Billy McFarland, the organizer of the fateful Fyre Festival, has announced the launch of a new nonprofit organization. The charity, called Project-315, aims to provide inmates with additional funds to call their families, as all visitations have been canceled due to COVID-19.
In an exclusive announcement in New York Post, McFarland, who is currently serving a six-year prison sentence for multiple counts of fraud, acknowledged very legitimate doubts, “It’s totally reasonable that people would think this is a scam.” McFarland assured readers, however, that “The good thing is, this isn’t for me — it’s for the families of inmates, who are suffering because of what their loved ones did.”
In a lengthy diatribe labeled “A Letter From Billy” on the organizations new website, McFarland takes readers through his supposed journey of redemption and self-discovery that he has undergone these past two years in prison. After spending paragraph after paragraph explaining to readers how he understands “how badly I messed up,” which is putting it rather lightly, McFarland finally gets to the actual pitch.
Coronavirus is driving inmates and their families apart. Many families are out of work and struggling to make ends meet. With their Mothers, Fathers, Wives, Husbands, Sisters, Brothers, and Children incarcerated, the distance between families, at a time when they need each other most, only exacerbates the effects of the virus. While family visitation has been canceled across all federal prisons, the BOP (Bureau of Prisons) has thoughtfully responded by granting inmates additional pay phone minutes. As inmates, and their families who they rely on to send money for these phone calls know, the calls are limited to 15-minutes in length, and a full-length call costs $3.15. However, many families can’t afford to send their loved ones money to pay to use the phone.
Project-315 wants to provide as many of these inmates and their families with the funds to connect via the prison phone
By simply comparing word counts, the actual mission of the company pails in comparison to McFarland’s epic act of catharsis, aimed at showing the world he’s not such a bad guy and that he’s learned his lesson. While McFarland is still on the hook for paying $26 million in restitution to the people he scammed at Fyre Festival in 2017, his main concern is raising $3.15 for phone calls. He also made sure to mention that he is not receiving any money from this, whether it be payment or even a share of the donations to make his own calls. In acknowledgement of his fraudulent past, McFarland has promised complete transparency with Project-315, “Weekly accounting will be published, and any questions regarding the accounting records will be answered publicly.”
Read McFarland’s entire confessional and project announcement here.
[H/T New York Post]