*Days after Hollywood power attorney Mark Geragos filed a $100 million fraud lawsuit against organizers of the bungled Fyre Festival, a second class action lawsuit has been filed against the same defendants.
The destination event set in the Bahamas was advertised as a once-in-a-lifetime experience complete with fine food, accommodations and lots of celebs. Instead, guests arrived to find housing that resembled disaster relief tents, struggle sandwiches and suspect transportation.
Personal injury attorney John Girardi is representing Chelsea Chinery, Shannon McAuliffe and Desiree Flores in a breach of contract, negligent misrepresentation and fraud suit against organizers Ja Rule, Billy McFarland and Fyre Media. Filed Tuesday in Los Angeles County Superior Court, the defendants are accused of tricking people into attending the event by paying more than 400 social media influencers and celebrities to promote it.
Not only did the likes of Kendall Jenner, Bella Hadid and Emily Ratajkowski make the event seem like it would be dripping with the social elite — the social media campaign also flouted FTC regulations, according to the complaint.
“Social media ‘influencers’ made no attempt to disclose to consumers that they were being compensated for promoting the Fyre Festival,” writes Girardi.
Guests were promised more than 30 musical acts, including Migos, Major Lazer and Blink-182, and promotional materials showed “stunning beach side villas, yachts with models draped over the top” and more. What they found when they arrived was “horrific.”
“As Plaintiffs began to grasp the dire nature of the situation, upon witnessing the complete lack of infrastructure necessary to host such an event, a panic enveloped the crowd,” writes Girardi. “Plaintiffs were stuck on the island, with no way off.”
Girardi says the defendants knew at least a month before the event that they wouldn’t be able to pull off what they had promised, yet offered no warning and made no attempt to mitigate the damages.
The proposed class is defined as persons who purchased tickets or travel packages to and/or attended Fyre Festival. Then the class is separated into three categories of harm: those who bought tickets or packages but did not attend after being made aware of the conditions; those who bought tickets and tried to go to the festival but didn’t make it to Exuma because flights were canceled; and those who made it to the festival and were confined on the island for any amount of time.
The complaint seeks an injunction to bar defendants from similar conduct, plus restitution, punitive damages and disgorgement of any profits.
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