Chuck Schumer’s Press Secretary Admits Friendship with Fyre Festival Fraudster Billy McFarland

The Associated Press
The Associated Press
Charlie Nash

Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer’s (D-NY) press secretary has admitted to being friends with disgraced Fyre Festival organizer Billy McFarland, who is currently serving a six-year sentence in federal prison for fraud.

After being filmed hanging out with McFarland at the disgraced Fyre Festival organizer’s New York penthouse during McFarland’s legal battle against various charges of fraud, Schumer’s press secretary Angelo Roefaro admitted to the friendship.

“We were friends,” admitted Roefaro in an interview with the New York Post. “I met him at a networking event and we got along.”

“That night, as a result of a TV show or movie being filmed in his apartment, he had a very nice complimentary penthouse hotel room near my own apartment and invited me over to check it out,” Roefaro claimed. “I had no idea they were filming a movie and only knew him. I was completely surprised.”

Roefaro denied helping McFarland with his legal troubles.

Roefaro appeared in Netflix’s recent documentary on the disastrous 2017 Fyre Festival, where he was secretly filmed hanging out with McFarland after the scandal.

In the documentary, the cameraman declares, “There’s a guy named Angelo and I don’t know if it was Billy’s PR guy, but I know that this guy was very connected.”

In October, McFarland was sentenced to six years in prison on multiple counts of fraud, both related to the Fyre Festival, and another scheme he was conducting while on bail.

U.S. District Court Judge Naomi Buchwald described McFarland as a “serial fraudster,” and claimed, “his fraud, like a circle, has no ending.”

Fyre Festival, which took place in April 2017, was supposed to be a luxury music festival and charged attendees thousands of dollars for tickets and extras.

However, when attendees turned up to the festival, they discovered “a lack of food, violent locals, appalling accommodation and feral dogs roaming the grounds.”

Attendees at the time reported “half-built tents, their luggage being thrown out of the back of a truck, muggers and thieves laying in wait to steal wallets from trust fund kids, unhelpful staff, and ‘gourmet cuisine’ that turned out to be nothing but ham and cheese sandwiches.”

The attendees, who discovered their luxury accommodation was nothing more than a row of unfinished disaster relief tents which had been soaked by the rain, were also unable to quickly escape, with a lack of transportation.

Due to mass panic, the attendees were then locked in a room with no food or water.

Charlie Nash is a reporter for Breitbart Tech. You can follow him on Twitter @MrNashington, or like his page at Facebook.

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