A new Netflix docu-series, Dirty Pop: The Boy Band Scam, tells the story of the Florida-based producer, who swindled the bands, as well as their investors — many of whom were families with no ties to the industry — out of hundreds of thousands of dollars each. Now known as a leader of one of the longest-running Ponzi schemes in U.S. history, Pearlman hid his fraudulent practices behind glossy, commercially appealing boy bands. While groups of that era were not typically diverse, working out of Orlando — which in the ‘90s became one of the top destinations for Puerto Ricans from the archipelago and the Northeast — means Latino youth, like AJ McLean and Howie Dorough of the Backstreet Boys and O-Town’s Erik-Michael Estrada, got caught in his web of deceit.
