ORLANDO, Fla. — While federal investigators were building the $300 million fraud case against Lou Pearlman, he was conducting an investigation of his own.
Held in the Orange County Jail with a man accused of killing a cop, the flamboyant boy-band founder began listening, taking notes and drawing diagrams that he would later turn over to investigators.
Over three weeks, Pearlman said, he listened as nearby inmate Davin Smith recounted the Oct. 7 slaying of off-duty Orlando police officer Alfred Gordon, who was gunned down in a bank parking lot.
Pearlman’s jailhouse disclosures were released to The Orlando Sentinel on Tuesday by prosecutors.
Smith’s first-degree murder trial is set for November. A co-defendant, Hugo Terry, 18, is slated for trial next month. Both have pleaded not guilty.
In the transcript of a 28-minute interview with Orange County sheriff’s detectives Oct. 30, Pearlman talked repeatedly about hearing Smith boast of the crime committed with an associate two years younger, whom he called “homeboy.”
Included in the documents were copies of Pearlman’s handwritten notes and diagrams he drew of the jail pod where he and Smith, 19, were housed.
Although most discussions were between Smith and inmate Jay Fine, Pearlman said Smith spoke with him a few times after Smith left the shower.
Pearlman, founder of the Backstreet Boys and ‘N Sync bands, said the suspect knew him from his television talent show, “Making the Band.”
Pearlman, 54, said he took notes at the instructions of his lawyers, Don West and Fletcher Peacock. He has been listed as a potential witness in the trial.
Earlier this year, Pearlman pleaded guilty to fraud and conspiracy charges and agreed to cooperate with federal prosecutors and agents. He was sentenced in June to 25 years in federal prison and last week was moved to the medium-security U.S. penitentiary in Atlanta.
Peacock said that when he seeks a federal sentence reduction for Pearlman in the future, he will tell the judge about Pearlman’s “very valuable and relevant” help in the Gordon murder investigation.
