0:00

Hello already, welcome back to another episode

0:02

of Decoding the Unknown. This has got

0:04

to be one of my favorite. I

0:06

mean, I've not read it before, but

0:08

I've got a feeling that this is

0:10

going to be one of my favorites.

0:12

It's about Frank Abignail. I'm a huge

0:14

fan of the movie Catch me if

0:16

you can, but I get the feeling

0:18

that Katie, but I get the feeling

0:20

that Katie, who wrote today's episode, wrote

0:22

the big script in front of me,

0:24

it's going to be all about how

0:26

his story is exaggerated, and Tom Hanks,

0:28

masterpiece. I tried the fact out of that

0:30

movie. It's one of my favorite movies, I think. I

0:33

should watch it again. It's got to be quite old

0:35

now, right? Leon DiCaprio was well young. It's got to

0:37

be like 20 years, maybe? Anyway, the format of the

0:39

show, if you knew here, never read this before, going

0:41

to read it together. Let us jump in. When

0:46

I pitched the idea of covering the guy

0:49

from Catch Me If You Can to Simon,

0:51

his response was, oh I love that movie,

0:53

yes please. So as well as I had

0:55

right now, at least I'm consistent. That made

0:57

me feel a bit bad as we know

1:00

that Simon has only seen three films. And

1:02

I've only seen three films. And I've only

1:04

seen three films. And I've only seen three

1:06

films. And I've only seen three films. And

1:08

I've only seen three films. I've only watched

1:11

a movie again. I'm like I should watch

1:13

a movie again. I should watch a movie

1:15

again. Gentlemen. It's been a

1:17

privilege fine with you. Nah.

1:20

Everyone loves Tom Hanks. Gates,

1:22

you haven't seen it. Catch Me

1:24

If You Count is a film

1:26

from 2002. Wow, yeah, okay, so

1:28

23 years ago. Lewis Direct has

1:30

nearly a quarter of a century.

1:32

Holy shit. was directed by Stephen

1:34

Spilberg and stars Leonardo DiCaprio as

1:37

real-life con man extraordinary. Frank Abignail

1:39

Jr. Tom Hanks plays somewhat against

1:41

type as a grumpy FBI agent

1:43

Carl Hanrati who is chasing Frank

1:45

down and Christopher Walken is also

1:47

in as Frank's dad. Oh yeah,

1:49

it is Christopher Walken. I forgot

1:51

about that. As we are going

1:53

to go into so much depth

1:55

about this story, you're going to

1:57

need a scuba certification. Now's the

1:59

time. to say that of course there

2:01

will be spoilers throughout. The entire episode

2:03

is one giant spoiler about Frank Abagnale

2:06

Jr. in fact. You see, the film

2:08

Catch Me If You Can, while caveatted

2:10

at the beginning by saying it's inspired

2:12

by a true story, confirms it was

2:15

based on the book by Frank W.

2:17

Abignell with Stan Redding in the opening

2:19

credits. This book has been published as

2:21

Catch Me If You Can, the true

2:23

story of a real fake, and it

2:26

can be found in the biography, autobiography,

2:28

memoir, and true crime categories, the internet

2:30

over, so we can all be forgiven

2:32

if we take it as read, that

2:35

the movie probably does contain some events

2:37

that actually happened. And it does. And

2:39

it does. kind of. What most people

2:41

don't seem to know myself included until

2:43

about a year ago is that the

2:46

story behind this story is one giant

2:48

liar hold on to your co-overs. I

2:50

mean, is it surprised that the con

2:52

man conferred any? The version we all

2:55

know. If you've ever

2:57

heard of Frank Abignell Jr., it's most

2:59

likely, either in connection to the book

3:01

or the film, catch me if you

3:03

can. He's been on numerous TV chat

3:05

shows, talking about his escapades, and later

3:07

in life he made a career by

3:09

becoming a consultant expert on identity scams,

3:11

cyber crimes, check frauds, etc. Hit the

3:13

conference circuit hard as a guest speaker

3:15

and now earns thousands and thousands of

3:17

dollars per engagement. Oh, still alive, huh?

3:19

There was even a broadway musical based

3:21

on the film that came out in

3:24

2011 and never heard of this and

3:26

won a Tony Award probably because I

3:28

don't like musicals. At the time of

3:30

writing, Abignell is 76 and living a

3:32

pretty cushy life and was a life

3:34

this man has had. Here's a summary

3:36

in his own words from a speech

3:38

he gave in 1994. He's not even

3:40

that, I mean 76 is old, but

3:42

it's I thought... Well, he must be

3:44

really getting on. But I guess he

3:46

did all this, like the big stuff

3:48

when he was really young, so he's

3:50

just been around for ages. Quoting, when

3:53

I was 16 years old, I successfully

3:55

impersonated an airline pilot for Pan American

3:57

Airlines for two years until I was

3:59

18. At the age of 18, I

4:01

became the chief resident pediatrician of a

4:03

Georgia hospital where I practiced medicine for

4:05

about a year. At the age of

4:07

19, having never... I've never been to

4:09

law school in my life. I took

4:11

the state bar exams in the state

4:13

of Louisiana. I passed the bar and

4:15

became a licensed attorney. Before my 19th

4:17

birthday was over, I was appointed the

4:19

assistant attorney general of the state where

4:22

I practiced law in that position for

4:24

about a year. At the age of

4:26

20, I was a college professor at

4:28

Brigham Young University in Provo, Utah. I

4:30

taught two full semesters there as a

4:32

PhD. Of course, before I was old

4:34

enough to drink, I was a millionaire

4:36

twice over. Wow. Pretty impressive cons going

4:38

on here. Let's keep an eye on

4:40

the timeline too, as we'll be revisiting

4:42

it again later. Impersonated to Pilot 16,

4:44

Doctor at 18, Lawyer at 19, College

4:46

Professor at 20. If you've seen the

4:48

film, you might remember an extremely suave

4:51

Leonardo DiCaprio in a fake pilot's uniform,

4:53

escorting air stewarduses around and getting free

4:55

flights all over the country. In his

4:57

doctor Guy's, he was extremely suave in

4:59

his white coat, asking medical students their

5:01

opinion instead of offering his own and

5:03

asking the others if they concurred. Yeah,

5:05

he saw her on that TV, doesn't

5:07

he? Dr. Harris. Yes? Do you concur?

5:09

Concove. What, sir? With what Dr. Ashland

5:11

just said, do you concur? In the

5:13

film, he started at a new school

5:15

and was bumped by a stereotypical jock

5:18

in the hallway, so took his revenge

5:20

and pretended to be a substitute French

5:22

teacher, oh, and he saw he was

5:24

in the same class as said jock.

5:26

He looked and acted older than his

5:28

years and because he had that smooth

5:30

unflappable confidence, he pushed his luck and

5:32

people just believed him. People do generally

5:34

just believe though. Even if you're looking

5:36

out for people, you're like, yeah, of

5:38

course, of course he's the guy, of

5:40

course he's the teacher. Why would I

5:42

question him? And he turns out to

5:44

be the teacher, then it's not going

5:47

to end well for you. Here's some

5:49

more background on his life and exploits.

5:51

He was very close with his dad,

5:53

Frank Abagnale Sr., growing up, but his

5:55

mother, Paulette, doesn't get much of a

5:57

mention. In the movie, she's portrayed as

5:59

the destroyer of the Abagnale family unit

6:01

when she and Frank Sr. get divorced

6:03

due to having an affair. According to

6:05

Frank Jr's real life, he says that

6:07

he went to a courthouse in New

6:09

York to hear his parents were splitting

6:11

up and he'd have to choose who

6:13

to live with. Is there doing that?

6:16

He ran out in a mad panic

6:18

and scraped by on the street until

6:20

managing to start his fake pilot scam.

6:22

He never saw his father again, but

6:24

in the movie, Frank Senior pops up

6:26

quite a lot. I guess it would

6:28

have been a waste of Christopher Walk

6:30

in otherwise. So cut up with he

6:32

by his parents divorce that Abagnale says

6:34

that he cried himself to sleep every

6:36

night until he was 19. Oh my.

6:38

Abagnale has admitted many. many times to

6:40

writing bad checks, mostly defrauding Pan American

6:42

Airlines. This means that he was using

6:45

fake paper checks to cash payments from

6:47

Panam as though they were his salary.

6:49

He didn't work for Panam for the

6:51

record, he just had a pilot's uniform,

6:53

and he said he worked for them.

6:55

This was in the 1960s, so it

6:57

was a lot easier to forge things

6:59

like checks than it is nowadays, although

7:01

they are still a very insecure form

7:03

of payments. Yeah, people, I'm always amazed,

7:05

like Americans, apparently you still use still

7:07

use checks. It's a very insecure form

7:09

of payment and also insane. Abignail has

7:11

stated that he wrote 17,000 bad checks

7:14

over the span of his criminal escapades,

7:16

which was only the space of a

7:18

few years, and that at the time,

7:20

this total around $2.5 million, the equivalent

7:22

of about $20 million today. Eventually, his

7:24

life of crime caught up with him

7:26

and the FBI, who had been unsuccessfully

7:28

chasing him for years, finally got their

7:30

man, although not before Frank's daring escape

7:32

from an aeroplane toilet. Is that true?

7:34

That can't possibly be true. Like the

7:36

bit in the movie where he goes

7:38

into the toilet and he like pulls

7:41

the toilet up and manages to slide

7:43

down and get to the like landing

7:45

gear? I'm like, I saw that as

7:47

a kid and then every time I

7:49

go into an airplane toilet, I'm like,

7:51

there's no... pipehole. There's no magical exit

7:53

through a toilet. That was the movie

7:55

version anyway, which was based on the

7:57

book. But Frank's walked back to that

7:59

in a more recent, in more recent

8:01

times, it confirmed that he actually escaped

8:03

from the galley, not the toilet. That

8:05

makes a lot more sense, but not

8:07

total sense. Oh, I guess the galley

8:10

has the, they bring stuff up from

8:12

down below in the galley, right, on

8:14

big planes. Is that, is there a...

8:16

Is there a lift? Am I imagining

8:18

that? Or have I just seen that

8:20

in like movies rather than in real

8:22

life? But I feel like a beat,

8:24

there's probably more exit points from the

8:26

galley than there are from the tiny

8:28

toilet. When the FBI did catch him,

8:30

he spent a few years in prison

8:32

before being recruited by them, first for

8:34

some undercover missions, then as a lecturer,

8:36

then in some other neb capacity that

8:39

might carry on to this day. As

8:41

well as pulling off the successful cons,

8:43

Frank really made it as somebody in

8:45

the world of crime. He was the

8:47

youngest person to make it onto the

8:49

FBI's most wanted list. He turned down

8:51

three presidential pardons and was given the

8:53

title of Master Thief by Interpol when

8:55

he told his story in the story

8:57

in the early 80s, which had only

8:59

ever been given to 108 people since

9:01

1902, and he was the youngest recipient.

9:03

Is that really a thing? I don't

9:05

think Interpol would really have something called

9:08

Master Thief. It makes it like a

9:10

master thief. It makes something like a

9:12

master thief. who wouldn't even really notice

9:14

it was gone. He was staying one

9:16

step ahead of the law and having

9:18

fun along the way. So who could

9:20

really begrudge him his freedom and a

9:22

happy ending? The real Frank Abignail has

9:24

stated that about 80% of the movie

9:26

is true and has also said on

9:28

the record numerous times that he didn't

9:30

steal from individuals and that any money

9:32

he took dishonously he has since paid

9:35

back. Hooray! What a hero! The kind

9:37

of cheeky chappy sticking it to the

9:39

man's story that we can all get

9:41

behind and cheer him on for his

9:43

quick thinking genius and balls of steel.

9:45

Get the feeling the way Katie set

9:47

that up that he actually hurt people

9:49

and stole from the little man. But

9:51

allegedly, let's find out. The slightly changing

9:53

versions. Frank Abignail has been at this

9:55

a long time, decades of telling rooms

9:57

packed full of people about his audacious

9:59

scams. This even includes my husband and

10:01

his dad who saw him give a

10:04

keynote speech in the 90s. I mean,

10:06

that's still really cool. My husband was

10:08

a young teen, and he went with

10:10

his dad on work trips mostly for

10:12

the room service. He doesn't remember much

10:14

about seeing Abignail, but he did confirm

10:16

that he used the speech to talk

10:18

about his former life of crime, and

10:20

he was a very interesting and engaging

10:22

speaker. 1977 when he was on a

10:24

game show called To Tell the Truth.

10:26

This is how the movie starts too.

10:28

By the way, the idea of the

10:30

show is that three people line up

10:33

in front of a panel. Oh yeah,

10:35

I remember this. I haven't seen this

10:37

movie in ages, but it's all coming

10:39

back to me. The host reads out

10:41

some crazy but true story about one

10:43

of them, and the panel guests have

10:45

to ask questions to work out which

10:47

one of the three the story is

10:49

about. The so-called main character has to

10:51

answer any questions truthfully, but the other

10:53

two can say whatever they want. Here

10:55

is Frank's origin story that he submitted

10:57

to the show and proclaimed there was

10:59

accurate and which the host read aloud.

11:02

I, frankly, Mabbignale, am known as the

11:04

world's greatest imposter, and no wonder. In

11:06

the course of my nefarious career, I've

11:08

palmed myself off as a doctor, lawyer,

11:10

college instructor, stockbroker, and airline pilot. To

11:12

become an airline pilot, I merely bought

11:14

a plastic ID card for $5, a

11:16

fixed and an airline logo, from a

11:18

model plane hobby kit, and in no

11:20

time, at all, was a co-pilot for

11:22

a major airline. As a bogus lawyer,

11:24

I actually worked on a state attorney

11:26

general staff. sentenced to 72 years in

11:28

prison. I served one year in France,

11:31

one year in Sweden, I then served

11:33

four years in a federal prison in

11:35

this country. Parole, I now devote my

11:37

life to the prevention and detection of

11:39

crime. Signed, Frank, William, Abignail. The quote

11:41

ends. This differs slightly from the air.

