In July of that year, McFarland was arrested and charged over his alleged “connection with a scheme to defraud investors,” with his company Fyre Media LLC, prosecutors said at the time, and “a related entity responsible for organizing a music festival.”
 
In March 2018, he pled guilty to two counts of wire fraud in federal court, resulting in a six-year sentence. Per NBC News, during his sentencing, McFarland apologized for his role in the fiasco, admitting that he made “decisions that were a slap in the face to everything my family tried to teach me.”