If the scammer cheats – “Catch me if you can” would largely be a lie Iran pardons 22,000 protesters

Leonardo DiCaprio’s performance as con man Frank Abagnale Jr. is legendary. He takes viewers on a wild chase across the US and around the world – “Catch me if you can” is all the more impressive because the film tells a (supposedly) true story.

Because Frank Abagnale Jr. is real and his story became famous with his “biography”, from which the movie took its title. The book was published in 1980 and was written by Abagnale and the writer Stan Redding.

But how much of his biography is really true? A new report raises many questions.

Pilot doctor with a lawyer’s certificate

Abagnale states (both in lectures and biography) that he posed as a Pan Am pilot between the ages of 16 and 21 in the mid-1960s and early 1970s. He claims to have flown nearly 5 million miles. And he has taken on other identities as well: that of a Georgia doctorate, that of a sociology professor at Brigham Young University in Utah, and that of a lawyer at the Baton Rouge, Louisiana, district attorney’s office.

During the entire period, he cashed more than 17,000 counterfeit checks and stole approximately $2.5 million. In the film – which Abagnale has nothing to do with except for a cameo appearance and is actually exaggerated for dramaturgical reasons – there are 4 million.

Be that as it may, everyone knows Frank Abagnale’s story – but an article in the New York Post casts doubts.

Numerous inconsistencies

The NYP relies on multiple sources. Two of them are William Toney, a criminal justice professor, and Jim Keith, a former security guard. Both had (independently) attended a speech by Abagnale and were unconvinced by his descriptions. First separately, then together and with the help of Toney’s students, they began to investigate the bizarre story.

The product of their years of research: an 87-page collection of old newspaper reports, court documents, letters from airlines, universities and government officials, now in the NYP’s possession. It can be inferred that parts of Abagnale’s story are true, but others simply cannot be proven.

As Bruce A. Chadwick, chair of the sociology department at Brigham Young University, writes in a 1982 letter:

So Frank Abagnale was never a college professor? This was stated in a 1978 article in the San Francisco Chronicle, even before Frank’s book appeared, but he was already appearing at seminars with his story and making a living doing it. The reporter had contacted several institutions where Abagnale was allegedly involved. None of them could remember him. His answer: He changed names and dates in his story so as not to embarrass those affected.

But his “main profession” as a PanAm pilot is also controversial. Then-Pan Am security officer Andrew Bentley said in a 1982 letter, “I have neither the time nor the inclination to refute the same chatter that this person has been peddling for years.” And:

processes fade

But Abagnale’s stories don’t quite fit the times either. The NYP also cites research by Alan C. Logan, who concluded that Abagnale was in a New York prison while working as a “doctor” in Georgia.

By the way: Abagnale says she worked as a pediatrician on the night shift at Cobb General Hospital for almost a year. However, this function did not exist at the time, according to the hospital.

And by the way, the time frame in which Frank would have played his biggest tricks (between 16 and 21 years old) doesn’t fit the picture at all. According to Logan’s research, Abagnale spent a long time in prison during this time and had been on the loose for a total of 14 months. If he cashed his 17,000 counterfeit checks there, that would be about 40 a day — an impossible amount.

And his biggest success story (which in this form didn’t make it to the movie and thus won’t be known to everyone), his escape from prison in Atlanta, Georgia, is probably fabricated. He allegedly escaped by posing as a prison inspector. Only: The said prison denied that a Frank Abagnale was ever housed there.

So it would be fitting that what is probably the media’s most well-known con artist has been cheating us all along.

(cpf)