New Book Alert: The Greatest Hoax on Earth: Catching Truth, While We Can by Alan C. Logan; True Crime Expose Pokes Holes Into The Story of Frank W. Abagnale Jr.,"The Great Imposter"
By Julie Sara Porter
Bookworm Reviews
Spoilers: By now many are familiar with the story of Frank William Abagnale Jr. If they haven't read his autobiography, Catch Me If You Can, they may have seen the 2002 movie starring Leonardo DiCaprio as Abagnale and Tom Hanks or saw the Broadway musical starring Norbert Leo Butz, who won a Tony for his role as Abagnale.
For those that don't know his story, here it is: At 16 years old, Abagnale ran away to escape his divorced parents. On the run, he impersonated a Pan Am pilot, a chief resident at Cobb County General Hospital in Malcotta, Georgia, an attorney for the state attorney general of Baton Rouge, Louisiana, a professor at Brigham Young University and cashed over five million dollars in bad checks. He was finally caught before he was 21. He spent one year in a French prison, one year in a Swedish prison, and four years in a US Federal penitentiary. Paroled, he later worked for the FBI on fraud scams and crime prevention. He became a billionaire because of his securities consultation business in which he continues to give tips on how people can avoid fraud scams. His story sounds almost too good to be true and hard to believe that it really happened. Well, Alan C. Logan, author of Your Brain on Nature, The Secret Life of Microbiome, and Self-Styled: Chasing Dr. Robert Vernon Spears, says that there is a reason for that because it never did happen. In fact for over forty years, Abagnale has been selling a story that was an entire hoax.
Logan's book The Greatest Hoax on Earth: Catching Truth, While We Can, writes a complete expose that pokes holes into Abagnale's image as a suave con man turned securities expert. It is a very thorough and detailed look that peers into the facts behind a story and cautions the Readers to find the truth before we believe in the appearance.
I myself bought Abagnale's story. I love the movie and still consider it one of my favorite DiCaprio films (second only to Shutter Island) but now I see it as purely a caper film, escapist, fun, and drenched in '60's nostalgia, but no more real than The Usual Suspects, Ocean's Eleven, or To Catch A Thief. A good film but simply fiction.
I have a deeper connection to this story. I met Abagnale once in college. He gave a lecture at the University of Missouri St. Louis and I was a reporter for the student newspaper. I attended his lecture and even got a few minutes alone with him to answer a few questions. Oh, there was nothing salacious or untoward in his behavior. He was very charming and friendly. However, looking back on that incident, there was one thing that should have raised more questions than it did at the time.
I asked him how anyone could have believed him at the time and why none of his employers did a background check. His answer was along the line that "People were more trusting at the time." I remember thinking "That may be true but people then as they are now terrified of lawsuits and I would think that the possibility that their new attorney or surgeon would not have all of his credentials would have entered their minds." As a journalist, I should have trusted my instincts and been more curious and questioning, but I wasn't. I just wrote his lecture as it was, one of the many who played into Abagnale's fantasies and shared it like it was the truth.
Logan's book uses first person accounts from people who knew Abagnale such as his ex-girlfriend, retired flight attendant, Paula Parks and former agent, Mark Zinder. Logan also uses news articles, arrest records, and news articles to make his case against Abagnale and reveal the truth that lies behind the glamorous facade.
In fact, the story that Logan reveals is more of a ploy from a man desperate for attention rather than a skilled con man. Through Logan's words, Abagnale fabricated, exaggerated, and outright lied about his background.
Abagnale's real life crime story began with his arrest for pretty crimes in New York City, even stealing his father's credit card and writing bad checks. After a brief stint in the Navy, he was arrested multiple times in New York City only to be placed back in his parents' custody. Both his parents, Frank Sr. and Paula believed that their son was mentally ill and needed psychiatric help. His mother even stated that he wrote bad checks shortly after he was released in her custody.
Many of the more fantastic aspects of Abagnale's story contain what Logan calls "nuggets of truth" but greatly exaggerated by Abagnale himself. For example he did wear a pilot's uniform, impersonated a pilot, and wrote bad checks. But he mostly walked around the airports and never entered the jump seat. Also, his haul was less than 14,00 total not the millions that he claimed.
One of the more memorable scenes in the movie was when Abagnale interviews a bevy of beautiful woman to selects them as flight attendants for a trip to Europe, but in reality needed them as a distraction to get past FBI agents. According to Abagnale, that really happened and the ladies had a good time in Europe. According to Logan, Abagnale attempted the ruse and less than twelve women arrived but left finding his questions creepy and insulting. Not only that, but Abagnale attempted this stunt in 1970 basing it on a real program that Pan Am discontinued the year before.
