The two new members of the Backstreet Boys stomped on the gas pedal and sped out of the driveway. They were teenagers, who had just wrapped up a night of band practice at the house of the man who promised he was going to make them famous. Their car zoomed down an Orlando road - and that's when they saw the flashing lights of a police car. Howie Dorough and Brian Littrell started to panic.
They had been driving "fast like, you would have gone to jail for fast," Dorough would later recall in a documentary about the beloved '90s band.
They told the officer where they were coming from: the home of Lou Pearlman, a business executive who had made his name on blimps and airplanes and was now diversifying his interests with the start of a boy band he hoped would woo the world of screaming teen girls (and their parents' wallets).
As soon as the teens mentioned Pearlman's name, the officer let them go without penalty.
"I knew at that point," Dorough said. "That's when I realized how powerful Lou was."
Soon, Pearlman would have the Backstreet Boys, and their rivals 'NSync, on posters on the walls of teenagers' bedrooms around the world. He would make them household names, synonymous with the boy-band craze that defined an era of music.
Then he would swindle them, be investigated by the FBI, go bankrupt, flee the country, get caught and end up in federal prison.
Pearlman died Friday, at the age of 62. There were 13 years left on his sentence. The cause of his death is not yet known.
He will be remembered more for the depth of his success in scamming than his acumen in the music business. Though he wasn't investigated until 2006, Pearlman began his $300 million Ponzi scheme in the early 1990s.
He had always been masterful at convincing well-off people to invest in his ventures: first helicopters and blimps, then stock in his company. He promised that the investment he was offering was federally insured and guaranteed to do well. In reality, it didn't exist.
"He could make you believe anything. Anything at all," one of his former publicists told Vanity Fair in 2007.
It seemed an odd jump to go from blimps to boy bands, but as the story goes, Pearlman saw the success of New Kids on the Block and wanted a slice of the music business. He put an ad in the Orlando Sentinel seeking young male singers. His search for talent lead him to Littrell, Dorough, Nick Carter, Kevin Richardson and A.J. McLean. They were the Backstreet Boys, named after Orlando's Backstreet flea market. Initially, he paid them $75 a week, according to the band's documentary.
When they took off with "Quit Playing Games (With My Heart)," Pearlman named himself the "sixth member" of the band. Then he reportedly used its earnings to start rival bands: 'NSync, LFO, Take 5, O-Town and Natural.
After the FBI discovered that Pearlman was cheating his investors, almost all his bands sued him for fraud and misrepresentation. In the midst of the lawsuits, his resulting bankruptcy and his arrest, more allegations surfaced. A 2007 Vanity Fair profile painted Pearlman as a "sexual predator."
For years, some had raised eyebrows at the way the business executive was surrounding himself with young, attractive male teenagers.
In an interview with Billboard, 'NSync member Lance Bass recalled how Pearlman made a habit of feeling his arms and muscles.
"Even as a young guy, I assumed that Lou probably was gay," Bass said. "It didn't really bother me. I knew then that I was gay, so I kind of related to him in a way."
Bass said the touching never went beyond that. But Vanity Fair spoke to a former assistant who said Pearlman regularly touched and groped him. One of the managers for the Backstreet Boys said Pearlman's entrance into the music business was an excuse for him to hang around with good-looking teens. The mother of Nick and Aaron Carter told the magazine, "I tried to expose him for what he was years ago. ... I hope you expose him, because the financial (scandal) is the least of his injustices."
In 2014, Pearlman gave an interview to the Hollywood Reporter from prison. He denied the abuse allegations, saying the only people accusing him were those who held grudges against him. He said he hoped to re-enter the music business when he was released in 2029.
"I deeply regret what happened," he said. "And I'll be back."
He won't, but the Backstreet Boys will. On the day of Pearlman's death, they released a new song.
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