Kids’ Manager Denies Mob Link

The manager of the New Kids on the Block denies he gave part ownership of the successful singing group to a convicted loan shark and reputed mobster in exchange for a $50,000 loan.

Maurice Starr said in today’s Boston Herald that the claim by a Brookline businessman is “ludicrous” and that “everything I did was legitimate.”

Starr was responding to a federal bankruptcy suit in which Jeffrey Furst claimed that his business partner, James Martorano, lent the money to Starr for a 25% interest in the youthful singing group.

The allegations were reported this weekend by WCVB-TV Channel 5.

Martorano, 48, has served time for being an accessory to murder, loan-sharking and fixing horse races. He was released from jail four years ago.

Martorano has been identified by law enforcement officials as a reputed mobster with ties to Howard Winter, reputed head of the Winter Hill Gang in Somerville.

Starr acknowledged that he met Martorano “once or twice” at social events but said he never turned over any ownership in the New Kids to him.

Starr said he borrowed $175,000 from Furst to open a recording studio but paid it back within a year at about 30% interest. He said he took out the mortgage with Furst because Furst came up with the money faster than the banks he applied at, even though Furst’s rates were twice as high as the banks’.

That mortgage, Starr said, had nothing to do with the New Kids.

“He claims he gave me the money for the New Kids, but that was not the deal,” Starr said. “The deal was ‘You don’t pay us, you lose your house.’ ”

“I’m trying to run a good clean business and this guy is trying to destroy me, but I’m not going to let him do it,” Starr said.

The allegations come at a time when the squeaky-clean image of the New Kids is taking a bath.

Two months ago a man said he was attacked by a New Kids bodyguard at a Quincy bar, and on Sept. 2 a Harvard student charged that he was attacked by group member Donnie Wahlberg on an airliner because he declined to give Wahlberg his seat.