Abagnale exaggerated his infamy as well claiming that his crimes as the so-called "Skyway Man" (a term not even coined until the 70's long after Abagnale's criminal career would have ended) were the subject of huge headlines and many articles in the New York Times. Also, that he was on the FBI's Most Wanted List (a a list that is only reserved for violent criminals). Logan's search of the New York Times from that era revealed only one article about Abagnale and that was an account of one of his minor thefts.
Much of Abagnale's more elaborate claims of being a doctor, attorney, and professor were completely impossible because according to police records from 1966-1969, Abagnale was in prison for transportation of a stolen vehicle and larceny by forgery. Not to mention that none of the employees of Cobb County General Hospital, BYU, or the state attorney general's office in Baton Rouge at the time had heard of him. For example, the Cobb County hospital employees said that it was a small hospital and they surely would have remembered Abagnale or the aliases that he used.
Even his subsequent post-criminal career is cause for suspicion. According to Logan's book, the FBI agents that Abagnale claimed that he worked with, one he even said was his boss, admitted that they never knew him. The businesses that Abagnale said that he gave his security advice to said that they paid him and he only told them what most people know.
One of the more provocative claims was that Abagnale insisted that he only stole from banks and large businesses. He said that he never stole from small businesses or individuals and that he paid everyone that he stole from back. In Logan's book, Abagnale's crimes were hardly victimless and he took advantage and stole from many small businesses and people. At the time of Logan's writing, one man in Sweden still insists that Abagnale owes him money for a car that he stole. Abagnale is also reported to have stolen funds and assaulted female counselors at a children's camp in 1972 where he worked as a bus driver.
Among Abagnale's victims were Parks and Zinder. Parks's story in particular is chilling as she described Abagnale stalking her and practically moving in with her parents after only a brief time of them being together. After Abagnale robbed the Parks family, Parks said that she and her parents developed lifelong trust issues and she had PTSD from their encounter.
One of the more interesting courageous moments in the book is in the final chapters when Parks confronted Abagnale one final time after his story hit stage and screen. She tried to remind him who she was and what he did to her. Even though he was rattled, Abagnale continued to deny knowing her and insisted that his story was true. Parks saw Abagnale as "a small man who told his story so often that he believed it."
Zinder's story is also interesting as he got to know Abagnale after his alleged criminal career had ended and he achieved fame for his story, appearing on To Tell The Truth and The Tonight Show With Johnny Carson. Zinder helped Abagnale spread and sell his story while keeping some of the more sordid details out of the public eye, liike the mysterious appearance of a wife after Abagnale played the part of a womanizer in his public appearances in the '70's. (Later the wife, Kelly, became more instrumental from the '80's onward when Abagnale portrayed himself as a family man.).
Zinder also recounted the darker side of his former friend's attitude such as bilking him out of money and Zinder's then wife, Fran, having an uncomfortable private encounter with Abagnale in which she never revealed the full details but had clearly traumatized her. (Long after they parted ways, Zinder reunited with Abagnale who apologized for "that thing with Fran" but never elaborated what it specifically was. As of the publication of the book, he still did not know).
While Logan does a thorough job of exposing Abagnale there is one glaring puzzling aspect to this book. Parks and Zinder are not the only ones who have confronted Abagnale over his claims. An article in the San Francisco Chronicle could not find any truth to his claims and a professor challenged his students to investigate the story. However, at no point has Abagnale ever been sued or formerly charged with deceiving the public for his claims.
The penalty for claiming to be a Federal government employee alone is a federal crime that is punishable with a fine and up to three years in prison. Riane Brownlee was sentenced for three years just for claiming to be an FBI agent on her dating profile last year. Abagnale has been telling this story since 1976-77 and how come not once has the FBI charged him or given him a formal reprimand to say that he never worked with them?
Now Abagnale always insisted that the people that he worked for never mentioned his name to avoid embarrassment. That's his excuse what's Logan's or rather the people who spoke to him? How come in the last 40 plus years that Abagnale spent allegedly lying to the public there isn't a more formal investigation into his claims or he hasn't been charged with fraud, or at least sued by any of his former colleagues or representatives from his former workplaces by faking his connection with them? (Surely, the publicity of ferreting out an imposter who never worked at a place is much better than the humiliation that a 16 year old with no actual experience and training manipulated his way into those fields.) What about the people who paid for his speaking engagement and consultation, why isn't there more of an outcry about his lack of security expertise?
Was Abagnale telling the truth more than Logan wanted to admit? In his dislike for Abagnale and his haste to bury Abagnale not to praise him, did Logan not follow his own research and instincts? Did Logan do the very thing that he accused the public of doing when buying Abagnale's story in the first place? Is Abagnale's story half true and half false and if so which parts? Is Logan believing his own he telling the truth or is he like Abagnale believing his own story?
Well if Logan and his informants are telling the truth and Abagnale really has been deceiving the public all this time, then in an ironic way Frank W. Abagnale Jr. really is the greatest con artist of them all.
