Billy McFarland

William Z. McFarland (born December 11, 1991) is an American convicted fraudster who co-founded the ill-fated Fyre Festival. He defrauded investors of $27.4 million by marketing and selling tickets to the festival and other events.

In 2013, McFarland founded Magnises, a club targeted at millennials, using $1.5 million of investor funding. He later founded and acted as CEO of Fyre Media, which developed the Fyre mobile app for booking music talent. In late 2016, along with rapper Ja Rule, McFarland co-founded the Fyre Festival, a luxury music festival intended to promote the Fyre app. The event was scheduled to take place in April and May 2017, but was aborted after attendees had arrived due to problems with security, food, logistics, understaffing, accommodations, and talent relations.

In May 2017, McFarland and Ja Rule were sued for $100 million in a class action lawsuit on behalf of Fyre Festival attendees. The following month, McFarland was arrested and charged with wire fraud in Manhattan federal court for his role in the organization of the festival. After pleading guilty to two counts of wire fraud in March 2018, he was sentenced to six years in federal prison.

Early life and education

McFarland was raised in the Short Hills section of Millburn, New Jersey. His parents are real estate developers. At age 13, he founded an online outsourcing startup that matched clients with web designers. He graduated from the Pingry School in 2010. He then attended Bucknell University, where he studied computer engineering, but dropped out in May of his freshman year.

Career

McFarland dropped out of college toward the end of his freshman year and founded the short-lived online advertisement platform Spling where he served as CEO.

In August 2013, McFarland seeded payments company Magnises with $1.5 million of investor funding, aiming to create an exclusive "black card" with social perks, such as club membership, targeted at status-oriented millennials in certain big cities. McFarland also launched Fyre Media Inc., the parent company of the Fyre Festival. In a term sheet sent to investors, Fyre Media claimed to be worth $90 million. By contrast, authorities allege the company did only about $60,000 in business.

On July 23, 2018, The New York Post reported that Anna Sorokin, a fraudster and would-be socialite, may have lived at the SoHo loft owned by McFarland for four months after asking to stay for only a few days. The loft was also used as the headquarters for the defunct millennial black credit card company Magnises.

Fyre Festival

McFarland founded Fyre Media and publicized a luxury music festival in the Bahamas, called Fyre Festival, to promote the Fyre music-booking application. The festival, to be held in April 2017, was advertised by a video which included a bevy of Instagram models including Bella Hadid and Emily Ratajkowski who, along with Kendall Jenner, were all expected to be at the festival. However, the festival experienced a number of serious management, administration and misrepresentation issues and was canceled after guests had begun to arrive on Great Exuma island. The festival subsequently became the focus of U.S. federal investigations and multiple lawsuits.

McFarland borrowed as much as $7 million in an effort to fund the festival, taking one loan with an effective annualized rate of 120 percent. McFarland defaulted on the loan and the lender sued.

The controversy around Fyre Festival were detailed in two documentaries in 2019: Hulu released Fyre Fraud on January 14, and Netflix released Fyre: The Greatest Party That Never Happened, directed by Chris Smith, on January 18.

Fraud conviction

On May 1, 2017, Fyre Festival organizers Billy McFarland and Ja Rule were sued for $100 million in a class action lawsuit in relation to the failed Fyre Festival that left attendees stranded on the island of Great Exuma without basic provisions. In addition to the class action lawsuit filed in May 2017, six federal and four individual lawsuits were filed in relation to the scheme. McFarland was arrested by federal agents on June 30, 2017, and charged with wire fraud in relation to Fyre and Fyre Festival. He was released on $300,000 bail on July 1. McFarland faced up to four years and nine months under U.S. sentencing guidelines, according to Assistant U.S. Attorney Kristy Greenberg. She added that McFarland's short but eventful career showed a "pattern of deception" and "overpromising luxury experiences that were not delivered". In July 2017, McFarland was represented by a public defender at a bail hearing after his previous legal team "had not been paid enough to continue to represent him". McFarland later hired the private firm Boies, Schiller & Flexner as representation.

In March 2018, McFarland pleaded guilty to two counts of wire fraud in Federal Court in Manhattan and admitted to using fake documents to attract investors to put more than $26 million into his company. He agreed to forfeit over $26 million. On June 12, 2018, McFarland was charged with selling fraudulent tickets to events such as the Met Gala, Burning Man, and Coachella while out on bail. On October 11, 2018, McFarland was sentenced to six years in federal prison.

McFarland is currently incarcerated at FCI Elkton, in Lisbon, Ohio. In April 2020 during the COVID-19 pandemic, McFarland requested compassionate release from prison to avoid contracting the virus. His request was denied the same month. In July 2020 it was reported that McFarland has tested positive for COVID-19 at said facility.