This bone smuggler will turn up in a Berlin bathhouse..........
David Lieberman
USA Today
Anyone who's met Lou Pearlman can see he likes to live large.
The music impresario, who became famous by creating and managing boy bands including the Backstreet Boys and 'N Sync, enjoyed flaunting his Gulfstream V private jet, 2004 Rolls-Royce Phantom, Louis XIV bed and $250,000 Rolex watch.
GHEY
Most of these trappings of success are gone.
Instead of living large, Pearlman is at large.
Florida's Office of Financial Regulation says it hasn't been able to reach him since he left the country in January, two months after one of his oldest friends committed suicide and as state and federal officials swarmed in on what could be one of the biggest fraud cases in Florida history.
They believe that Pearlman, 52, created a Ponzi scheme that milked about $317 million from more than 1,400 individual investors and an additional $150 million from banks.
Pearlman got investors to put money into what he is accused of billing as a secure, interest-bearing savings fund. But he didn't reinvest their cash in profit-making ventures, the Florida Office of Financial Regulation said in a circuit court filing.
The filing alleges that he pocketed much of the money and often hid the fact by shuffling money among dozens of companies he controlled, including his best-known firm, Trans Continental Enterprises.
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