a cocktail lounge in Manhattan with his friends.
Stay tuned for more news!