11:43

He's six years as an assistant to

11:45

some state attorney. Didn't he say he

11:47

was the assistant state attorney, but he

11:49

was really an assistant to the state

11:51

attorney. As you may remember, this differs

11:53

slightly from the intro we gave earlier

11:55

on. He said he only practiced law

11:58

for a year in that one, not

12:00

six, as he says in this version.

12:02

His timeline definitely shortens as his star

12:04

rises, packing all his impostering into the

12:06

years between the ages of 16 and

12:08

21, but hey, maybe embellished a tad

12:10

for television. Who wouldn't? I also heard

12:12

multiple instances of him saying he was

12:14

only arrested once in France in a

12:16

town called Montelier. So how come? He

12:18

also did time in Sweden in Sweden.

12:20

the US? Well he doesn't have to

12:22

be arrested. He can have been arrested

12:24

in France and they extradite him back

12:27

to like Sweden and then he does

12:29

the year there and then they extradited

12:31

to America. It doesn't time there. Maybe

12:33

there's no official arrest each time? I

12:35

don't know. Pish-posh that's just being pedantic

12:37

and doesn't really matter. Can't we just

12:39

let this lie as a good story?

12:41

Why do we have to ruin everything

12:43

by actually investigating? We just ruined the

12:45

fun. Well, now that we've heard what

12:47

he has to have to tell us

12:49

over the years, do you want to

12:51

hear the actual story of Frank Abbey

12:53

now? Well, here's a hint. He's a

12:56

lying liar who lies about everything. The

12:58

actual truth. Don't worry Simon, it might

13:00

seem like we're venturing into dicey waters

13:02

at some point, but everything we're going

13:04

to cover has either been personally stated

13:06

by Frank Abagnale Jr., whether in print

13:08

or in interviews or talks, or it

13:10

has been independently verified by at least

13:12

two intrepid researchers. Okay, good. A legal

13:14

disclaimer there. One of these is Alan

13:16

C. Logan, who wrote a book about

13:18

this story called The Greatest Hokes on

13:20

Earth in 2020. The other, Harvey Ailever.

13:22

cast show pretends between 2022 and 2023.

13:25

I contacted Leyver to ask if I

13:27

could write this script without seeming like

13:29

I just ripped him off and his

13:31

response was of course I have no

13:33

ownership over this story in fact I

13:35

want more people to spread the word

13:37

feel free to move forward and send

13:39

me a link when it's done I'd

13:41

love to check that out that's dope

13:43

in which case hello mates so thanks

13:45

have you and here we're spreading the

13:47

word and decoding the crap out of

13:49

this guy let's go. All right let's

13:51

rewind back to the beginning If we

13:54

have any idea of Abignail in our

13:56

heads, it's probably the fictionalized DiCaprio version,

13:58

as that film was a huge success.

14:00

It also portrayed him as an only

14:02

child, but in fact, Abignail had two

14:04

brothers and a sister. His mother also

14:06

looked after at least one of his

14:08

brother's children at some point. Actually, let's

14:10

rewind even further than that. Abignail comes

14:12

from Bronx... New York, which I had

14:14

never actually heard of, but apparently it's

14:16

a very affluent area. According to CNBC

14:18

in 2016, Bronxville was, quote, the most

14:21

expensive suburb of any of the US

14:23

10 largest cities with a median home

14:25

value of 2.33 million. Good lord! Price

14:27

of an average house? What a nice

14:29

upbringing he must have had. In an

14:31

area that these names from the Notable

14:33

People section of Wikipedia also call home.

14:35

TV and radio star Dick Clark, New

14:37

York veteran journalist Brendan Gil, five Kennedys

14:39

including John F. and Robert F. etc.

14:41

etc. That is some privilege. Right there.

14:43

Abignell himself is the first person on

14:45

the list as its alphabetical. However, in

14:47

researching for his books the greatest hoax

14:50

on earth, Alan Logan discovered that far

14:52

from having been born in Bronxville, New

14:54

York, Abignell was in fact born in

14:56

the Bronx. New York, New York, New

14:58

York, a much different prospect in the

15:00

late 1940s. While this may seem like

15:02

a minor fudge to get ahead in

15:04

your career, and the family did move

15:06

to Bronxville after he was born, it's

15:08

a big deal. Like, to be like,

15:10

yeah, I was born in Bronx, but

15:12

it's fancy there. My family have fancy.

15:14

It's, uh, the people who are discriminating

15:16

based on where you were born, like

15:19

whether to give you a job or

15:21

not, are you from Broxville, huh? My

15:23

family's also from Broxville. Bloody da! And

15:25

then they're giving you a job because

15:27

of that. Those people deserve it if

15:29

you just say that you're from there

15:31

even though you're not. Moving on, Abignell

15:33

raised his father up as a very

15:35

special person whom he said he had

15:37

the privilege of calling a daddy, which

15:39

was... What the hell is even that?

15:41

Cringe. This does then beg the question,

15:43

if he was so close, why did

15:45

you run away at the age of

15:48

16 and see him again? Well, he

15:50

did see him again, but we'll come

15:52

to that later. Far from being an

15:54

adultress who ruined their family, Paulette Abagnale

15:56

was a put-upon wife trying to look

15:58

after several children. She did not have

16:00

an affair as for her portrayal in

16:02

the film and musical and while she

16:04

did remarry it wasn't until nearly 20

16:06

years after the divorce. It's a bit harsh.

16:08

Like if I was that person I would

16:10

not be happy about being portrayed like that

16:13

in a very famous movie. And you know

16:15

it's going to be very famous because it's

16:17

got Leo and Leonardo DiCaprio and Tom Hanks

16:19

in it. And Christopher Walken as I

16:21

had forgotten. Frank Jr. on the other

16:23

hand, wasn't exactly the baragon of paternal

16:25

values that Frank Jr. would have us

16:27

believe he got remarried a mere three

16:29

months after the divorce was finalized. Hmm,

16:31

it seems that the party who was

16:33

really the catalyst for the end of

16:35

the marriage had been misidentified indeed. According

16:38

to Frank's older brother Roy, he, Roy,

16:40

had to leave the Marines early to

16:42

support his mother and siblings due to

16:44

his father's alcoholism, repeated violations of a

16:47

court order which was supposed to keep

16:49

him away from Paulette, and the fact

16:51

that he was providing no parental or

16:53

financial support. Oh, so he was just a

16:55

deadbeat. Wow, they portray him so nicely in

16:58

the film. And he just, and he

17:00

was so intentionally got a restraining order

17:02

or something against him. Why

17:04

do Frank I like him so much? We

17:06

do have to find a little grain

17:08

of salt to take this information with,

17:10

however, and we'll come back to Roy

17:12

Abignell later on. This story. just keeps

17:15

on giving. Indeed it does, a long

17:17

script today. Paulette Abagnel was so upset

17:19

over her portrayal in the film, of

17:21

course she would be, that a niece

17:23

told Javier Leyva of the Pretends podcast

17:26

that she had actually sued Dreamwork Studios

17:28

over it. Yeah, I don't blame you.

17:30

I would probably do the same, assuming

17:32

a lawyer had told me that it

17:34

was chill. They reached an out-of-court settlement,

17:37

so this information can't be verified, as

17:39

it's not verified, as it's not. While

17:41

on the subject of the end of

17:43

Abignail's marriage, let's revisit the court proceedings. Young

17:45

Frank, all fresh-faced and earnest looking, gets someone to

17:48

a courthouse only to have it dropped on him

17:50

that his beloved parents are splitting up and he'd

17:52

have to choose who to live with. Does this

17:54

sound likely? I mean, he's 16 at this point.

17:56

Don't you think that his folks might have mentioned

17:59

it to him earlier? rather than waiting to

18:01

punk him with a potentially life-changing choice

18:03

on the actual divorce day. Yeah, it

18:05

seems insane and unbelievable. Also, would you

18:07

even ask the 16-year-old? Sure, I'm sure

18:09

it would be part of the decision-making

18:11

process, but I feel like if I

18:13

was the judge on that case, I'd

18:15

be like, well, your father has a

18:17

restraining order against him. He's an alcoholic

18:19

and he doesn't contribute any money. So,

18:21

uh, no, no, no, you're not going

18:23

to get to live with him. Even

18:25

though you're not going to, you're not

18:27

going to, you're not going to, you're

18:29

not going to, you're not going to,

18:31

you're not going to, you're not going

18:33

to, you're not going to, you're not

18:36

going to, you're not going to, you're

18:38

not going to, you're not going to,

18:40

you're not going to, you're not going

18:42

to, you're not going to, you're not

18:44

going to, you're not going to, you're

18:46

I make your decisions. I have a

18:48

judge. Anyway, it was this event that

18:50

started his no good life of crime

18:52

as he was so upset, he just

18:54

ran away and then apparently cried every

18:56

night for three years over it. I

18:58

don't want to sound unsympathetic here as

19:00

my parents are still happily married, so

19:02

I don't really know the trauma that

19:04

comes with the divorce, but I mean,

19:06

crying every night for three years? Maybe

19:08

if he was younger, but from 16

19:10

to 19, I mean, come on. Yeah,

19:12

I don't know. Some pretty traumatic some

19:15

pretty traumatic traumatic things happen. I don't

19:17

think I've ever cried myself to sleep

19:19

for three years. That's it. That's an

19:21

insane statement. Anyway, that element aside, we

19:23

come upon our next wrinkle in Abignail's

19:25

supposed story. According to Javier Leyva, who

19:27

I believe 100%, there was no divorce

19:29

hearing in a courtroom in New York.

19:31

The Abignail's divorce was finalized in Mexico,

19:33

which during the divorce boom of the

19:35

1960s boom of the 1960s was not

19:37

uncommon. The couple involved didn't even have

19:39

to be there. You could just have

19:41

a representative on your behalf and hey

19:43

presto, your marriage was dissolved, no dramatic

19:45

exits onto the street required. All right.

19:47

So, we're getting to the start of

19:49

Frank Jr's exploits now, and as he

19:51

starts his amazing life of crime, by

19:53

pretending to be a pilot at the

19:56

age of 16. And here's one thing

19:58

that is true about Abignail. He did

20:00

look older than he was, and while

20:02

he was no Leonardo DiCaprio, or at

20:04

least Leonardo DiCaprio from 20 years ago,

20:06

he wasn't a bad-looking fellow. I say

20:08

this objectively, although I am notorious for

20:10

some weird crushes. See, Wayne Rooney. I

20:12

don't know who Aramis is, oh, the

20:14

cartoon's spaniel from docketanian in the Moscow.

20:16

I am Aramis, ex-musketeer of the King,

20:18

and I second everything docketanion has said,

20:20

now release, madamoiselle Juliet. All right. Adder

20:22

all the dogs, huh? Anyway, having managed

20:24

to get his hands on a pilot

20:26

uniform, which he says he got fitted

20:28

for by showing a fake Panam ID

20:30

card, but could also just have been

20:32

a costume one, he managed to blang

20:35

his way onto free flights across the

20:37

states, and eventually the world. He flew

20:39

over a million miles for nothing, and

20:41

visited 26 countries. This, at the age

20:43

of 16, remembers, who were around 1964.

20:45

He started creating an altering checks from

20:47

Panam to fund his new lifestyle, fund

20:49

his new lifestyle, as a new lifestyle,

20:51

to fund his new lifestyle, and fund

20:53

his own trips. to wherever. I mean

20:55

it's a great story but it just

20:57

seems so unlikely when you think about

20:59

it like it just seems so unlikely.

21:01

Some of this is true as Abignail

21:03

did indeed pretend to be a pilot

21:05

but it was not at the age

21:07

of 16. What was he actually doing

21:09

at the age 16? Well we'll get

21:11

to that. What's next? Oh yes, he

21:13

pretended to be a doctor. When he

21:16

was around 18, Abignail would have us

21:18

believe that he moved into some fancy

21:20

new digs in the state of Georgia

21:22

and had to put his occupation on

21:24

the application form. He put that he

21:26

was a doctor so that he'd fit

21:28

in with his new neighbors and this

21:30

somehow escalated to him actually doing rounds

21:32

in Cobb County General Hospital for a

21:34

year where he became the chief resident

21:36

pediatrician. Don't worry though, he didn't actually

21:38

perform any surgeries or procedures himself. He

21:40

managed to spend the whole time in

21:42

a sort of supervisory role, which must

21:44

have been a relief as he had

21:46

practically zero medical training. I feel like

21:48

this is the sort that, that like,

21:50

if someone dies dude, because you are

21:52

like, the medical students like cutting someone

21:55

up and they're like, should I make

21:57

the incision here? Do you concur? And

21:59

then they just bleed out. You go

22:01

to prison. for a long time. While

22:03

it's funny to watch in a film,

22:05

it's very scary to think that a

22:07

teenager can just pretend to be a

22:09

doctor for a year and no one

22:11

would notice. Actually, I know this has

22:13

happened fairly recently when 18-year-old Malachi Love

22:15

Robinson who called himself Dog- to love,

22:17

managed to open a medical center in

22:19

2016. This is crazy! This was in

22:21

Florida, so it's not that surprising, that

22:23

Love Robinson was caught to frauding patients

22:25

and sent to jail. Only thankfully, wasn't

22:27

doing much hands-on medical stuff, there is

22:29

something he was actually doing at the

22:31

age of 18 that precludes Abignail from

22:33

having pretended to be a doctor for

22:36

a year, but we'll come to that.

22:38

Oh my God! There's so many setups

22:40

today! So many! Moving on, when Frank

22:42

was 19, he said he passed the

22:44

bar exam in Louisiana with precisely zero

22:46

education in law, although to make this

22:48

slightly more believable, he did fail the

22:50

first two times. Nevertheless, he persisted, and

22:52

because they sent him the transcripts of

22:54

the first two exams with the mistakes

22:56

marked up, he easily passed the third

22:58

time. In a meteoric rise to legal

23:00

practice fame, he made it to the

23:02

lofty heights of assistant attorney general of

23:04

the state in the same year and

23:06

even brag that it dated the attorney

23:08

general's daughter. In his stick four to

23:10

tell the truth, he said he worked

23:12

on the AG staff for six years,

23:15

but in the more pat version of

23:17

later times it was only a year

23:19

before he moved up to his next

23:21

fake career as a professor at the

23:23

famous Brigham Young University in Utah. Here

23:25

he pretended to have a PhD in

23:27

sociology and lectured there for another year.

