Pile of Sweatshirts Is All That’s Left of the Disastrous Fyre Festival 

(Bloomberg) -- Looking to get your hands on an official T-shirt or hoodie from the doomed Fyre Festival in the Bahamas? This may be your chance.

U.S. prosecutors on Thursday asked a federal judge in Manhattan for permission to sell two large boxes of branded merchandise from the ill-fated concert extravaganza to help satisfy a $27 million judgment against its promoter, Billy McFarland, who was sentenced to six years in prison last year. They said they haven’t been able to locate the proceeds of McFarland’s fraud.

McFarland, 27, pleaded guilty to misleading investors in the run-up to the festival, which was billed as a luxurious music retreat in a gorgeous setting featuring rapper Ja Rule and the band Blink-182. Instead, it turned into a nightmare for attendees, some of whom paid as much as $12,000, as conditions deteriorated and the event was canceled. There’s a new Netflix documentary on the tropical debacle, due to drop on Jan. 18, whose trailer includes a snippet calling it “closer to ‘Lord of the Flies’ than Coachella.”

Prosecutors said in a filing Thursday that the entire balance of the monetary judgment remains outstanding. But they did manage to locate some other assets -- including the two boxes of T-shirts, sweatshirts, shorts and other clothing to be sold at the festival that were turned over by McFarland’s defense team in October -- and $240,000 in cash held in his name at one of the law firms that represented him.

They asked the judge to order McFarland to forfeit those assets to help satisfy his debt.

To contact the reporter on this story: Chris Dolmetsch in Federal Court in Manhattan at cdolmetsch@bloomberg.net

To contact the editors responsible for this story: David Glovin at dglovin@bloomberg.net, Peter Jeffrey, Joe Schneider

©2019 Bloomberg L.P.