Fyre Festival Founder Billy McFarland Wants Out of Prison

Disgraced millennial wantrepreneur and Fyre Festival boffin Billy McFarland has added his name to the list of celebrity prisoners requesting release from jail due to the coronavirus pandemic.

TMZ reports and DJ Mag’s Eoin Murray confirms that McFarland’s attorneys have filed a request to be given a “compassionate release” on grounds of his non-violent background, pre-existing health conditions and COVID-19 outbreaks in prisons.

McFarland addressees judge Naomi Reice Buchwald personally in a letter attached to the motion, in which McFarland admits he had violated his bail in the past and was caught with a “USB device” at federal prison in Otisville, for which he was transferred into solitary confinement. He is serving a six year sentence.

“When I was on bail, I didn’t even realize I had to learn,” McFarland writes. “I was trying to hang on to the life I thought I had. I didn’t understand. I was mentally fighting back, thinking that while I was totally wrong in my actions, my intentions were good. I was thinking I just wanted to make everyone happy and make things work at all costs.

“This thinking couldn’t have been more wrong.”

McFarland is one of a number of infamous prisoners seeking release on account of the COVID-19 pandemic. PharmaBro Martin Shkreli requested a three month furlough to help research on developing a vaccine for COVID-19, as did Wyndham Lathem, the former Northwestern University professor and expert on bubonic plague who was arrested two years ago after the murder of his lover and cross-country flight with a visitor from Oxford.

Harvey Weinstein also requested release and like Lathem reputed contracted the coronavirus, but has since recovered and is facing new charges in Los Angeles with four counts of forcible sexual assault and battery related to a 2010 attack against a woman in a Beverly Hills hotel. Weinstein is serving 23 year sentence.

And like Weinstein, R. Kelly’s request for release was also denied.