23:29

He has stated that all he did

23:31

to stop people becoming suspicious was read

23:33

a chapter further ahead than his students.

23:35

Frank, are you scallywag? Wait a second

23:37

though. There is something he was doing

23:39

at the ages of 19 and 20

23:41

that means he couldn't have been lawyering

23:43

up a storm or shaping impressionable mines

23:45

for which in the ground scheme of

23:47

things I think we ought to be

23:49

grateful. And here it is. The big

23:51

reveal. I'm sorry to inform everyone. Was

23:53

he up to you? Was he up

23:56

to inform? What was he up? Was

23:58

he up? I'm sorry to inform everyone,

24:00

but our living legend, Frank Abignail Jr,

24:02

did not have, did not live the

24:04

glamorous con man lifestyle. He has peddled

24:06

for decades. Almost the entire story, we

24:08

think we know, is either made up,

24:10

whole cloth or exaggerated at the very

24:12

least. There is absolutely no way that

24:14

Abignail carried out his four or five-year

24:16

period of romanticized, high-exiting, high-stakes. FBI dodging

24:18

impersonations because for the vast majority of

24:20

his life between 16 and 21 I

24:22

guessed it he was in jail which

24:24

surely there's like a there's a record

24:26

of him being in jail right how

24:28

hard would it be to disprove this

24:30

stuff I know he jumped ahead of

24:32

it and I kept referring to Frank's

24:35

version of event so let's get this

24:37

train back on the tracks and only

24:39

talk about the actual real-life timeline now

24:41

okay I knew you were taking us

24:43

through the fake timeline because Like when

24:45

you put on your reasonable person glasses

24:47

rather than enjoying a movie glasses, you're

24:49

like, this is ridiculous. I don't think

24:51

this would happen. Frank Abignell had a

24:53

troubled adolescence, I think it's fair to

24:55

say, we can't really speculate on the

24:57

reasons why, but while he had a

24:59

flare for creativity, he also had a

25:01

flare for petty crime. He said that

25:03

his father was his first victim as

25:05

he quickly racked up a credit card

25:07

that he gave him for gasoline leaving

25:09

Frank Sr. owing thousands of dollars. I'm

25:11

not sure if that's true or not,

25:13

to be honest, but it does fit

25:16

his real-life modus operandi as we'll see.

25:18

Oh no! I only ever ripped off

25:20

the big guys like Pan Am! And

25:22

giant hospitals and stuff like this and

25:24

he's like, no no, no, I ripped

25:26

off my own dad! Straight thousands of

25:28

dollars on his credit card that he

25:30

trusted me with! What a loser! What

25:32

a loser! According to his older brother

25:34

Roy, another reason he asked to leave

25:36

the Marines was because 15-year-old Frank was

25:38

in reform school after being caught stealing

25:40

from a local business and also stealing

25:42

cars. Oh dear Frank. Alan Logan did

25:44

find out that Frank had actually been

25:46

arrested at age 15 when he was

25:48

roaming around the neighbourhood, attempting to interview

25:50

people as a fake official. He tried

25:52

to interview a teenage girl and her

25:55

mom got suspicious. He was caught with

25:57

a police badge made of paper and

25:59

a toy gun. This was seen almost

26:01

as a joke at the time, and

26:03

I don't believe it went anywhere because

26:05

of his age, but if he tried

26:07

that now, he'd probably just be shot.

26:09

Just kidding. He's white. Oh God. Frank

26:11

also lied about attending a posh Catholic

26:13

school up to the age of 16,

26:15

but when people actually investigated this claim...

26:17

His name didn't appear anywhere in the

26:19

school records and no one who actually

26:21

went there remembers him at all. It

26:23

seems that Frank Abignail never finished high

26:25

school. In December 9, 64, 16-year-old Frank

26:27

actually signed up for the US Navy.

26:29

If only he had stuck it out,

26:31

he might have forged a more honorable

26:33

and useful path for himself but only

26:36

last 57 days and was then discharged

26:38

though he don't know, mate. 57 days

26:40

out you go, we can't handle this.

26:42

This means he didn't even make it

26:44

to the end of basic training. Just

26:46

a week later, on returning to New

26:48

York, Abagnale was caught stealing and using

26:50

fake or forged checks as per Alan

26:52

Logan's greatest hoax on earth, quoting here,

26:54

the local police responded quickly and arrested

26:56

him for for forgery on February the

26:58

25th, 1965, only one week after his

27:00

naval discharge. Two weeks later on March

27:02

11th he was arrested yet again by

27:04

Mount Vernon officers, this time the vagrancyancy.

27:06

I was only ever arrested once in

27:08

my life. Bro, you're arrested like twice

27:10

within two weeks. Whoops, a daisy. Instead

27:12

of waiting for the wheels of justice

27:15

to finish turning, in June 1965, now

27:17

age 17, Abignail stole a car, took

27:19

some blank checks out of a gas

27:21

station known as Checkbook, which he laid

27:23

to cash for $350 or $3,400 today

27:25

in head of California, ripping off other

27:27

small businesses along the way using his

27:29

favoured fake checks. Yep! Not ripping off

27:31

the little guy, are we frank? As

27:33

you might have noticed, this doesn't exactly

27:35

mesh with Frank's publicly touted tales of

27:37

impersonating a pilot and flying a million

27:39

miles around the globe, whilst merrily sticking

27:41

it to a giant corporation and looking

27:43

good doing it. But it was in

27:45

California that Abignale was caught, and in

27:47

quite an ironic way. Not only had

27:49

he skipped town while still under arrest,

27:51

he had stolen a car and driven

27:53

it across state lines. When he stopped

27:56

in a town called Eureka, it might

27:58

have seemed like an anonymous place to

28:00

stop and make. quote, Eureka was home

28:02

to one of the country's best run

28:04

police forgery units, headed up by 39-year-old

28:06

Sergeant Frank Sonberg. Four years before Abignell

28:08

arrived in the city, Eureka officials established

28:10

a zero tolerance attitude toward check fraud.

28:12

Sergeant Sonberg had been tasked with heading

28:14

up the fraud and check detail. End

28:16

quote. Basically. This meant that as soon

28:18

as Frank tried to open a new

28:20

bank account to withdraw non-existent funds, the

28:22

police were informed almost immediately. To make

28:24

matters worse for him. In order to

28:26

get a discount on his motel room,

28:28

Frank had pretended he was a US

28:30

border agent. And to make matters even

28:32

more dire, the car he had stolen

28:35

in New York was an already distinctive

28:37

yellow Mustang. But along his road trip,

28:39

Frank had pipped his ride somewhat, and

28:41

it now had the word... Bandit written

28:43

on both sides and what Logan calls

28:45

a weird emblem of a mass man

28:47

and a derringer type pistol firing several

28:49

shots I mean the guy was 17

28:51

he probably thought this was the dopest

28:53

thing ever yeah probably but if you're

28:55

on the run from the law it's

28:57

like don't this is definitely one of

28:59

the rules on casual criminalist it's like

29:01

don't if you're a criminal don't drive

29:03

a yellow sports car you got to

29:05

drive like a gray Ford Mondeo Or,

29:07

what's that, the super generic Toyota, the

29:09

Camry? Just drive like a brown Toyota

29:11

Camry. Problem solved. Well, this boiled down

29:13

to, was he had another arrest on

29:16

the 21st of June 1965, and he

29:18

was also charged with impersonating an employee

29:20

of the United States Department of Customs

29:22

and Immigration. He was also charged with

29:24

car theft. And both the case and

29:26

Frank Jr. were going to be transferred

29:28

back to New York. Here's where we

29:30

refer back. to an earlier point. Frank

29:32

Jr. did, in fact, see his father

29:34

again, despite saying he never had after

29:36

having not run out of the courtroom

29:38

the previous year. Frank Senior had to

29:40

fly to California to bail Frank Jr.

29:42

out. But luckily for him, the bail

29:44

was only a dollar. Frank Jr. really

29:46

benefits from the kindnesses of judges and

29:48

other law officials' hearts in this story,

29:50

not that he appreciated it. I'm sure

29:52

his dad appreciated it, though, as he

29:55

wasn't exactly financic. at the time and

29:57

had to foot the bill for the

29:59

cross-continental flight himself, so that must have

30:01

been a bit of a relief. He

30:03

also had all those massive thousands of

30:05

dollars of debt racked up on that

30:07

credit card, he gave Frank. Like, for

30:09

sake, Frank. The Abignales returned to New

30:11

York on the 2nd of July, 1965,

30:13

after what was possibly Frank Jr's first

30:15

flight and first taste of the pilot

30:17

lifestyle. His time as a free man

30:19

there was short-lived, however, less than two

30:21

weeks later on the 15th of July

30:23

1965, Abignell Jr. was arrested by the

30:25

Tuckahoe New York Police Department on outstanding

30:27

forgery charges. When the police picked him

30:29

up, he was wearing a pilot's uniform

30:31

and was accompanied by a female flight

30:33

attendant. A surge of his apartment revealed

30:36

an empty box from the all-built uniform

30:38

company and witnesses had seen him going

30:40

to a tailor on several occasions. Abignail

30:42

said that he had joined the Panam

30:44

training program. A good excuse, even though

30:46

it was a lie, but it didn't

30:48

stop him from being charged with the

30:50

check forgeries and also the blank checks

30:52

that he'd used from the service station

30:54

owner. On July the 22nd, 1965, he

30:56

was sentenced to three years at Great

30:58

Meadow Correctional Institute in Cornstock, New York.

31:00

Other people came forward to say they'd

31:02

been ripped off by the teen, but

31:04

no further action was taken, as it

31:06

had already got a decent sentence. He's

31:08

about right. Probably not going to, but

31:10

maybe you will. And this was just

31:12

for the forging of the checks. He

31:14

still had the car theft hanging over

31:17

him too. Abignow was paroled after two

31:19

years and walked out a great meadow

31:21

in May 1967. He was now 19.

31:23

If you recall, this was the period

31:25

of time where he's supposed to be

31:27

the grand high chief doctor of the

31:29

world's... or whatever, in Georgia, and also

31:31

then starting his illustrious legal career after

31:33

having blagged his way through the bar

31:35

exam in Louisiana in Louisiana. I think

31:37

you'll agree that these things are slightly

31:39

more difficult to achieve if you're sitting

31:41

behind a different kind of bar in

31:43

New York the entire time. Indeed. He

31:45

claims such things as that he was

31:47

dating the Louisiana Attorney General's daughter at

31:49

this point in his life. Well, that's

31:51

one easy thing to bank check. The

31:53

AG at the time was a man

31:56

called Jack Gremelian. He only had one

31:58

daughter. Did she date Frank Abignell at

32:00

any time? No, she didn't. In fact,

32:02

as she... In conference to Javier Leyva,

32:04

she was married and living in Japan

32:06

at the time, Abignail was claiming to

32:08

be courting her. It's a pretty good

32:10

alibi, isn't it? Back to the timeline.

32:12

Hey, Frank's coming up on 20 now,

32:14

maybe the part about being the fake

32:16

college professor at Brigham Young was true.

32:18

How hard can it be to teach

32:20

sociology anyway? Very hard to teach at

32:22

Brigham Young. If you are in jail,

32:24

mere weeks after being corolled into his

32:26

mother's care, Frank was writing Bad Jackson,

32:28

stealing cars again. He later told a story

32:31

to a TV audience of a hilarious scam

32:33

he pulled off at Logan Airport, where he

32:35

hung a sign on a night deposit box

32:37

to say it was out of night deposit

32:40

box to say it was out of order,

32:42

and to drop money off with the guard

32:44

on duty. He said how he was dressed

32:46

as a guard and collected so much money

32:48

that he was having trouble loading it into

32:51

the night. Except, well, that didn't

32:53

happen. There was an incident near

32:55

Logan Airport, but it came off

32:57

the back of a weird subplot

32:59

that Abignail frequently returns to whenever

33:01

he's released from prison. According

33:03

to Javier Leyva on the Real Catchment

33:06

Count series, Frank was paroled from Great

33:08

Meadow. He turned up at a nursery

33:10

school in his full pilot garb, saying

33:12

he wanted to work with children. Unbelievably,

33:15

this worked. He ends up getting hired to

33:17

pick up and drop off the kids from

33:19

school using the school owner's station wagon. He

33:22

also gets a load of the female teachers

33:24

together for an impromptu trip to Puerto Rico.

33:26

This is true, as Labour interviewed one of

33:28

the women who went on the trip, who

33:31

went on the trip. Frank paid for everything

33:33

with checks, the flight, the hotel, the food

33:35

and drink, but when they wanted to prolong

33:37

the short break, he got extremely twitch and

33:39

nervous and said that they had to go.

33:42

Could this be the very station wagon Frank

33:44

references loading ill-gotten deposits into with the help

33:46

of a couple of hatless state troopers? While

33:48

that story was disproved when a suspicious man

33:50

called Jim Keith decided to fact-check some of

33:52

Abignail's claims in the 1980s. He got in

33:54

touch with the Logan Airport police captain at

33:57

the time who confirmed that no such scam

33:59

or robbery had taken place was what he

34:01

would say. Heaven ride under his nose!

34:03

The real story ends with Abignell being

34:05

arrested yet again near Logan Airport for

34:07

Grand Theft Auto of the school owner's

34:09

station wagon at a couple of low

34:11

level forgery charges. The outshot of all

34:13

of this, oh, is that he was

34:15

in the Charles Street jail for six

34:18

months for the car theft before heading

34:20

back to Great Meadow to do just

34:22

over another year for violating his parole.

