LOU PEARLMAN,
1954-2016

Boy-band impresario and bunco artist Lou Pearlman died Friday in a Texas federal prison where he was serving a 25-year sentence for running a $300m Ponzi scheme. He was 62.

The founder of Trans Continental Records in the 1990s, Pearlman signed The Backstreet Boys, 'N Sync, Aaron Carter, Jordan Knight, Take 5, Innosense, O-Town and other boy bands in the 1990s. Justin Timberlake tweeted Sunday, “I hope he found some peace. God bless and RIP, Lou Pearlman.”

A former aviation businessman, he took his blimp business to Orlando, Fla., where multiple mishaps led him to getting into the music business, specifically with the goal of creating a New Kids on the Block for a new generation. His blimp business, however, was also where he started to get involved in “pump and dump” schemes that artificially inflated the value of a stocks that he would sell for a premium just prior to them crashing.

Attracting singers via classified ads, Pearlman started Trans Continental Records with open auditions in 1993 that led to the formation of The Backstreet Boys. Managed by Johnny Wright, who oversaw NKOTB’s career, the Backstreet Boys quickly became one of the world’s best-selling recording artists; the formula worked even better with ‘N Sync.

Pearlman expanded the company into other entertainment arenas—film, fashion, etc.—but by 2002 he was the subject of federal investigations and lawsuits filed by nearly every one of his acts. The Backstreet Boys, for example, alleged that they had seen $300k of the $10m in revenue they generated.

In 2007 and ‘08, it was discovered that Pearlman's Trans Continental Savings Program, Trans Continental Airlines Travel Services and Trans Continental Airlines were all fraudulent enterprises that had bilked investors out of hundreds of millions of dollars. In May 2008, he was sentenced to 25 years in federal prison on charges of conspiracy, money laundering, and making false statements during a bankruptcy proceeding.

He suffered a stroke in 2010.