Seriously, for the past few days, I’ve had crud oozing out of my eyes and nose continuously. Up until today, I could just barely stand to look at a computer monitor.
But that’s a digression. Remember the Fyre Festival? Wasn’t that a hoot?
…
He told the judge, Naomi Reice Buchwald, of Federal District Court in Manhattan, that he had begun organizing the festival with good intentions but had “greatly underestimated the resources” it would take.
But that’s not fraud. Poor judgment, maybe, but not outright fraud.
Charging documents filed by prosecutors said that Mr. McFarland, 26, had provided investors with false financial reports, including one that listed millions of dollars in talent-booking revenue for Fyre Media. In reality, the documents said, the company had earned only about $57,000 in bookings in the year leading up to the festival.
Mr. McFarland was also charged with showing investors bogus financial documents to claim that he owned more stock than he actually did so that it would appear he was in a position to personally guarantee an investment. And, prosecutors said, he used inflated revenue numbers to induce a ticket vendor to pay $2 million for a block of advance tickets for future festivals.
Oh. That’s different. (And it sounds like this is just what the government claimed: we don’t know what he actually admitted to in his plea.)
My mother thanks you, my father thanks you, Ken White thanks you, and I thank you.