34:24

This brings us to December 1968, Frank

34:26

is now 20, and I think we

34:28

have to agree that he would not

34:30

have time to be teaching two full

34:32

semesters at college when he was once

34:34

again in jail. If you're not convinced

34:36

about all of this, by the way,

34:38

both Alan Logan and Javier Lever have

34:40

independently seen and verified Abagnel's arrest warrant

34:42

and inmate card, so we are on

34:45

solid ground here. He never technically did

34:47

time for the theft of the Mustang

34:49

back in 1965, because for various reasons,

34:51

usually because he was in jail somewhere

34:53

else, the case kept getting delayed. It

34:55

was eventually abandoned under a Noll Prossiki

34:57

document, as the authorities thought Frank was

34:59

being kept under supervision on parole, and

35:01

in fact, he was not as per

35:03

Alan Logan. The Nollay Prossiki document did

35:05

prove one other important point, that the

35:07

federal authorities were not interested in Abignail.

35:09

He was certainly not wanted by any

35:11

federal authorities. There was no one going

35:14

hunt for the guy who later claimed

35:16

absurdly that he was the youngest man

35:18

ever, who later claimed absurdly that he

35:20

was the youngest man ever to make

35:22

it onto the FBI's top 10 most

35:24

wanted list. A claim that was parroted

35:26

to the movie studios. And maybe the

35:28

movie studios are like, is a good

35:30

story. Let's just do it! It's a

35:32

good story! And then they can say

35:34

they aren't based on a true story,

35:36

based on true events. Sort of. Partly

35:38

related. There's a grain of truth. His

35:40

name was Frank. Now comes some actual

35:43

crossover with reality and myth. In early

35:45

January 1969, just a few days after

35:47

being released from Great Meadow again, Frank

35:49

domed the pilot's uniform and tricked his

35:51

way onto a free flight from New

35:53

York to Miami. Finally, he does it.

35:55

He's not a fake fraud, he's a

35:57

real fraud. If we check in with

35:59

the timeline again, though, Frank was supposed

36:01

to have done this four years prior

36:03

at the age of 16. He made

36:05

it by age 20, but conveniently leaves

36:07

his age and all the jail staff

36:09

out of his public presentations. I mean,

36:12

you would though, wouldn't you? He starts

36:14

by chatting with a friendly flight attendant

36:16

called Paula Parks and becomes seemingly quite

36:18

attached. Creeperly so, in fact, is over

36:20

her next few domestic flights, Franks always

36:22

waiting for her when her plane lands.

36:24

While she did admit at the start

36:26

that she had fun hanging out with

36:28

him and friends, it started to feel

36:30

pretty uncomfortable when he kept turning up,

36:32

turning up, and friends, it started to

36:34

feel pretty uncomfortable when he kept turning

36:36

up. They'd be like, oh, this is

36:38

like, the second time I was like,

36:41

it's a bit weird. Fourth time, it's

36:43

like, stop stalking, stop stalking me, bro.

36:45

feeling that there was something off about

36:47

the guy, her family fell, decline, and

36:49

sinker for Frank's charms. Paula left a

36:51

few days later to go back to

36:53

work, but to make things even more

36:55

awkward, Frank moved in with her parents

36:57

and even ended up sleeping in her

36:59

room. Brah. This is creepy, dude. That

37:01

is some creepy. He had spun the

37:03

material of how he was not only

37:05

a pilot, which he wasn't. Let's just

37:08

remind everyone. He ordered a degree from

37:10

Cornell in social work and was looking

37:12

to work with local children. He eventually

37:14

ended up working for a local church's

37:16

youth group. Another preschool gig he picked

37:18

up before stealing the owner's car. Hoveyolever

37:20

noticed that every time Frank got out

37:22

of jail he seemed to gravitate towards

37:24

jobs involving children. Now this is potentially

37:26

murky staff and there have never been

37:28

any accusations or anything that Frank had

37:30

any dodgy intentions towards kids. It might

37:32

have been that he felt safer around

37:34

them or just related to them more

37:37

due to his own patchy upbringing or

37:39

maybe he felt superior to them or

37:41

something, but we are not in any

37:43

way accusing him of any kind of

37:45

abuse or anything like that. Nobody found

37:47

any proof where that's concerned, it's just

37:49

worth noting. Yeah, I mean, I don't,

37:51

I mean, there's plenty of reasons why

37:53

it's not something more sinister. Anyway, Frank,

37:55

who but regularly wear his pilot's uniform,

37:57

as one does, and he often said

37:59

he was on furlough from the job.

38:01

I'm sure anyone who's been temporarily shelved

38:03

from a job can't wait to dawn

38:06

their uniform when they're on their own

38:08

time. Yeah, but if you're a pilot,

38:10

your uniform is bad-ass, and people are

38:12

like, oh, you're a pilot. It's a

38:14

detail that keeps coming up, yet people

38:16

did seem blinded by the illusion of

38:18

some sort of authority figure. He'd also

38:20

been rumbled by a Reverend who was

38:22

checking his references in an honest attempt

38:24

to help the fur-longed pilot get some

38:26

work. Reverend Underwood instead found out that

38:28

Frank hadn't been to Cornell and was

38:30

well known around the New Orleans airport

38:32

for hanging around suspiciously. Here's what Alan

38:35

Logan says in the greatest hoax on

38:37

earth quoting. The airline had been watching

38:39

the man who had been hanging around

38:41

airports in a TWA costume and attempting

38:43

to pass bad checks. He was more

38:45

of a nuisance to them than a

38:47

serious security threat. Unlike the elusive Debeneer

38:49

character portrayed in the film Catch Me

38:51

If You Can, the airlines viewed him

38:53

as an unsavory character who stuck out

38:55

like a sore thumb. They knew exactly

38:57

who he was. The Reverend ended up

38:59

informing the Baton Rouge police, but Frank

39:01

had sensed trouble coming, and he moved

39:04

out of Paul at Paris by mid-February.

39:06

It was only after he was only

39:08

after he had gone. The Parks family

39:10

found out that had been stealing from

39:12

their checkbook and had even raided Paula's

39:14

Little Brother's Savings Account. He was arrested

39:16

on Valentine's Day, 1969. The Parks family's

39:18

kindness was repaid with theft of money.

39:20

They didn't really have to spare, but

39:22

it wasn't any money they lost. They

39:24

lost their sense of trust. And in

39:26

the following years, whenever Frank popped up

39:28

on TV, they felt tricked and ashamed

39:31

all over again. The Parks family, which

39:33

is one of a large group of

39:35

individuals and small businesses that Frank brazenly

39:37

stole from. No, no. Ah Frank, he

39:39

only stole from the big guys! As

39:41

for his claim that he repaid all

39:43

the money he ever stole on behalf

39:45

of her family and all the others,

39:47

well, Paula Parks is still waiting. People

39:49

start getting more of an idea about

39:51

the real Frank Abignow now, not the

39:53

slick storyteller who's... goddess escapades fine-tuned to

39:55

roll off the tongue in a few

39:57

years' time, but someone who's in need

40:00

of psychiatric help. Indeed, when trying to

40:02

work out the enigma that was the

40:04

pilot trying to get a basic job,

40:06

Reverend Underwood ended up corresponding with Frank's

40:08

parents in letters that Pauler had kept

40:10

for decades. In these letters, Pollett Abignell

40:12

writes things like, Frank is in dire

40:14

need of help. I mean psychiatric help.

40:16

Frank Jr. called his son mentally sick,

40:18

and Frank Jr. has been emotionally disturbed

40:20

since the age of 10, and neglect

40:22

an indifference to the problems of my

40:24

son in his early youth and my

40:26

sins. Paulette also mentioned his time in

40:29

great menochorexional institute. As Annelyn Logan writes

40:31

in his book, in that one letter,

40:33

Paulette destroyed the false autobographical narrative her

40:35

son would one day invent for catch

40:37

me if he can. The letters show

40:39

that both parents cop to the fact

40:41

that they had known since he was

40:43

a child that Frank was in need

40:45

of some kind of help. They say

40:47

he had tried and failed to get

40:49

in that help. I think we can

40:51

all believe that this is true, and

40:53

instead of some teenage whizgid fooling the

40:55

world, jailbird for compulsive liar and fantasist

40:58

Frank Jr. was using his time behind

41:00

bars to concoct the tales we're all

41:02

familiar with today. I suppose that means

41:04

he still did end up fooling the

41:06

world, or most of it. Not everyone

41:08

was one over so easily, but we'll

41:10

give them a shout out a little

41:12

bit later. Okay, so where are we

41:14

up to now? It's early 1969, and

41:16

Frank's looking at being sent to the

41:18

Louisiana State Penitentiary, which is also known

41:20

as Angola. Conditions at the time were

41:22

pretty bleak, and Frank was trying anything

41:24

to get someone to put in a

41:27

good word for him, even contacting Reverend

41:29

Underwood, who'd been the one to turn

41:31

him in, and the Park's family and

41:33

trying to apologize. We... gave you somewhere

41:35

to stay and you stole our shit

41:37

and you stole our brothers like money

41:39

and our checks. You're a piece of

41:41

shit. Why would I help you? Why

41:43

you have to be mad? You're trying

41:45

to claim insanity as a defence but

41:47

the somewhat insensibly named Lunacy Commission. declared

41:49

insane. The lunacy commission did I get

41:51

you. Lunacy commission founds like a good

41:53

name for a band. Frank ended up

41:56

pleading guilty to forgery and theft and

41:58

was looking at up to 10 years

42:00

in one of America's worst prisons. But

42:02

it turned out that his pleading with

42:04

Reverend Underwood had actually worked. Frank ended

42:06

up with 12 years of supervised probation.

42:08

No jail time at all. Wow. And

42:10

he was given access to psychiatric treatment

42:12

and told to repay all of his

42:14

victims. Which, you know, he didn't do.

42:16

So, how about that treatment and the

42:18

supervised probation? How did that turn out?

42:20

Well, we never know what could have

42:23

happened because your boy didn't hang around

42:25

long enough for any of that nonsense.

42:27

Instead, he flew off to Europe. All

42:29

right, now this is where the real

42:31

and fake timelines come together, as Frank

42:33

has admitted to being in jail in

42:35

France, Sweden, and then being deported back

42:37

to the US to be jailed again.

42:39

It also marks the end of his

42:41

four or five years of alleged professional

42:43

charades. As he was actually in jail

42:45

for the vast majority of this time,

42:47

Alan Logan worked out that during his

42:49

non-jail days, he'd have to have been

42:52

writing at least 40 checks a day

42:54

every day. That seems like a lot

42:56

of hard work. It also casts more

42:58

than a little doubt on Abignail's repeated

43:00

claims that he paid every cent back.

43:02

I mean, who can keep track of

43:04

that many payments? Yeah, there is no

43:06

shot. They're just like, yeah, yeah, make

43:08

sure you pay it back. Just be

43:10

like, how? I didn't keep a ledger.

43:12

They will be writing down my crimes.

43:14

I know not to do that. Moving

43:16

on, Frank had landed in Sweden, stolen

43:18

a car while wearing his pilot's uniform,

43:21

and driven to France, leaving several bad

43:23

checks in his way. Some highlights of

43:25

the lies he tells about this period,

43:27

include the lies he tells about this

43:29

period, include that he had retired to

43:31

Montelier to live in peace after his

43:33

crime spree. Obviously, he was essentially star...

43:35

by his French jailers losing 89 pounds

43:37

while laying around. in pools of his

43:39

own urine and feces. How horrific if

43:41

true, which he wasn't. Losing eight to

43:43

nine pounds or over forty kilos in

43:45

six months would be bad enough, but

43:47

in three months? Hardly likely. Oh, and

43:50

he was, that's, yes, an insane amount

43:52

of ways to lose in three months.

43:54

Unless he, I mean, he's not... Unless

43:56

he was absolutely massively obese, which I

43:58

don't think so. Oh, when he was

44:00

discharged and then extradited to Sweden, the

44:02

man, he stole the car from there,

44:04

Jan Hillman, said he looked exactly the

44:06

same. The only difference I saw was

44:08

that he was not as happy and

44:10

cheerful. He just got out of prison,

44:12

and now he's going to new prison.

44:14

He only got two months in Malmo

44:16

jail and was deported with a ban

44:19

on reentering Sweden for eight years. And

44:21

of course he was supposed to pay

44:23

his victims victims' victims' bag, which, of

44:25

course he hasn't. Well here's an extract

44:27

from a speech Frank gave in 1982

44:29

building on the success of his autobiography.

44:31

Quote, they put me on board a

44:33

flight to New York. The FBI asked

44:35

to come to Sweden, but the Swedish

44:37

government said, no way. The FBI said,

44:39

well, he has no violence on his

44:41

record, I'm sure he'll be fine on

44:43

the plane. Shear, who is waiting, and

44:46

of course the next day, the front

44:48

page in the New York Times, was,

44:50

Skyway Man disappears at 30,000 feet. He

44:52

gave himself the name, Skyway Man, by

44:54

the way. In the movie, the scene

44:56

is where he escapes from the plane

44:58

by unbolting the toilet and going through

45:00

the hole. He also makes this claim

45:02

in his claim in his book. I

45:04

don't think this is how it works.

45:06

I think this is how it works.

45:08

I think this is engineering, engineering, engineering,

45:10

engineering, not possible. like in terms of

45:12

basic mechanics of that toilet. It wasn't

45:15

until it was pointed out that this

45:17

would be impossible that he amended his

45:19

story to say that it had been

45:21

changed in a dramatic effect and instead

45:23

he had actually escaped through the galley.

45:25

That's also actually fake, of course. In

45:27

reality he just got off the plane

45:29

like a normal person. The Shea, he

45:31

refers to here, is Joe Shea, a

45:33

real FBI officer who is represented in

45:35

the movie by Tom Hanks as Karl

45:37

Hanrati. There was no FBI involvement in

45:39

Frank's return to the US, however. He'd

45:41

served time for petty stuff abroad. He

45:44

wasn't exactly on their radar. Yeah, it's

45:46

like, you steal a car in Sweden.

