Fyre Festival Organizer Billy McFarland Released From Prison Early

A little more than four years after he began serving time for wire fraud charges, Billy McFarland is no longer behind bars. Find out more about the Fyre Festival organizer's release below.

By Kisha Forde May 19, 2022 2:01 PMTags
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Billy McFarland is officially out of prison before the expected end of his sentence.
 
The organizer behind the well-known 2017 Fyre Festival was released on May 19 to a halfway house in the New York City area, his lawyer, Jason Russo, confirmed in a statement to E! News. 

"At this time, Billy is relieved to be out of prison and looking forward to working with a team of people we are putting together to formulate plans to begin paying the restitution back to those affected," the statement read. "Billy's primary concern and focus at this time is making restitution and fulfilling the promises made."

In a separate statement issued to NBC News, his lawyer also noted his early release, which is a little more than two years before the end of the original six-year sentence handed down to the 30-year-old in 2018, was due to McFarland earning "good time credit."

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The Bureau of Prisons also confirmed to the outlet that McFarland was transferred from a low-security federal prison in Michigan in late March, with Russo explaining that his client remained in custody at a second facility before his arrival in NYC. According to the Bureau, McFarland is expected to remain there until sometime in August.

In April 2017, the Fyre Festival—which was originally billed as a luxurious "life-changing" music event located in the Bahamas—caught the world's attention when festival-goers reported fights over food, "refugee camp"-like conditions, difficulties getting flights back to the United States and overall "chaos" at the scene.

Patrick McMullan/Patrick McMullan via Getty Images

In July of that year, McFarland was arrested and charged over his alleged "connection with a scheme to defraud investors," with his company Fyre Media LLC, prosecutors said at the time, and "a related entity responsible for organizing a music festival."
 
In March 2018, he pled guilty to two counts of wire fraud in federal court, resulting in a six-year sentence. Per NBC News, during his sentencing, McFarland apologized for his role in the fiasco, admitting that he made "decisions that were a slap in the face to everything my family tried to teach me."

TMZ was the first to report the news.
 
(NBC and E! are part of the NBCUniversal family.)

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