Fyre Festival Founder Placed in Solitary Confinement After Launching Podcast

Billy McFarland recently premiered his 'Dumpster Fyre' podcast while serving time in an Ohio prison. The Fyre Festival founder is serving six years for fraud.

Billy McFarland
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Image via Getty/Patrick McMullan

Billy McFarland

Fyre Festival founder Billy McFarland was placed in solitary confinement following the launch of his tell-all podcast.

The disgraced entrepreneur is currently serving six years behind bars on multiple fraud charges related to the disastrous festival. He recently decided to share his side of the story in a podcast series appropriately titled Dumpster Fyre, which premiered on Tuesday. A trailer for the podcast was shared via Instagram earlier this month; It included video and photos of McFarland as well as his fellow inmates on the prison grounds.

According to the New York Times, McFarland has since been placed in 23-hour-a-day solitary confinement as the federal Bureau of Prisons conducts an investigation. 

"We believe the investigation stems from his participation in the podcast and the photographs that were taken and utilized in the trailer, which were all properly taken," McFarland's lawyer Jason Russo said. "We don’t believe he’s violated any rule or regulation, and there can’t possibly be anything else. He’s been a model prisoner there."

McFarland recorded the first 15-minute Dumpster Fyre episode over a prison phone and claimed any money generated from the series will go toward the $26 million he owes to Fyre Festival investors. Russo claims inmates at the Federal Correctional Institution Elkton in Ohio—where McFarland is serving his sentence—are allowed to use the phones and all calls are screened by prison personnel. 

McFarland's cellmate has also reportedly been placed in solitary confinement. 

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