45:48

The FBI not picking you up or

45:50

taking you back to Big Boy American

45:52

jail. You're just getting extradited and you're

45:54

going to go home and they're going

45:56

to arrest you if they want to.

45:58

wanted either, or classified as a master

46:00

thief by Interpol, which incidentally is not

46:02

a thing. I knew it wasn't a

46:04

thing. Of course it's not. Honestly, when

46:06

you're on this side of the looking

46:08

glass, it's difficult to work out why

46:10

we ever believed anything he said when

46:13

it's clearly all just total bullshit. And

46:15

there were no headlines about a disappearing

46:17

Skyway man either. Alan Logan checked. Okay.

46:19

Next up is Abignail's grand career stealing

46:21

millions of dollars from Panam. He obviously

46:23

didn't do this when he was 16,

46:25

as we've covered, but he did do

46:27

it in 1970, when he arrived back

46:29

from Sweden at the age of 22.

46:31

He said he stole $2.5 million

46:34

from Panam, worth about $20 million

46:36

today. He was cashing fake paycheck,

46:38

which were handled differently to the

46:40

forged checks he normally used, but

46:42

in the 90 days of freedom,

46:44

he had between arriving back in

46:46

Sweden and getting arrested again, he

46:48

had created and cashed 10 fake

46:50

Panam checks. Were these for hundreds

46:52

of thousands of dollars each? Well

46:54

no, the entirety of Abignail's paycheck

46:56

scam netted him $1, $1,448. It's

46:59

not Trump change, but it's not

47:01

exactly master thief levels. It's

47:03

certainly not, or is it modern money?

47:05

20 million? I'm immediately thinking, well, if

47:07

he's just cashing fake salary checks, how

47:10

the hell is he getting into 20

47:12

million? Would a pilot own 20 million over

47:14

the course of a career? I don't think

47:16

so, let alone over the course of whatever

47:18

time he's faking it for. Another point that

47:20

Frank wasn't exactly up to the master thief

47:22

label, should it exist, is that he used

47:24

his real name as the payee on

47:27

all the checks, meaning that he was

47:29

pretty easy to identify when the authorities

47:31

picked up on the scent. What are

47:33

you doing? Why would you do that?

47:35

Pan Am had found out about the

47:37

fraudulent checks and had contacted the FBI,

47:40

which finally got FBI special agent Joseph

47:42

Cher, aka Tom Hanks involved. As you

47:44

can see, all of this takes place

47:46

well outside of the date and age

47:48

range portrayed in Frank's book and the

47:51

movie. The FBI would not have wasted

47:53

manpower, money and other resources, chasing a

47:55

teenage car thief around the world or

47:57

a petty thief who was stealing a

47:59

small amount. Obviously another story, of course,

48:01

and Frank had their attention. Only for

48:03

a short time, though, as three months after

48:06

he cashed his first pan-am check, he

48:08

was arrested in a motel in Marietta,

48:10

Georgia, and just like that, that was

48:12

it, the extent of the FBI's chase of

48:14

Frank Abignail Jr. That's pretty disappointing. That's

48:16

it. That's really it. I did it.

48:18

I mean, I know it was expecting

48:20

it to be mostly made up, but I

48:22

did expect slightly slightly more. I did

48:24

expect slightly more than this, which is

48:26

so disappointing, even when I set up for

48:29

disappointments. They got a call, they went

48:31

to the address, and they arrested him.

48:33

Were they in awe of the master

48:35

thief that had finally apprehended after all this

48:37

time? Well, no. For two reasons. One

48:39

was that Frank didn't start telling those

48:41

stories until years later, so the FBI

48:43

would not be aware of them. And two,

48:45

as we've just covered, he didn't actually

48:47

do any of those things. He just

48:49

stole people's cars and cash people's cars

48:51

and cash bad checks. It's kind of wild

48:54

that you can just make up a

48:56

cool story about yourself, tell everyone it's

48:58

true, and get a movie made about

49:00

it. Like, and then I'm sure he's like

49:02

made lots of money off this, right?

49:04

Amazing. He's conned about a con. Someone

49:06

should make a movie about this. Like

49:08

catch me if you can, and the whole

49:10

thing, you know like that movie, that

49:12

movie, was it the room? Is it

49:14

the room? The crazy movie? Or it's like,

49:16

and then they make the movie about

49:18

it, about it, later on? They should

49:20

do this for catch me if you

49:22

can. It would be awesome. I think they

49:25

will, right? That's a crack in idea.

49:27

That would be so fun to watch.

49:29

Harvey Alever spoke to Al Brown, one

49:31

of the three arresting officers, who confirmed it

49:33

was just a routine arrest. He also

49:35

said that because the movie hadn't come

49:37

out, he hadn't known anything about Frank's

49:39

notoriety at the time. Don't worry, Al, you

49:41

weren't missing out. There was no notoriety.

49:43

Frank has played up the alleged real

49:45

relationship that he had with Joseph Shea,

49:47

who died in 2005, and Shea never spoke

49:50

out against the stories Abignell was telling,

49:52

but like Al Brown, they saw the

49:54

movie years after the arrest, when they

49:56

were quite old men, were excited to have

49:58

a part in the story, and probably

50:00

assumed it had just done those things

50:02

at an earlier or later date. or

50:04

that it was just a fictional movie. They

50:06

were involved in that one arrest and

50:08

that was it. Well, that was it.

50:10

Tom makes his role in the movie so

50:13

huge and it's just like, no, I

50:15

went to a motel and like... Manrietta

50:17

or whatever and was like, they just

50:19

arrested him from a tip off, bam! That

50:21

wouldn't be utilizing Tom Hanks very well.

50:23

I doubt they followed his trajectory afterwards.

50:25

He was just another collar to them

50:27

at the time and they took him to

50:29

Camp County Jail. It was here that

50:31

Frank actually did manage to bust out

50:33

of jail for real, but it was

50:35

not in some well-planned feet of daring do.

50:38

According to Alan Logan, he achieved it

50:40

by quote, slipping past the deputies in

50:42

a booking room while they were processing

50:44

paperwork. He made it back to New York,

50:46

but was quickly recaptured and in 1971

50:48

was sentenced to 10 years. Oh my

50:50

God, we're stepping things up. A faking

50:52

patriarchs in several different states. He was also

50:54

under another two years for escaping, but

50:56

only ended up serving a couple of

50:58

years before he was released in March 1973

51:01

under supervised probation. And we all know

51:03

what that means. Yeah, he's just going

51:05

off immediately. Yep, about nine months later,

51:07

which is actually a record for him to

51:09

stay in one place, I think, apart

51:11

from in jail, obviously. Frank Abignail Jr.

51:13

once again, pilots suited up and headed

51:15

for a job revolving around children. This time,

51:17

at the summer holiday camp, Camp Manzion?

51:19

Manizin? Camp Manizin? Camp Manizin? In Texas?

51:21

Two times? Three times? I'm not saying

51:23

anything. It's just a statement of fact. Once

51:26

again, his plot of randomly turning up

51:28

some were in full pilot regalia and

51:30

asking for some menial job worked. He

51:32

said he was on furlough from his pilot

51:34

life, but again, as I said before,

51:36

why would you show up in your

51:38

work uniform if you're not currently working?

51:40

Maybe it's just like, dude, I'm a pilot,

51:42

I want people to know, I'm a

51:44

pilot, you know, pilot, awesome. Do chefs,

51:46

wearing a stethoscope around their neck? Probably not.

51:49

No one really seemed to notice this

51:51

or care at the time and Frank

51:53

got another gig driving kids around. There's

51:55

a photo of him with the other camp

51:57

staff in Alan Logan's book. standing in

51:59

the back row, bold as brass. He's

52:01

notably not wearing his pilot out for

52:03

this group shot, however he's wearing a camp

52:05

manners and a t-shirt, like everyone else.

52:07

At this point, he was 26, with

52:09

most of the other camp workers being

52:11

in their late teens. And after a few

52:13

weeks, most of the women working there

52:15

were thoroughly over Frank Abagnel Jr. and

52:17

his arrogant and creepy ways. He does

52:20

seem a bit creepy, doesn't he, in the

52:22

movie? It's like, he's not creepy, because

52:24

he's Leonardo DiCaprio. I don't know if

52:26

that makes him not creepy. Leonardo DiCaprio

52:28

is a bit of a weird dude as

52:30

well, isn't he? Like, like, like, like,

52:32

like, like, like, Lydarda DeCaprio gets older

52:34

his girlfriends never do. It's a bit

52:36

weirdly. Frank did manage to get something useful

52:38

out of that summer though, a new

52:40

fake ID card for himself as a

52:42

Delta Pilot. Thanks to his friendship with a

52:45

young artist at the camp. The young

52:47

man thought he was just creating ideas

52:49

for more secure ID cards as Frank

52:51

had told him he was the president of

52:53

the Delta Pilots Club, but Frank managed

52:55

to end up with a decent-looking Delta

52:57

ID that someone else had basically made

52:59

for him. It rounded off his summer as

53:01

a camp driver by stealing personal possessions

53:03

from other workers, keeping money from the

53:05

sale of cameras that the camp boner

53:07

had asked him to make, and also getting

53:10

reimbursed for fuel, when it actually used

53:12

the summer camp's credit card in the

53:14

first place. One of the workers had

53:16

been suspicious of his pilot claims, and had

53:18

written to her dad, coincidentally, an actual

53:20

pilot for Delta, to ask him if

53:22

he knew a Frank Abingnail. He didn't,

53:24

and thought he was very weird, creepy, costumed

53:26

loiterer, loiterer. wait so that actually heard

53:28

of him from that and it's like

53:30

oh no that's the creepy dude around the

53:33

airports he was talking that woman then

53:35

he lived in a bedroom so eventually

53:37

the police were contacted again and while

53:39

Frank had already left the cat by that

53:41

point he was found and arrested once

53:43

more for theft it might have noticed

53:45

that he doesn't seem to be much

53:47

good at this crime lark had noticed that

53:49

he's spending a lot of time in

53:51

prison as Javier said on his podcast

53:53

series the real catch me if you

53:55

can quote it's almost like there's the Leonardo

53:58

DiCaprio, Slick Frank, who always gets away

54:00

with everything and falls everyone, and then

54:02

there's the slippery Frank, who gets away

54:04

with nothing and gets caught all the time

54:06

and is just plain creepy. Yes. Yes,

54:08

there are two Franks! This episode highlights

54:10

two different aspects of Frank's story. The

54:12

first is that he did all of these

54:14

petty crimes that victimized normal, hardworking people

54:16

and never alluded to them in any

54:18

of his future speeches, fully forgetting that he

54:21

never paid anyone back after saying that

54:23

he paid every cent back. The second

54:25

thing it highlights is that he just

54:27

kept getting away with this crap. Most people

54:29

that he stole from, like the owner

54:31

of Cap Manison, were just so embarrassed

54:33

at being taken advantage of that they

54:35

would rather just put the event behind them.

54:37

I mean, I get it, yeah, you're

54:39

just kind of like, ah, you know,

54:41

more for me, I guess I'm an

54:43

idiot. And you don't want to, like, make

54:46

us think about it, because it is

54:48

embarrassing, it is embarrassing. They may have

54:50

pressed charges. In this instance, Abignail was

54:52

bailed out from Galveston jail by someone called

54:54

his wife on the paperwork, but was

54:56

more likely to have been a girlfriend.

54:58

Even more surprising was that one of

55:00

Frank's victims, the man who had helped him

55:02

craft a fake Delta ID, actually started

55:04

receiving restitution checks in the post. The

55:06

only thing was, the checks weren't signed

55:08

by Frank. They were coming from the girlfriend.

55:10

It seems that while she might have

55:12

started off helping Frank voluntarily, she ended

55:15

up in a world of financial hurt. Alan

55:17

Logan mentions in the Greatest Oaks on

55:19

Earth, quote, court records show that she

55:21

was served with papers in autumn 1976

55:23

for long outstanding credit card charges and an

55:25

unpaid promissory note. Frank, who is about

55:27

to get married to Kelly Wobbs at

55:29

the time, and so it seems as

55:31

though his ex-girlfriend was another person left ruined

55:33

in his wake. Only hurting the big

55:35

guys, Frank, and the big guys can't

55:37

hurt. Come on. It's just a... disappointed,

55:39

he seems a bit bit bit cat. I

55:42

don't think Frank ended up doing much,

55:44

if any, actual jail time in Galveston,

55:46

in 1975... He was paroled under a

55:48

supervising officer called Jim Blackman. Why isn't there

55:50

that doesn't America have like three strikes

55:52

thing where if you do three strikes

55:54

they put your way for a really

55:56

long ass time? I feel like they were

55:58

made for this. When he was supposed

56:00

to be on a tight leash, Frank

56:02

managed to go straight back to his working

56:05

with children niche without Blackman knowing about

56:07

it. When asked what he was doing

56:09

for work, Frank originally lied and said

56:11

he was working as a recreational director at

56:13

a children's home. He called Frank's Bluff

56:15

and said that he'd be over there

56:17

to check in him. So Frank backtracked

56:19

as he was actually placing children in foster

56:21

homes. Oh, that's a million times worse,

56:23

isn't it? When Blackman arrived, he found

56:25

Frank in an office with a master's

56:27

degree on the wall and a slew of

56:30

picks of him in his pilot uniform.

56:32

I don't think Frank even got the

56:34

high school diploma, so obviously the degree

56:36

was another fake. His Jim Blackman's regulations as

56:38

told to Alan Logan. Jim also explained

56:40

that he, that his parolee, told him

56:42

that he had not forged any documents,

56:44

but instead had asked his girlfriend, who was

56:46

attached to a local university, to make

56:48

a diploma of him. No fake documents.

56:50

I didn't fake them. She faked them. On

56:53

my instruction. It's different. Jim Blackman didn't

56:55

want Frank to get into more trouble.

