US Bank swindled by prominent music mogul

ORLANDO – In mid-June, the man who created the Backstreet Boys and N Sync agreed to be returned to Florida from Guam to face a federal bank fraud charge, according to press reports.

Lou Pearlman was arrested in Indonesia at the beginning of June on one count of bank fraud. He was expelled from the island of Bali after the FBI contacted authorities there, then transferred to US custody and flown to Guam.

The charge comes amid state and federal investigations into Pearlman's businesses based in Orlando. The criminal bank charge focuses on two loans Pearlman received, totalling $19 million, from Integra Bank of Indiana in 2004, according to press reports.

Pearlman allegedly used audited financial statements from an accounting firm known as Cohen & Siegel, and suspicious bank statements allegedly from a company called German Investment Und Finanzberatung GmbH, to help secure the loans.

The prosecution says Cohen & Siegel is a phantom accounting firm and that the financial statements from it are fictional. And while the German company, also known as German Savings, appears to be a real company, the statements allegedly from it are also fictional, the prosecution alleges.