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        <title><![CDATA[Fyre Fest’s Billy McFarland reveals new project from prison, swears it’s no ‘scam’]]></title>
        <atom:link href="https://usagag.com/2020/04/03/fyre-fests-billy-mcfarland-reveals-new-project-from-prison-swears-its-no-scam/" rel="self" type="application/rss+xml" />
        <link>https://usagag.com/2020/04/03/fyre-fests-billy-mcfarland-reveals-new-project-from-prison-swears-its-no-scam/</link>
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            <media:title type="html">Fyre Fest’s Billy McFarland reveals new project from prison, swears it’s no ‘scam’</media:title>
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        <content:encoded><![CDATA[<p>Now he&#8217;s sending out smoke signals.</p><p>Convicted <strong>Fyre Festival fraudster Billy McFarland</strong> exclusively tells The Post he is starting a new endeavor from inside prison: crowd-funding money for other inmates to be able to call their loved ones during these trying times.</p><p>&#8220;Coronavirus is driving families apart . . . and visits are canceled across every federal prison,&#8221; McFarland says. &#8220;I&#8217;m launching an initiative called Project-315 to bring together and connect in-need inmates and their families who are affected by coronavirus. We&#8217;re going to pay for calls for as many incarcerated people across the country as possible.&#8221;</p><p>Prison, he says, has changed him.</p><p>&#8220;I see the important things in life . . . way more,&#8221; he says via phone from Elkton Federal Correctional Institution in Lisbon, Ohio. &#8220;I got lost during Fyre — thinking that I had to make it work at all costs. I realize how immature and wrong that thought process was. I&#8217;ve grown up in jail.</p><p>&#8220;There&#8217;s no question I totally messed up. It really makes me sick.&#8221;</p><p>In October 2018, the 28-year-old New Yorker was <strong>sentenced to six years in prison</strong> and three years&#8217; probation for wire fraud in relation to his ill-fated April 2017 Bahamas-based music Fyre Festival. He was ordered to pay $26 million <strong>in restitution to his victims</strong>, but right now he&#8217;s focused on footing the $3.15 standard cost for a 15-minute prison phone call.</p><p>He&#8217;ll be collecting donations via his new <strong>Project-315.com</strong>.</p><p>&#8220;First, I&#8217;d like you to know that I know how badly I messed up,&#8221; McFarland <strong>writes in a letter</strong> posted on the site. &#8220;I lied, deceived, and ultimately hurt many people in pursuit of what I thought would be successful business ventures. What I did was absolutely despicable, and the responsibility for the damages caused starts and ends with me.&#8221;</p><figure id="attachment_15420449"  class="wp-caption alignright"><strong><noscript><img data- data-src="/uploads/2020/04/billy-mcfarland-02.jpg" class="lazyload" src="data:image/gif;base64,R0lGODlhAQABAAAAACH5BAEKAAEALAAAAAABAAEAAAICTAEAOw==" /><noscript><img  data-src="/uploads/2020/04/billy-mcfarland-02.jpg" /></noscript></noscript><img class="lazyload" src='data:image/svg+xml,%3Csvg%20xmlns=%22http://www.w3.org/2000/svg%22%20viewBox=%220%200%20210%20140%22%3E%3C/svg%3E' data- data-src="/uploads/2020/04/billy-mcfarland-02.jpg" /></strong><figcaption class="wp-caption-text"><span>Billy McFarland</span><span class="credit">Patrick McMullan via Getty Image</span></figcaption></figure><p>Still, he admits to The Post, &#8220;It&#8217;s totally reasonable that people would think this is a scam. The good thing is, this isn&#8217;t for me — it&#8217;s for the families of inmates, who are suffering because of what their loved ones did.&#8221;</p><p>To get the ball rolling, &#8220;My friends are contributing off the bat, so we&#8217;ll help the first few thousand families and we&#8217;ll go from there,&#8221; he says. &#8220;I have a small business team of four or five people, a mix of tech and entertainment people&#8221; — none of whom were involved in the Fyre Festival — helping.</p><p>&#8220;All the money that&#8217;s coming in is going directly to the initiative,&#8221; he says. &#8220;I&#8217;m not on any of the bank accounts or documents and I don&#8217;t have access to any of the funds.&#8221;</p><p>Family members can apply online on behalf of their locked-up loved ones, and McFarland&#8217;s team will allocate funds to prisoners&#8217; phone-call accounts on a first-come, first-served basis.</p><p>McFarland has managed to convince at least one person he&#8217;s gone legit.</p><p>&#8220;Billy&#8217;s been a godsend — he helps so many people,&#8221; Elkton inmate Jebriel, 42, tells The Post. &#8220;I&#8217;ve never met someone in the business world — I&#8217;ve always been a street guy.&#8221;</p><p>Jebriel was touched last week when McFarland had $10 added to his account so he could speak to his father last week for the first time in six years. &#8220;I wanted to hear his voice, and Billy helped me out.&#8221;</p><p>McFarland was transferred to Elkton in October, after being thrown in the &#8220;SHU&#8221; — the solitary confinement unit known as the special housing unit — for three months at upstate New York&#8217;s minimum-security Otisville, for sneaking in a USB to work on a forthcoming novel. While he grew up in affluent Short Hills, NJ, McFarland still has to save his pennies for the prison commissary, where foaming hand sanitizer costs $1.55.</p><p>McFarland tells The Post he&#8217;s not worried about catching the coronavirus, but he supports the release of prisoners most at risk: &#8220;Elderly people who are at the greatest medical risk should definitely be considered for release.&#8221;</p><p>Meanwhile, he&#8217;s already making plans for his own future release —&nbsp;and he hasn&#8217;t totally let go of his Fyre Festival dream.</p><p>&#8220;I want to focus on the theme of Magnises [the credit card company he founded] and Fyre, which was to bring people together and create value through that,&#8221; he says.</p><p>And <strong>someone call Ja Rule</strong>, because there will always be a bit of the old concert promoter in McFarland. Although he wouldn&#8217;t reveal names, he swears one more thing about his charitable new endeavor: &#8220;We&#8217;ll have artists backing the project.&#8221;</p>]]></content:encoded>
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