56:57

I just shot the gun that hurt

56:59

the guy. That's not me. Oh, someone else

57:01

made a fake degree so that he

57:03

could get a job placing vulnerable children

57:05

with complete strangers and he didn't make

57:07

it with his own hands? Well, I guess

57:09

that's fine then. Yes, sure it is.

57:11

Jim Blackman didn't want Frank to get

57:13

into more trouble, although he really should

57:15

have had him thrown straight back in the

57:18

slamer. What ended up happening was Frank

57:20

resigned from his job, thank goodness, and

57:22

then he actually moved in with Blackman

57:24

to what's called a garage apartment, so his

57:26

parole officer could keep an even close

57:28

around him. I'm quite impressed by Blackman.

57:30

He seems to actually care. I can

57:32

imagine a parole officer's like, oh, for God's

57:34

sake, here we go doing this again,

57:36

criminals, and they're violating their parole, and

57:38

they're criminals. And this guy actually seems

57:40

to want to reform him. From what little

57:43

we know about him so far, which

57:45

is awesome, and I bet Frank is

57:47

going to steal some from him or something,

57:49

isn't he? Because we're like, oh look

57:51

a good guy's been introduced to the

57:53

story. And he gets taken advantage of

57:55

because he's a good guy. Let's find out.

57:57

How many people get the chance for

57:59

presumably free room and bored instead of

58:01

going back to jail? Frank must have

58:03

cut a pretty pathetic figure at this point.

58:05

Maybe Blackman felt sorry for him because

58:07

in his latest arrest record as per

58:10

Alan Logan, quote, the police made note

58:12

of the 26-year-old's receding hairline among his distinguishing

58:14

features. Hey, hey, I had a fully

58:16

receded hairline when I was 26. Oh

58:18

I didn't, my hair like did so

58:20

much receipt I just got the bald spot

58:22

on the back and then it was

58:24

like small small massive and then I

58:26

just shaved my head because you know

58:28

you don't want to have like a full

58:30

on bold spot when you're 26. Frank

58:32

did finally get a job with Aitner

58:34

life and casualty health insurance company, but he

58:37

just couldn't go straight. In October 1975

58:39

his bouncing checks again, this time courtesy

58:41

of his new employer who didn't end

58:43

up pressing charges but did go after him

58:45

in civil court. We don't know if

58:47

Abignow paid Aetna back or not. The

58:49

total was $200 about... $1,100 today. If

58:51

past forms anything to go by, the big

58:53

boys who shout the loudest sometimes get

58:55

their money back while the people who

58:57

actually needed get nothing. Frank also stopped

58:59

working for a no pretty short order. We're

59:02

like, so we know even defrauding the

59:04

checks, we're going to need that back,

59:06

so we're taking you to court. And

59:08

he's like, so should I come in Monday?

59:10

By April of 1976, he was no

59:12

longer a house guest, courtesy of Jim

59:14

Blackman, in the setup of Frank W.

59:16

Abignell and Associates, ostensibly a consultant for fraud

59:18

and other criminal activity, which is still

59:20

in operation. I like that he didn't

59:22

steal from Jim. As far as we know,

59:25

that's nice. I was expecting Jim to

59:27

get taken advantage of. But he didn't,

59:29

that's nice. In 1977, we come full

59:31

circle, when he makes his appearance on to

59:33

tell the truth, with his almost totally

59:35

false narrative about what was going on

59:37

for him between the ages of 16

59:39

and 16 and 21. The ages of 16

59:41

and 21. After the success of this

59:43

appearance, he cobbled together a glossy press

59:45

kit all about himself, shopped it around,

59:47

and ended up lucking out and appearing on

59:50

the Tonight Show with Johnny Carson in

59:52

1978. He then managed to climb the

59:54

rungs of low-level celebrity appearing. on more

59:56

talk shows and growing his fake legend as

59:58

he went. His stories got taller and

1:00:00

taller and he would borrow better lines

1:00:02

from other people as he went along.

1:00:04

Borrow. One example being on the Tonight Show,

1:00:06

he told a story when he was

1:00:08

pretending to be a pilot and another

1:00:10

pilot asked what equipment he used. Obviously,

1:00:12

the real pilot was talking about what plane

1:00:15

he was flying, but Frank, who obviously

1:00:17

had no idea about anything related to

1:00:19

planes, answered naively. General Electric or GE, a

1:00:21

household name in the world of appliances,

1:00:23

Carson then quips back with something like...

1:00:25

Did you think you were flying a

1:00:27

washer or something? In a later appearance, Frank

1:00:29

retails this story, but adds that line

1:00:31

himself as something the other pilot said.

1:00:33

I mean, he's just building a career

1:00:35

on telling a story. Is it, is it,

1:00:38

it's not ethical, but is it illegal?

1:00:40

I don't think so. Right? It's just

1:00:42

a lie. I guess it could be

1:00:44

seen as fraud. Could he be defrauding them?

1:00:46

I guess if he gets paid and

1:00:48

he's making up a story, maybe, I

1:00:50

don't know, allegedly. Here's yet another reason.

1:00:52

The story went unchecked for so long. It

1:00:54

just wasn't easy to backcheck him when

1:00:56

he was literally spilling out so much

1:00:58

information and moving swiftly from one tail

1:01:00

to the next. Even if people were a

1:01:02

bit skeptical, it was just so entertaining,

1:01:05

they gave up and enjoyed the ride.

1:01:07

And I don't know if this will remind

1:01:09

you of anyone, but Frank seems to

1:01:11

employ the go big or go home

1:01:13

philosophy when it comes to his life.

1:01:15

I know exactly reminds me of, he wasn't

1:01:17

just wanted by the FBI, he was

1:01:19

the youngest person on the FBI's wanted

1:01:21

list, and he wasn't wanted by Interpol,

1:01:23

he was classified as the youngest master thief

1:01:25

in their history. These claims might have

1:01:27

been a bit easier to check at

1:01:29

the time, but maybe the easier it

1:01:31

was to check, the less people bothered looking

1:01:34

into it, thinking it was so impressive

1:01:36

that it must be true. Or it's

1:01:38

so outrageous, like, no one would lie

1:01:40

about that. That's insane. We could just look

1:01:42

it up. So of course he's telling

1:01:44

the truth. I'm not going to look

1:01:46

it up. Of course he's telling the

1:01:48

truth. He had every story down to a

1:01:50

fine art. or nearly the same things.

1:01:52

In his podcast series, the real catch-me-for-can,

1:01:54

Harvey A. Leyva remarks at one point, quote,

1:01:57

I bet back in the day when

1:01:59

he was making all of this up,

1:02:01

he never in that 40-something years later

1:02:03

a little Cuban with way too much time

1:02:05

on his hands would comb through the

1:02:07

website called YouTube and compare everything he

1:02:09

said. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. In 1980

1:02:11

he published Catch Me If You Can

1:02:13

the true story of a real

1:02:16

fake. This he did along with

1:02:18

Stan Redding. This gave him another

1:02:20

big boost and said Stephen Spilberg

1:02:22

had originally optioned for the film

1:02:24

rights when he was making Jaws.

1:02:26

Another impressive sounding claim except that

1:02:28

Jaws was released in 1975 two

1:02:31

years before the American public was

1:02:33

even introduced to Abignail on To

1:02:35

tell the truth, to tell the

1:02:37

truth. Apparently Dustin Hoffman was attached

1:02:39

to Abignail on To tell the

1:02:41

truth. Apparently Dustin Hoffman was attached to

1:02:43

play Frank's parole officer Jim Blackman. somehow

1:02:46

it doesn't seem that likely. Yeah I

1:02:48

get the feeling that Jim Blackmer would

1:02:50

be like oh yeah no no we

1:02:52

definitely yeah Dustin Hoffman was around like

1:02:54

every how long was it a month?

1:02:56

Yeah he was he was around for

1:02:58

months seven dinner with us all the

1:03:00

time. Good old Dusty as the years

1:03:02

passed and the interest over his tales

1:03:05

died down Frankfurt bankruptcy and Tulsa Oklahoma

1:03:07

in 1991. This might be linked to

1:03:09

the fact that he and his wife

1:03:11

had signed promissory notes in the 1980s,

1:03:13

asking people for loans of thousands

1:03:15

of dollars for various projects in

1:03:18

return for an increase on their

1:03:20

investment. Okay, so he's just turned

1:03:22

straight up broad. Allegedly, in my

1:03:24

opinion, Alan Logan tracked out two

1:03:26

investors who had fought for years to get

1:03:29

their money back, and no one knows how

1:03:31

many there were overall. What you can comfortably

1:03:33

bet on, though, is that not all the

1:03:35

money was repaid to the FBI. Things started

1:03:37

looking up again when the film writes to

1:03:39

his book were bought by Dreamworks in 1997

1:03:41

with the film eventually being released in 2002.

1:03:43

Frank got a cameo in it! Oh he

1:03:45

didn't know he appeared in it himself! As a

1:03:48

police officer who arrests Leonardo DiCaprio. Oh by the

1:03:50

way Abignell also told a story where he

1:03:52

stayed in Leo's house with it prior to

1:03:54

the film as DiCaprio was so excited to

1:03:56

get to play a living person that he

1:03:58

wanted to study Frank's every mannerism. called Total

1:04:00

Borders on this, but given Frank's track

1:04:02

record, it does not seem likely that

1:04:04

he would stay in a celebrity's house

1:04:06

for two weeks and said celebrity would

1:04:08

cook in breakfast every morning. Yeah, we

1:04:10

just don't know though, do we? Also,

1:04:13

can Lee and I had a Caprio

1:04:15

not just tell us whether that's true

1:04:17

or not? Has no one asked, Lee

1:04:19

and I did a Caprio and like

1:04:21

an interview? Be like, yo, yo, Leo,

1:04:23

Leo, did that real Frank Abineous, tell

1:04:25

your house? Tell he has to get

1:04:27

me? Boom! Done! Or be like, yes!

1:04:29

And I cooked him bacon and eggs

1:04:31

every morning! We had a grand old

1:04:33

time. Dustin was also there. Also, he

1:04:35

would have been 50 at that time.

1:04:37

And as Javier Leyva jokingly pointed out,

1:04:39

Leonided to Capri, I does not do

1:04:41

sleep opens with anyone over the age

1:04:43

of 35. Yes! Oh, that's so funny.

1:04:46

This is a bit of a joke

1:04:48

about the United Caprio's girlfriend never getting

1:04:50

older. While the movie, which remember Abignail

1:04:52

is stated, was 80% true, and even

1:04:54

90% on occasions, brought renewed interest to

1:04:56

his story, Abignail has toned down the

1:04:58

lies these days, and his speaking gigs

1:05:00

are generally only related to boring work

1:05:02

staff like how to prevent fraud, cyber

1:05:04

crime and identity theft. Which, honestly, was

1:05:06

he even that good at? He was

1:05:08

that he was caught all the time,

1:05:10

right? He maintains the claim that he's

1:05:12

worked for the FBI for over 40

1:05:14

years, and in the past, has said

1:05:17

that he's worked on undercover operations for

1:05:19

them, including ones, where he was given

1:05:21

the task of writing as many bad

1:05:23

checks as he could in the space

1:05:25

of three days, and another where he

1:05:27

met and fell in love with his

1:05:29

wife while pretending to be a sociologist.

1:05:31

He revealed his true identity to her

1:05:33

after the case was finished, in later

1:05:35

interviews, like... Ambiguity. It seems possible that

1:05:37

while Abignail might have indeed worked with

1:05:39

the FBI at something on something at

1:05:41

some point, it does not seem likely

1:05:43

that he was one of their top

1:05:45

undercover agents doing a job that actual

1:05:47

real FBI agents trained to do. Logan

1:05:50

points out in his book at one

1:05:52

point that it seems Abignail tried to

1:05:54

leave the country using his fake Delta

1:05:56

ID which may have led the FBI

1:05:58

back to his door, as he never

1:06:00

seemed to end up paying any penalties

1:06:02

for repeated parole violations and crimes committed

1:06:04

while on parole, maybe he did cut

1:06:06

some sort of deal with them. This

1:06:08

has always been a murky aspect of

1:06:10

the story as it turns out that

1:06:12

anyone can say that they work for

1:06:14

the FBI practically any capacity and the

1:06:16

FBI will not confirm modernitis. Yeah, exactly.

1:06:18

It's, uh, how is... I work for

1:06:21

the FBI big time. I say that.

1:06:23

Someone will be like... We know you

1:06:25

do, son. You're spreading misinformation about something

1:06:27

or other. Well, usually is the CIA.

1:06:29

The nearest it can a conspiracy theory.

1:06:31

It's like, oh yes, the British man

1:06:33

who's been recruited as an asset for

1:06:35

the CIA. Well, I suppose that's what

1:06:37

an asset for the CIA would say.

1:06:39

In fact, if they do deny it,

1:06:41

it only makes people believe it more.

