The saga of the infamous Fyre Festival will never end. Even three years after “businessman” Billy MacFarland and rapper Ja Rule‘s doomed vacation getaway music festival for social media influencers and the ultra wealthy, the story continues to develop as now the U.S Marshall Service has begun to auction off seized Fyre Festival merchandise.
After the music festival was held at a “private island” (aka Exuma, a not-private island) in the Bahamas in May 2017 with disastrous results, MacFarland filed for bankruptcy, was sentenced to six years in prison, and was assessed a $26 million fine for a variety of fraud. Yet this doesn’t even address the $100 million class action suit brought against Fyre organizers by attendees. Last month, those attendees have now lowered their sights to a mere $7.5 million settlement, as MacFarland still sits penniless in an Ohio prison.
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In the aftermath of Fyre, the U.S. Marshall Service seized the merchandise from among MacFarland’s property. Now, the unsold merchandise will be sold in an effort to compensate the many victims of the festival’s huckster organizer. The 126 items, currently up for bids via Gaston & Sheehan, include t-shirts, hats, wristbands, tokens, sweatshirts, and sweatpants bearing the now-infamous logo.
“This Fyre Festival-branded clothing and other items that were seized from Billy McFarland were originally intended to be sold at the Fyre Festival itself but were kept by McFarland, with the intent to sell the items and use the funds to commit further criminal acts while he was on pre-trial release,” U.S. Marshal Ralph Sozio said in a statement.
Online bidding for Fyre Festival merchandise ends August 13th. Click here to bid on a piece of history.
As for MacFarland, he has used the coronavirus pandemic and the real problem of the cancellation of all in-person visitation at prisons across the country as a way to crawl back into the public eye by creating a charity. His new non-profit organization, Project -315, seeks to raise funds so that prisoners can call their families since now they cannot see them in person.
[H/T Rolling Stone]