Today, both Martin Shkreli—the pharmaceutical company fraudster and former owner of Wu-Tang Clan’s one-of-a-kind album—and Fyre Festival founder Billy McFarland were released from prison early, BBC News, TMZ, and The Hollywood Reporter note. Both men, whose sentences dictated that they’d both be released in 2023, have been moved to halfway houses. McFarland is expected to be released on August 30, while Shkreli could be out in September.
Shkreli was convicted in 2017 of lying to hedge fund investors and embezzling as a means to repay them. McFarland was sentenced to six years in prison for defrauding investors of Fyre Festival. He also pleaded guilty to a post-Fyre Festival tickets scam.
Shkreli purchased Once Upon a Time in Shaolin in 2015 for $2 million. He once threatened to destroy the album during a public feud with Ghostface Killah. The record now has a new owner. Fyre Festival has been the subject of two different documentaries. When McFarland participated in a podcast about the festival, he was placed in solitary confinement. Both Shkreli and McFarland were portrayed as characters in Netflix’s Anna Delvey biopic series Inventing Anna.
Read “We Didn’t Start the Fyre: Sorting the Blame of Rival Fyre Fest Docs” over on the Pitch.