1:06:43

The official standing is that they do

1:06:45

not verify employment. So no one's been

1:06:47

able to find out if Abagnale is

1:06:49

a regular on the payroll outside of

1:06:51

the odd guest speaker speaker gig. I

1:06:54

think we can probably all make an

1:06:56

educated guess at this point, though. A

1:06:59

family business! Here is an interesting side

1:07:01

note. We mentioned Frank's older brother Roy

1:07:03

earlier, oh my god it was a

1:07:05

long time ago, right? And here's where

1:07:07

he comes into play again. Roy left

1:07:09

a family as early as he could

1:07:11

to join the Marines, and it seems

1:07:13

that Lying definitely runs in the family,

1:07:15

as not only did Roy fudge his

1:07:17

age to become eligible, he also changed

1:07:19

his name. He listed his first name

1:07:21

as Eugene on his military record and

1:07:23

his daughter Heather and first wife thought

1:07:25

his name was John Paul. Roy changed

1:07:28

his name several times over the course

1:07:30

of his life or at least went

1:07:32

by different variations of the same few

1:07:34

names even throwing a frank in there

1:07:36

from time to time. People do this

1:07:38

though, it's changing their names just like

1:07:40

for fun. Like my student ID for

1:07:42

my whole time at university said Simon

1:07:44

Legend Whistler because when I signed up

1:07:46

to university you just go in and

1:07:48

you fill out this form and it

1:07:50

asks you for a name. and I

1:07:52

just filled in my middle name as

1:07:54

legend just on a whim and that

1:07:56

was my official name throughout university. I'd

1:07:59

say that God to people and people

1:08:01

would be like, well really? It's like

1:08:03

no, I just literally filled it out

1:08:05

in the form when I arrived. just

1:08:07

that's what it put in and everyone

1:08:09

they were just like cool print it

1:08:11

my middle name is not legend the

1:08:13

actual Frank Abignail was also found to

1:08:15

be using Roy's social security number at

1:08:17

one point so either the two brothers

1:08:19

were cool with this lax approach to

1:08:21

identity or Frank did it without Roy's

1:08:23

knowledge either could be true in this

1:08:25

case while we have covered the lies

1:08:27

that Frank told about his free fake

1:08:29

criminal escapades, while handily not mentioning the

1:08:32

real ones, it seems that he might

1:08:34

have found inspiration for some of those

1:08:36

from his big brother. Roy's daughter, Heather

1:08:38

Abig now, has told Javier Leyva that

1:08:40

her father was into some shady shit.

1:08:42

And a while, she said she had

1:08:44

no real proof about things had done.

1:08:46

She said in an interview, I feel

1:08:48

like my dad might have done things

1:08:50

my uncle took credit for. Oh, interesting.

1:08:52

Roy's marriage to his first wife came

1:08:54

to an end when he was fired

1:08:56

from his job. It worked as a

1:08:58

therapist for 15 years at a residential

1:09:00

treatment center for boys, again with the

1:09:03

abagnals and the children, claiming that he

1:09:05

had a master's degree. A change in

1:09:07

leadership brought about more stringent background checks,

1:09:09

and it was discovered. He had not.

1:09:11

that basically every single thing he ever

1:09:13

told her about himself had been a

1:09:15

lie, even down to his name. That's

1:09:17

been a shock to the system, right?

1:09:19

Well, hop back to Frank Abignell, senior

1:09:21

now, as it's been rumored that he

1:09:23

too was into some shady... Well, the

1:09:25

dad, okay. The movie did portray him

1:09:27

as a small-time con man teaching young

1:09:29

Frank a few tricks of the trade,

1:09:31

but in his speeches, Frank Jr. had

1:09:33

hailed him multiple times as a great

1:09:36

man, not counting the fact that he

1:09:38

ran away from him at 16 and

1:09:40

hadn't seen him since, although, as we

1:09:42

mentioned before, he did. As Frank Senior

1:09:44

had flown to California to bail him

1:09:46

out. He died in 1972 when Frank

1:09:48

was 24. And let's check the records

1:09:50

here. Oh yes, he was doing prison

1:09:52

time for those fake pan-am charges. Am

1:09:54

charges. hitting his head and dying shortly

1:09:56

after. Oh, that's sad. Could this have

1:09:58

been an accident? Sure. Although rumours within

1:10:00

the Abignell family have it that Frank

1:10:02

Senior was actually in a financial pickle

1:10:04

with the mafia. Uh-oh. Roy Abignell told

1:10:07

his ex-wife and daughter that Frank Senior...

1:10:09

had some connection to organized crime and

1:10:11

that he was actually pushed down those

1:10:13

subway steps. Now we know he can't

1:10:15

exactly trust Roy Appignale's word, but this

1:10:17

didn't seem too far-fetched to the ladies.

1:10:19

Javier Laver and Alan Logan have seen

1:10:21

Frank Senior's death certificate which lists the

1:10:23

cause of death as a fractured skull

1:10:25

and brain hemorrhaging, although he didn't die

1:10:27

until two days after the fall. It

1:10:29

also states on the cause of death,

1:10:31

quote, circumstances undetermined pending police investigation. This

1:10:33

does seem suspicious for what was ostensibly

1:10:35

a trip and fall accident. Laver has

1:10:37

sent a FOIA request for information about

1:10:40

the death but hasn't received anything back

1:10:42

so far. FBI Lucends. It turns out

1:10:44

that although the FBI can neither confirm

1:10:46

nor deny the employment status of one

1:10:48

Frank W. Abignell Jr. within their ranks,

1:10:50

adding a little common sense of the

1:10:52

idea can go a long way to

1:10:54

when I'm picking the knot. If Frank

1:10:56

was working for the FBI officially this

1:10:58

whole time, then he has called himself

1:11:00

a special agent and a supervisory special

1:11:02

agent in the past, how has he

1:11:04

also been running a company and taking

1:11:06

on all of these speaking engagements and

1:11:08

one time he was doing over 200

1:11:11

a year for a week? Good lord!

1:11:13

Were they really letting him live his

1:11:15

life, then calling him out for a

1:11:17

couple of sensitive undercover operations every now

1:11:19

and then, practically... parashooting him in to

1:11:21

save the day. Just feel maybe some

1:11:23

porkies going on here, perhaps, Frank. According

1:11:25

to Jerry Williams, who hosts the podcast,

1:11:27

FBI retired case file review and says

1:11:29

herself a retired FBI agent, she had

1:11:31

never heard of Frank Abignail until the

1:11:33

movie came out, despite him supposedly having

1:11:35

worked for the FBI since the mid-1970.

1:11:37

Yeah, the FBI is really big, though,

1:11:39

right? He had certainly never taught any

1:11:42

of her classes. She told Hally' Alever

1:11:44

that she has. Citizens Group not directly

1:11:46

connected with the FBI, but definitely partnered

1:11:48

with the FBI. So does that mean

1:11:50

that, oh my gosh, Frank has been

1:11:52

gilding the lily this whole time about

1:11:54

his FBI work? If so, that lily

1:11:56

is about a foot thick with gild

1:11:58

by this point. Yeah, no doubt. This

1:12:00

is exactly why he's been... Like, yeah,

1:12:02

yeah, I work with the FBI. I

1:12:04

mean, I work for, I have, well,

1:12:06

with, together with, together with, close to.

1:12:08

tangentially really, you know, just like just

1:12:10

bringing it up a step. Williams pokes

1:12:12

more holes in the claims that Frank

1:12:15

made about teaching things like ethics classes

1:12:17

to FBI rookies. Quoting, there would be

1:12:19

no need to have anybody from the

1:12:21

outside teach an ethics class when we

1:12:23

have trained and skilled and certified agents

1:12:25

who actually have done the investigative work,

1:12:27

come to the class and instruct us.

1:12:29

You can substitute the word ethics for

1:12:31

any other class that Frank claims to

1:12:33

have taught, by the way. Why? Why

1:12:35

would we need Frank Abignail to do

1:12:37

that for us? Again, we have trained

1:12:39

agents who have studied, who have participated

1:12:41

in undercover cases, who have spent years

1:12:43

investigating many of the top con men

1:12:46

in the world? Why would we need

1:12:48

Frank to come in work for us

1:12:50

and do some of the things that

1:12:52

he's claimed? It's one of the obvious

1:12:54

questions that not many people have bothered

1:12:56

or cared to ask. The ever-changing story

1:12:58

of Frank Abignale Jr. Look, if you've

1:13:00

been paying attention, you might have noticed

1:13:02

the Frank hasn't always been truthful out

1:13:04

what he may or may not have

1:13:06

been getting up to. Some people may

1:13:08

think, well you care as the lying

1:13:10

lie, lie, lie, and no one got

1:13:12

hurt, he's exploited a system that created

1:13:14

him good for him. I mean, yeah,

1:13:16

except he's been hurting all the little

1:13:19

people. Except, I mean, that's not the

1:13:21

case, is it? He has stolen from

1:13:23

people and small businesses and not paid

1:13:25

them back. He made a lucrative career,

1:13:27

telling stories about things that never happened.

1:13:29

Who knows what else he may have

1:13:31

been getting up to? or in a

1:13:33

glass-bottomed boat. So, it's a nice way

1:13:35

of putting it right there. Very good.

1:13:37

Since the movie came out, and more

1:13:39

modern scrutiny has been applied to his

1:13:41

self-starred backstory, Frank has walked away from

1:13:43

what was the entire thing. If you

1:13:45

look at his website now, there's a

1:13:47

tab called Film and Book Comments, where

1:13:50

there's a statement from Frank dated 2002,

1:13:52

which is the year the film was

1:13:54

written. This is in part, I wrote

1:13:56

the book Catch Me For Game more

1:13:58

than 23 years ago. Obviously, this was

1:14:00

written from my perspective as a 16-year-old

1:14:02

with the help of a co-writer. I'm

1:14:04

now 54 and sold the movie rights

1:14:06

in 1980. I was interviewed by the

1:14:08

co-writer only about four times. I only

1:14:10

did a great job of telling the

1:14:12

story, but he over-dromatitized and exaggerated some

1:14:14

of the story. He's like, he's walking

1:14:16

back a little bit as much as

1:14:18

he has to, right? Look at Frank.

1:14:20

Throwing Stan Redding, the co-author, runs on

1:14:23

the bus. He also stated later that

1:14:25

Redding only interviewed him twice. Redding died

1:14:27

in the 80s, so he can't check

1:14:29

with him, how much time he spent,

1:14:31

with Frank, apart from the book being

1:14:33

subtitled, the true story of a real

1:14:35

fake. The story within was what Frank

1:14:37

had been peddling for several years before

1:14:39

he continued to do so for years

1:14:41

after publication. if some of it was

1:14:43

exaggerated or false why didn't he mention

1:14:45

this in any of his many many

1:14:47

speaking engagements just to clear the air

1:14:49

because that's not going to sell it's

1:14:51

not going to sell his story is

1:14:54

better than than the story is better

1:14:56

than the reality and if people are

1:14:58

buying the reality they're going to pay

1:15:00

less like people want to have The

1:15:02

Frank Abignell that Leonardo DiCaprio portrayed in

1:15:04

that movie, they don't want to have

1:15:06

real life a bit creepy Frank Abignell,

1:15:08

do they? He also claimed that the

1:15:10

movie, which is based on the book,

1:15:12

is 80% accurate. Stephen Spielberg seemed to

1:15:14

think that the book was a true

1:15:16

story, which is why he wanted to

1:15:18

make the movie in the first place,

1:15:20

and there are many press interviews out

1:15:22

there with him proclaiming his love for

1:15:24

the true story. Abignell sure didn't pop

1:15:27

up in correct the narrative, though he

1:15:29

just winked and said that most of

1:15:31

it was true when, you know, approximately

1:15:33

95% was just totally made up. When

1:15:35

questioned now about his useful indiscretions, Abignell

1:15:37

trots out the same lines almost verbatim.

1:15:39

When author and journalist Abby Ellen wrote

1:15:41

a book about liars called duped, she

1:15:43

received an email from Abignell in response.

1:15:45

He wrote, The Crime I committed was

1:15:47

writing bad checks. I was 16 years

1:15:49

old at the time. had rural prison,

1:15:51

the government took me out of prison

1:15:53

to work for the FBI. I have

1:15:55

done so now for more than 43

1:15:58

years. So what happened to all the

1:16:00

impollent... Frank, maybe he's trying to say

1:16:02

that while he did do all of

1:16:04

the impostering, he made his career out

1:16:06

of talking about, it was technically only

1:16:08

writing bad checks that got him banged

1:16:10

up. He also said that he repaid

1:16:12

all of his debts, which we know

1:16:14

is just not correct. And this is

1:16:16

the same response he comes up with

1:16:18

when anyone asks him about this area

1:16:20

of his life now. Harvey Oliver managed

1:16:22

to confront him face to face after

1:16:24

a speaking engagement in Las Vegas in

1:16:26

August 2022. This podcast went deep! Wow! After

1:16:29

a couple of warm-up questions, he asked him

1:16:31

point-blank why he had pretended to be a

1:16:33

pilot or doctor or a lawyer when he

1:16:35

had been in jail the whole time. Frank

1:16:37

Burtzat blurts out, uh, no, when, this was

1:16:39

all before, I went to prison for all

1:16:41

of those things. When I went to work

1:16:43

with the FBI was when I came out

1:16:45

of prison. He's not answering the question,

1:16:47

is he? Labour produces Abignail's prison records

1:16:50

to waive the proof in his face

1:16:52

that he was in jail for most

1:16:54

of the years between his 16th and

1:16:56

21st birthday. Abignail responds, I can't believe

1:16:58

they got a response, this is such

1:17:00

good cornering. This is real, this is

1:17:02

fantastic. Abignaililil response, all those things came

1:17:04

over a period of time not depicted

1:17:06

in the movie. I had nothing to

1:17:09

do, I didn't write the book, I

1:17:11

didn't have anything to do with the

1:17:13

proof, I did. or didn't do at

1:17:15

that time. It seems as though this

1:17:17

is the nearest to a confession,

1:17:20

anyone's likely to get out of

1:17:22

the guy. So he's basically saying,

1:17:24

yeah, maybe I did some of

1:17:27

those ties, just I didn't do

1:17:29

them when the book said that

1:17:31

was dramatic effect stuff. Which, it's

1:17:33

not true, he's like, it's like

1:17:36

dramatic effect stuff. Which, it's not

1:17:38

true, I mean, it's like walking

1:17:40

that line, isn't it. Seeing. on

1:17:43

his supposed true story. He's credited

1:17:45

as a writer and consultant on

1:17:47

the film and he even has a cameo

1:17:49

in it. If he had nothing to do

1:17:51

with it, why is the only quote on

1:17:53

the bio page of Abagnale's website from Tom

1:17:55

Hanks? It says, Abagnale's lecture may be the

1:17:57

best one man show you will ever see.

