Lou Pearlman, the impresario behind boy band giants such as the Backstreet Boys and *NSYNC, has died in prison while serving a 25-year sentence tied to a $300 million Ponzi scheme.
The Federal Bureau of Prisons said 62-year-old Pearlman died Friday, without specifying a cause of death.
Along with the Ponzi scheme allegations, Pearlman faced accusations of sexual misconduct against numerous young boy band members, first detailed in a 2007 Vanity Fair article.
“Some, especially the teenagers, shrugged and giggled when he showed them pornographic movies or jumped naked on their beds in the morning to wrestle and play. Others, it appears, didn’t get off so easily,” the article read. “For any number of young men who sought to join the world’s greatest boy bands, Big Poppa’s attentions were an open secret, the price some paid for fame.”
Pearlman had denied the allegations.