Hi, welcome to Hollywood crime scenes. This is Rachel Fisher.

Hi, this is Densy Jeniken.

We're going to start out the show by thanking our lovely Patreon contributors.

They donated over at patreon.com slash Hollywood crime scene.

This week we had Emma, Shaneid, Lou, Robin, Jennifer, Darcy, Lisa, Kelsey,

Central, Justine, Brittany, Ashley, Carrie, Claire, Amanda, Antonia,

Kiana, Lindsay, Tom, Ellen, Amy, Courtney, Michael, Susie, and Big Mike.

Anthony, Pam, Ashley, Miso, Whitney, Beth, Katie, and Allie.

Thank you guys. Thank you.

Okay. So today we are going to take a look at the life and crimes of Lou Pearlman.

Lou was a huge figure in late 90s pop music, creating bands like Backstreet Boys,

InSync, and LFO. But his empire came crashing down when allegations of fraud and theft began piling up.

The final nail in his coffin was the exposure of one of the all-time biggest Ponzi schemes

in American history. So my sources for this episode are The Hit Shure by Tyler Gray,

Bands, Brands, and Billions by Lou Pearlman, Mad about the Boys, which is a Vanity Fair article

written by Brian Burrow, and the Boy Band Con, a documentary by Lance Bass on YouTube that you can watch for free

and is very good and I highly recommend it. So let's just get started.

Lou Pearlman was born in 1954, the only child of high-perlmen who ran a dry cleaning business

and reenie Pearlman who was a school lunchroom aid. He grew up in the Mitchell Gardens apartments

and flushing queens and it was here that he developed his entrepreneurial skills. In his 2002 book,

Bands, Brands, and Billions, he describes an idyllic childhood and discusses his early days as a

businessman or I should say business child because he was very, very young when he starts these

...