Source: TampaBay.com
Source: Orlando Sentinel

A former investor in an airship business Pearlman owned in the 1990s, Julian Benscher has agreed to buy three lapsing life-insurance policies, make up delinquent premiums and split the proceeds with bankruptcy creditors if the ex-Orlando music mogul dies. “He is not the fittest-looking person I’ve ever seen,” Benscher, a 41-year-old Brit, said Monday. “I knew the policies were out there and probably were going to lapse. It would be a way to get something back for the [bankruptcy] estate in the event something happens.”

The policies, with premiums totaling $14,186 annually, are:

• A $3 million, 15-year term life policy from Metropolitan Life Insurance Co. with a $6,315 annual premium. Trans Continental Airlines was listed as the beneficiary. It expires in April 2013.
• A $1 million Metropolitan whole life policy with a $4,524 annual premium. Trans Continental Airlines was the beneficiary before it was assigned to the Arthur Sullivan Living Trust as collateral in a 1997 deal.
• A $1 million Metropolitan whole life policy with a $3,347 premium in which Benscher had been the beneficiary before it was changed without his knowledge to F.F. Station LLC, a holding company for the former Church Street Station, which Pearlman controlled.

Benscher knew Pearlman, 53, through the sale of his $1.9 million lakefront Windermere home in 1999. Pearlman defaulted on mortgage payments when he fled the country in January, and an avalanche of lawsuits from creditors and investors followed. It is in foreclosure.

Benscher also said he spent millions investing in and later buying assets from Pearlman’s Orlando-based Airship International blimp-advertising company in the 1990s. He said he loaned Pearlman money and required him to take out a 1997 life-insurance policy to protect his investment.

On June 14, Pearlman was expelled from the Indonesian resort of Bali and handed to U.S. law-enforcement officials who had an arrest warrant for bank fraud. He is being held without bail at the Orange County Jail.

Baby bye, bye, bye

Benscher said he recently checked with Metropolitan Life and discovered he was no long the beneficiary. That triggered inquiries on the other lapsing policies.

“I don’t wish anyone any harm,” said Benscher, who said he was just trying to protect himself and other investors. “It seemed to be the least I could do.”

With all the people Papa Lou Pearlman has pissed off, I personally wouldn’t expect him to last until 2013. But I suspect that if he was whacked, the policies would be null and void.