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Speaker 1: You're listening to Bloomberg Law with June Grosso, Michael Best

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Speaker 1: and me Greg Store. The Fire Festival was a disaster,

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Speaker 1: that much is clear. What was billed as a luxury

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Speaker 1: beach and music extravaganza and the Bahamas ended up with

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Speaker 1: half built, half built tents, cheese sandwiches and Stybro phone

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Speaker 1: boxes and would be guests trapped at the airport. But

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Speaker 1: was it a fraud? That's now the claim in a

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Speaker 1: lawsuit that seeks a hundred million dollars from festival organizers,

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Speaker 1: including the rapper Jah Rule, as well as fifteen unnamed investors.

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Speaker 1: The suit claims they were all part of something quote

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Speaker 1: akin to a Ponzi scheme. With us to discuss the

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Speaker 1: lawsuit is one of the attorneys behind it. He's been

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Speaker 1: Miss Ellis of Garrigus and Garrgus Ben thanks for joining us.

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Speaker 1: The lawsuit says this was a us this is a

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Speaker 1: quote criminal scheme and those are strong and meaningful words.

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Speaker 1: What grounds do you have to make that sort of

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Speaker 1: an allegation? Absolutely, And we've been saying this was a

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Speaker 1: criminal scheme for about two weeks now, and what's beginning

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Speaker 1: to come out is what this scheme actually entailed. This

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Speaker 1: was a company Fire Inc. That had essentially no assets,

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Speaker 1: and while it had no assets, it was robbing Peter

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Speaker 1: to essentially pay Paul. And in this case, Paul is

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Speaker 1: being jab rule. So at the same time they know

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Speaker 1: that this festival, so called festival, is going to be

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Speaker 1: a complete disaster, They're taking out personal guarantee loans. They're

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Speaker 1: pitching and selling additional packages um two attendees for tens

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Speaker 1: of thousands of dollars, telling the attendees they need to

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Speaker 1: put money on these special risks fans, because your money

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Speaker 1: won't work in the xoombas, and then trying to use

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Speaker 1: that money to pay off debt that they're taking on

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Speaker 1: ultimately with their goal of floating a one hundred and

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Speaker 1: five million valuation, and they were trying to pitch Comcast

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Speaker 1: ventures which almost occur, to invest twenty five million dollars

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Speaker 1: in a scheme um. This was an entity from the

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Speaker 1: outset that had no capabilities and competencies to throw a festival.

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Speaker 1: They knew this festival was going to be a disaster,

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Speaker 1: but not just a disaster, but placing people's lives in

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Speaker 1: absolute danger. And at that same time they keep taking money.

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Speaker 1: You know, in typical Ponzi schemes we see predatory conduct

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Speaker 1: on the elderly. This is a new type of Ponzi

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Speaker 1: scheme where the mark was the millennial. Well, you know,

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Speaker 1: you obviously you make this sound pretty bad. You're you're

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Speaker 1: representing the planeiffs here, and obviously a lot of things

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Speaker 1: did go wrong with this festival. But you know, people

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Speaker 1: paid money to go, they got stuck there. What what

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Speaker 1: kind of relief are you seeking given the seriousness of

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Speaker 1: the allegations and legal theory. You've just set forth for

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Speaker 1: us a number of things. So the first and foremost

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Speaker 1: is restitution unjustin Richmond. Make these individuals whole on their

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Speaker 1: ticket sells um. Then there's consequence of images because some

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Speaker 1: individuals had to charter jets to get off the island,

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Speaker 1: Individuals had to stay in Florida, you know, extra days,

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Speaker 1: and so there's other economic consequential damages. We also have

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Speaker 1: certain individuals who had personal and physical injuries, infections, bacteria,

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Speaker 1: so we're going to be seeking recovery for that, and

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Speaker 1: so in the complaint we list the range of damages

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Speaker 1: anywhere from twelve hundreds, which is basically your base package,

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Speaker 1: to about a hundred thousand, a hundred and fifty thousand

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Speaker 1: dollars on the top of the scale, which is how

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Speaker 1: we get to our ultimate number that we're demanded. I

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Speaker 1: want to make sure we say that Bloomberg News has

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Speaker 1: repeatedly tried to get in touch with Billy McFarland, who's

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Speaker 1: the main organizer as well well as job Rule, and

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Speaker 1: has not received any comment been have you all since

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Speaker 1: you're you are saying that there are there's criminal activity

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Speaker 1: going on here, have you referred any of this information

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Speaker 1: to the U. S. Attorney's office. Well, given that the

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Speaker 1: posture right now is civil litigation, for me on my

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Speaker 1: own to do that with be inappropriate to gain any

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Speaker 1: upper hand advantage in a civil lawsuit. But what I

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Speaker 1: think my responsibility to do as the class action attorney

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Speaker 1: is to provide the data to be transparent with the public.

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Speaker 1: You know, when I found out, for example, that there

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Speaker 1: were these seed investors, um, you know, I very responsibly

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Speaker 1: described them in the complaints, but gave them an opportunity

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Speaker 1: to come out and try to explain themselves, you know,

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Speaker 1: before you know, essentially naming them. But my goal as

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Speaker 1: the civil litigator provide as much data to the public,

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Speaker 1: UM you know too, of the powers that be um

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Speaker 1: and let them act um as they see fit and responsible. Well, Ben,

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Speaker 1: one thing that that doesn't I'm still try trying to

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Speaker 1: get my head wrapped around is if you're saying that

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Speaker 1: this was a get rich quick scheme, if it was

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Speaker 1: a Ponzi scheme, it doesn't seem like there was ever

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Speaker 1: any potential to get away with this. I mean, I mean,

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Speaker 1: if you're trying to to to start up a Ponzi scheme, uh,

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Speaker 1: doing something where you're gonna leave you know, hundreds of people,

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Speaker 1: you know, stranded on a beach without without food or

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Speaker 1: shelter doesn't seem like a very good way to do it.

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Speaker 1: I think that this was a very Brasen group that

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Speaker 1: ultimately thought that until the very very very last minute,

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Speaker 1: as most as mostly occurs in kons of the schemes,

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Speaker 1: that they were going to be able to get away

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Speaker 1: with it. I think they were holding on to that

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Speaker 1: hope that if we just prop up this essentially you know,

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Speaker 1: fake entity, that maybe we can get that Series A investment,

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Speaker 1: Maybe we can get that investment from Comcast Ventures that

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Speaker 1: will give us twenty five million dollars in Despite the

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Speaker 1: fact that we had no clue what we were doing.

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Speaker 1: With that injection of money, we could figure this whole

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Speaker 1: thing out. I think when the roof collapsed on that idea,

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Speaker 1: they had nowhere to go. And now not only did

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Speaker 1: they have nowhere to go, they had thousands of people

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Speaker 1: who were on plane. Ben. Ben, we're gonna have to

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Speaker 1: We're gonna have to leave it there. I want to

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Speaker 1: thank Ben. The sails, one of the lawyers suing over

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Speaker 1: the fire festival