LOU PEARLMAN, credited for starting the boy-band craze and launching the careers of the Backstreet Boys and *NSYNC, has died in prison while serving a 25-year sentence for a massive Ponzi scheme. He was 62.

    *NSYNC member Lance Bass tweeted word of the news Saturday, writing, “He might not have been a stand up businessman , but I wouldn’t be doing what I love today without his influence.”

    On the back of those boy bands’ success, Pearlman turned his Trans Continental businesses into a sprawling empire in the 1990s. But it was all built on fraud, and he was ultimately sued by every act he represented except one.

    His groups dominated the charts during the 1990s: Backstreet Boys landed six Top 10 singles in the Hot 100 and a whopping nine albums in the Top 10 of the Billboard 200, with both “Millennium” and “Black & White” hitting No. 1 (albeit after the group split from Pearlman). *NSYNC had six Top 10 singles on the Hot 100 and landed four albums in the Top 10 of the Billboard 200, although the two of them that reached No. 1 — “No Strings Attached” and “Celebrity” — were both released after the split. His next most popular act, O-Town, had a single and an album in the Top 10.

    Inspired by the success of New Kids on the Block, Pearlman placed a classified ad for teen male vocalists in the Orlando Sentinel in 1992.

    Backstreet Boys were not an overnight hit, but Pearlman proceeded to sink millions into the group, assigning management duties to Johnny Wright and wife Donna.

    Success came with the 1997 hit “Quit Playing Games (With My Heart),” which helped fuel album sales of ultimately 14 million copies. They repeated the formula with *NSYNC, and Pearlman proceeded to build his Trans Continental entertainment empire based in Orlando, Florida, containing a string of boy-band-type acts: O-Town, LFO, Aaron Carter, Jordan Knight, Take 5, and the girl group Innosense (which briefly included a pre-fame Britney Spears).

    Yet it all unravelled in the late 1990s, with every act under Pearlman’s domain except one (the minor boy band US5) ultimately suing him for misrepresentation and fraud.

    (SD-Agencies)