1:17:59

By the way, I'm sure Tom Hanks

1:18:01

really sat through Electron for prevention to

1:18:04

give that quote at the end. Wait,

1:18:06

doesn't he? He must have done more

1:18:08

entertaining one-man shows at one point. Didn't

1:18:10

we say that he did it and

1:18:12

then he like scaled it back when

1:18:14

people were like looking into it much

1:18:16

and then he does like looking into

1:18:18

it much and then he does like

1:18:20

focus on the fraud stuff? If Frank

1:18:22

had nothing to do with the movie,

1:18:25

then why is the only other boxed-out

1:18:27

quotation on his life the past 30

1:18:29

years? Stephen Spielberg. This seems a bit

1:18:31

of a weird quote given that the

1:18:33

entire film is about the short space

1:18:35

of time when Frank was not really

1:18:37

being an imposter. It ends when he

1:18:39

starts working for the FBI. If he

1:18:41

had nothing to do with the movie,

1:18:43

why are the only two quotes on

1:18:46

his page for the Keppler speakers agency

1:18:48

the same ones from Tom Hanks and

1:18:50

Stephen Spielberg they're on his website? Because

1:18:52

they're the biggest names. Everyone's heard of

1:18:54

Tom Hanks and Stephen Spielberg. If he's

1:18:56

not talking about the past with anyone,

1:18:58

why doesn't he have some quotes from

1:19:00

people who actually have something to do

1:19:02

with fraud prevention, cyber security and identity

1:19:04

protection on his page? Because those people

1:19:06

are just not going to, they're probably

1:19:09

not going to give him a quote

1:19:11

because they're like, oh he's not the

1:19:13

best, you know, there's definitely better guys.

1:19:15

And... Also, they don't have the name

1:19:17

recognition of Steven Spielberg or Tom Hanks

1:19:19

and when you're booking a speaker, those

1:19:21

kind of names are going to get

1:19:23

your attention. What have Tom and Steve

1:19:25

got to do with that? Well nothing.

1:19:27

People are just impressed by association. But

1:19:30

again, disingenuous is putting it mildly. The

1:19:32

play was also based by association. But

1:19:34

again, disingenuous is putting it mildly. The

1:19:36

play was also based on the film

1:19:38

and the book, and Frank made an

1:19:40

appearance of a high school performance of

1:19:42

it in the state and 21. I

1:19:44

was caught when I was 21. Come

1:19:46

on half rank, we just know that's

1:19:48

not true. He's just playing a version

1:19:51

of himself, though. You know, I'll cut

1:19:53

him some slack on that one. On

1:19:55

the bio page of his website, abignail.com,

1:19:57

it also says, Mr. Abignale refuses to

1:19:59

accept payment for any of his government

1:20:01

work. Which is nice. I also refuse

1:20:03

to accept payment for any of my

1:20:05

government work. All the work I do

1:20:07

you want, because trotter factory. It's because

1:20:09

I don't do any! Yeah. Also at

1:20:11

the bottom of every page it says

1:20:14

Mr. Abigail is not engaged in the

1:20:16

security business, but works as a lecturer

1:20:18

and consultant in the areas described in

1:20:20

this website. I thought being in security

1:20:22

business was the whole point of the

1:20:24

company. Oh well. Callingly, Abignail is still

1:20:26

lauded all over the place as a

1:20:28

paragon of a reformed virtue. In 2022

1:20:30

is a keynote speaker as part of

1:20:32

Xavier University's heroes of professional ethics series.

1:20:35

You have a laugh. At his, something

1:20:37

posted on his website in 2023. On

1:20:39

January the 18th, 2023, Frank W. Abignow

1:20:41

received a lifetime achievement award from Infregard

1:20:43

and the FBI. Why is that? Wow,

1:20:45

a lifetime achievement award from the FBI.

1:20:47

He must really have helped them out

1:20:49

of them tight spots. They must not

1:20:51

have given this award out to just

1:20:53

anybody. Oh wait, this is the first

1:20:56

ever lifetime achievement award given out by

1:20:58

Infregard. Who is Infregard anyway? But according

1:21:00

to their fact sheet, Infregard is a

1:21:02

unique partnership between the Federal Bureau of

1:21:04

Investigation, FBI, and individuals in the private

1:21:06

sector for the protection of US critical

1:21:08

infrastructure and the American people. I still

1:21:10

don't know what you do. It's like,

1:21:12

you know, and you're just like, oh,

1:21:14

you're a corporate company, huh? What do

1:21:16

you do? We do generic things. So

1:21:19

it sounds like an able watch type

1:21:21

of thing. Infregard is not the FBI.

1:21:23

Harvey Oliver posted this story and someone

1:21:25

pointed out that the award was specifically

1:21:27

from the North Carolina branch of Infregard.

1:21:29

On the page for the North Carolina

1:21:31

branch of Infregard, there is a list

1:21:33

of sponsors at the bottom. Guess who's

1:21:35

listed as the first sponsor. Frank. W.

1:21:37

Abignell, secure document consultant. Coincidence? So basically,

1:21:40

this is not a lifetime achievement award

1:21:42

for being extra specially good as an

1:21:44

FBI agent. Today Abignell is still a

1:21:46

regular on the speaking circuit, although his

1:21:48

past is starting to catch up with

1:21:50

him with more and more people asking

1:21:52

questions. Uh, or listening to podcasts like

1:21:54

this and also the one by, um...

1:21:56

By Javier in early 2023 Abig now

1:21:58

was booked to speak in the in

1:22:01

Ohio at the 22nd annual emerging trends

1:22:03

in fraud in investigation conference, but guess

1:22:05

who the conference also booked to speak

1:22:07

after him? Javier Leyva. Oh, dude. Somewhat

1:22:09

suspiciously, having now dropped out a week

1:22:11

later, Leyva announced on his podcast that

1:22:13

any fees he got would be donated

1:22:15

back to Frank's victims, because, well, somebody

1:22:17

has to. For legend, mate, you should

1:22:19

be in this movie, this, ah, you

1:22:21

should be in the movie about the

1:22:24

movie and the story. Like, the room,

1:22:26

sort of thing. This would be great.

1:22:28

Let's make sure you're played by someone

1:22:30

extremely sexy Why was nobody calling him

1:22:32

out earlier? If Frank was leaving all

1:22:34

these victims in his wake and was

1:22:36

a known reoffender, how come nobody was

1:22:38

calling him out on his bullshit earlier?

1:22:40

Well, people were at every stage of

1:22:42

his career from his appearance on to

1:22:45

tell the truth. Obviously, none of this

1:22:47

is stark as the vast majority of

1:22:49

people still think his story of entertaining

1:22:51

crimes between the ages of 16 and

1:22:53

21 is real. And why is this?

1:22:55

Well, there's many reasons. One is that

1:22:57

back in the 70s and early 80s,

1:22:59

news didn't really travel that fast. Even

1:23:01

if someone did publicly call him out

1:23:03

in a newspaper, say one paper is

1:23:06

likely to only have a very small

1:23:08

circulation area when compared to the whole

1:23:10

of the United States, Frank only needs

1:23:12

to move a city over and nobody

1:23:14

would be the wiser. He even revisited

1:23:16

past scenes of his crimes with this

1:23:18

fake past story and most of the

1:23:20

audience just didn't care. Anyone who did

1:23:22

remember his actual real petty crimes either

1:23:24

just avoided him or their complaints went

1:23:27

unheard. Some even confronted him at speaking

1:23:29

events but got nothing out of him.

1:23:31

As his star rose, it probably seemed

1:23:33

like sour grapes when people from his

1:23:35

past started making a fuss. The book

1:23:37

and film were such successes that by

1:23:39

this point nobody wanted to hear that

1:23:41

the fabulous story wasn't real. Even Alan

1:23:43

Logan's expose which was only published in

1:23:45

2020 didn't really make a dent in

1:23:47

Avignale's reputation. The view is slowly shifting,

1:23:50

though, as more and more media outlets

1:23:52

pick up the story. Frank Abignell's Wikipedia

1:23:54

page has been updated to debunk all

1:23:56

his past claims and a video of

1:23:58

a talk he did for Google in

1:24:00

2017 is now prefaced with a disclaimer

1:24:02

saying Google does not lay claimed the...

1:24:04

to the validity of the actions described

1:24:06

therein. Back in the day, plenty of

1:24:08

people smelled a rat. Ira Perry, a

1:24:11

young journalist for the Daily Oklahomaian, started

1:24:13

investigating Abignail in 1978. He confirmed such

1:24:15

things as the fact that Abignail had

1:24:17

never taken the bar exam in Louisiana,

1:24:19

either under his own name or anyone

1:24:21

else's. In his fake autobiography, Abignail claims

1:24:23

to have passed on the third try

1:24:25

some three months after his first failed

1:24:27

attempt. Louisiana only offered the bar exam

1:24:29

once every six months at that time,

1:24:32

so there's no way that that could

1:24:34

be true. Perry also confirmed with the

1:24:36

Assistant Chief Administrator of Georgia's COB General

1:24:38

Hospital that Abignail had never worked there

1:24:40

in any capacity under any capacity under

1:24:42

any name. That's what they would say.

1:24:44

The stories, he told, of his night's

1:24:46

shift did not tally with how physicians

1:24:48

actually worked there and the hospital did

1:24:50

not have any intern or resident doctors

1:24:52

as he claimed to be. Abigdale sometimes

1:24:55

tried to brush these details off by

1:24:57

saying that it changed the names of

1:24:59

the places he worked, but why would

1:25:01

you change them to other real places?

1:25:03

Why not just say an unnamed hospital

1:25:05

in Georgia? Perry's investigative deep dive into

1:25:07

dismantling the myth of Frank Abagnale did

1:25:09

net him the front page and four

1:25:11

pages in total with captions such as

1:25:13

the great imposter has added again, but

1:25:16

it was for the Daily Oklahoma, not

1:25:18

a news outlet with national reach, so

1:25:20

he did not penetrate the public consciousness

1:25:22

outside of its immediate area. Yeah, but

1:25:24

this has changed now, because it's the

1:25:26

internet. If you've got like a good

1:25:28

story... like I end up on like

1:25:30

random American websites where they've got like

1:25:32

a good story or whatever because like

1:25:34

someone forwards it to me or you

1:25:37

see it on Twitter or whatever and

1:25:39

it'll take you to like the Daily

1:25:41

oklahoman.com and it'll have the thing being

1:25:43

like it's not available in your region

1:25:45

so obviously you fire up your VPN

1:25:47

and then you read it and you're

1:25:49

like yeah. Now, a good story can

1:25:51

really spread. Professor Bill Tony tried again

1:25:53

in 1981. During his time, Abignao was

1:25:55

a hit on the college circuit, but

1:25:57

Tony, who lectured on criminal justice and

1:26:00

was a former federal officer, saw through

1:26:02

his lives straight away. He challenged his

1:26:04

students to debunk Abignao's claims and they

1:26:06

took him up on the offer. They

1:26:08

easily found there was no evidence. shoring

1:26:10

up the con man's claims. In 1982,

1:26:12

Tony presented their findings at the International

1:26:14

Platform Association in Washington DC. This did

1:26:16

start undercurrents of a backlash against Abignail,

1:26:18

but again, the circle was quite small.

1:26:21

In 1983, Tony's students were looking forward

1:26:23

to confronting Abignail in person at a

1:26:25

conference, but Frank had caught wind of

1:26:27

the backlash against him and ended up

1:26:29

dropping off the college circuit, although he

1:26:31

still found much lucrative work on the

1:26:33

business professionals track. I mean, I get

1:26:35

that he lied about all of this

1:26:37

stuff, but if he's a good ass

1:26:39

speaker with a good story to tell,

1:26:42

I get... I'm not trying to defend

1:26:44

him, but it's like I get why

1:26:46

people hire him, because it's a cool

1:26:48

story, and I'm sure he's a great

1:26:50

speaker, because he keeps getting hired. So,

1:26:52

I mean, I get why people hire

1:26:54

him. Podcast of Jim Grinsstead of the

1:26:56

Scams and Cons podcast. I haven't heard

1:26:58

of that one. That sounds awesome. was

1:27:00

in an audience in 2022 at the

1:27:02

Xavier University's Heroes of Professional Ethics talks.

1:27:05

When the audience was invited to ask

1:27:07

any questions about Abignow, he asked what

1:27:09

Abignow wouldn't admit he's been lying about

1:27:11

everything that's built in his fortune and

1:27:13

isn't he just conning everyone. Abignow hit

1:27:15

back that he doesn't talk about his

1:27:17

life, which might be true of recent

1:27:19

times, but that was his entire act

1:27:21

four years, and the whole reason he

1:27:23

became famous. He says, what I did

1:27:26

50 years ago is irrelevance. But it

1:27:28

isn't irrelevant. It's the entire basis of

1:27:30

your story and career, Frank. Are you

1:27:32

saying that crimes you committed 50 years

1:27:34

ago are irrelevant? Or are you saying

1:27:36

that you made up your backstory 50

1:27:38

years ago? And that's now irrelevant. Inquiring

1:27:40

minds want to know. He then reiterates

1:27:42

the same thing that he said to

1:27:44

Harvey A. Leyva. I didn't make the

1:27:47

movie. I didn't make the Broadway musical.

1:27:49

He ends by basically saying, Hager's going

1:27:51

to hate and gets a healthy round

1:27:53

of applause. For his question of Alexander,

1:27:55

Jim... Grinstead is rewarded with a slow

1:27:57

clap. That's a bit depressing isn't it?

1:27:59

Other video on YouTube are how awesome

1:28:01

he is? Addie Ellen's 2023 piece on

1:28:03

the New York Post website comes

1:28:05

with a trove of documents sent

1:28:07

her by Jim Keith, another person

1:28:09

who saw straight through Frank's lies

1:28:11

and started investigating for himself back

1:28:13

in 1981, eventually connecting with Professor

1:28:16

Tony. The documents included a terse

1:28:18

1982 letter from Pan Am's director

1:28:20

of security, giving short shrift to

1:28:22

the very idea of Frank Abignell

1:28:24

Jr. That includes the line, I

1:28:26

am sorry not to have the

1:28:28

time or the inclination to rebut

1:28:30

the same drivel this individual has

1:28:32

been peddling for years. It goes on to

1:28:34