Fyre Festival founder released early from prison

Fyre Festival founder Billy McFarland was released from prison early after just two years of his six-year sentence, according to his lawyer.

“Mr. McFarland is relieved to be out of prison and ready to re-integrate into society,” attorney Jason Russo said in a statement obtained by The Hill. 

“His sole priority and focus at this time is to do all he can to pay his restitution and make amends,” Russo added.

McFarland, now 30, departed a low-security federal prison in Michigan in March after an early release due to earning good time credit and arrived at a halfway house in New York on Wednesday, according to NBC News.

He was sentenced in 2018 after pleading guilty to wire fraud over the 2017 failed Fyre Festival, a now-infamous music festival in the Bahamas that never occurred and left most attendees without proper accommodations or food. Photos of conditions from the event went viral, prompting spiraling outrage.

The festival was organized by Fyre Media, a company founded by McFarland and rapper Ja Rule.

As a result of a $2 million class-action lawsuit settlement, the company agreed that each of the event’s attendees will receive just over $7,000 each.

The class-action case claimed that the duo of organizers knew the event “was dangerously underequipped and posed a serious danger to anyone in attendance.” 

McFarland also paid out several million dollars to two festival attendees who purchased VIP experiences.

The disastrous event has since been turned into competing Netflix and Hulu documentaries that portray the chaos that transpired during the disorganized efforts to host the festival.