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Lou Pearlman Sentenced to 25 Years in Prison

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'NSYNC, Backstreet Boys Mastermind Lou Pearlman Sentenced To 25 Years In Prison. Judge offers to shave a month off term for every $1 million Pearlman pays back to defrauded investors.

A judge sentenced former boy-band mogul Lou Pearlman to 25 years in federal prison on Wednesday (May 21) for his part in running a two-decade-long financial scheme that cheated investors out of more than $300 million. And, in an unusual deal, Senior U.S. District Judge G. Kendall Sharp offered the onetime 'NSYNC manager the chance to reduce his sentence by shaving a month off his term for every $1 million he pays back to investors, according to the Orlando Sentinel.

Given that his sentence totals 300 months, Pearlman, 53, could avoid prison entirely if he's able to pay back all his debts. “I'm most concerned for the investors, even more so than the institutions," Sharp said of the individuals, many of them elderly, who were allegedly conned by Pearlman. According to a plea agreement Pearlman signed in March, the investors, individuals and banks were enticed into investing in two shell companies that existed only on paper and which were part of an elaborate, years-long pyramid scheme in which Pearlman fabricated financial statements from a phony accounting firm to keep the scam going.

The final chapter in the long fall from grace for Pearlman -- who is credited with helping to launch the boy-band craze of the 1990s through his work with 'NSYNC, Backstreet Boys and O-Town -- came two months after he pleaded guilty to two counts of conspiracy, one count of money laundering and one count of making a false claim in a bankruptcy.

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