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"

 

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.

New Book Alert: Corruption Behind Bars: Stories of Crime and Corruption in Our American Prison System by Gary York; Gripping Eye-Opening Accounts of Criminal Activity In American Prisons

New Book Alert: Corruption Behind Bars: Stories of Crime and Corruption in Our American Prison System by Gary York; Gripping Eye-Opening Accounts of Criminal Activity In American Prisons




By Julie Sara Porter

Bookworm Reviews




Spoilers: Gary York knows a lot about corruption in the prison system. As a Senior Prison Inspector, he spent twelve years conducting criminal, civil, and administrative investigations in many state prisons.

He wrote books on the subject and his book, Corruption Behind Bars: Stories of Crime and Corruption in Our American Prison System is a gripping account of many of the situations inside these prisons. What he found were buildings full of lawbreakers, both inmates and employees. York's book is filled with 42 chapters of such stories.

York begins his book by discussing how a prison becomes a den of more illegal activity than the outside.
“Imagine taking a group of dishonest individuals and putting them all in the same location. Now add, a few corrupt staff members…..This mixture can cause numerous illegal activities. Just one corrupt staff member...can cause a chain of events that lead to months of investigative work in order to infiltrate and dissolve the illegal activity. Corruption causes citizens to feel officers are not trustworthy and leaves them wondering who the officers are working for, the citizen or the inmate.”


In the first chapter, York chillingly explains the recruitment process that he calls “The Inmate Recruitment Game.” Once they enter the Graybar Hotel, inmates are denied certain privileges, such as drugs, sex, even simple things like a home cooked meal. They get by these restrictions by either making sure their friends get hired in the prison or, failing that, find a way to blackmail or entice a staff member. They may find information on the staff member, such as an extramarital affair or financial dirty dealing, from friends on the outside.

York's profile of these inmates show them as master manipulators. They befriend the staff member and learn secrets on them, then trick them into giving them a simple contraband item like a single cigarette or a can of beer. Then, they will ask for bigger items. If the staff member refuses, the inmate then threatens to reveal the secret they learned as well as the earlier contraband. Suddenly, the inmate has a new friend, that gives them whatever they want including illegal contraband and , lo and behold, the corrupt inmates and employees rule the Big House.

One chapter in York's book illustrates this concept clearly. Helen, a classification officer, supervised inmate orderlies in a move from her old office to a new one.
A handsome inmate began smiling at her. She smiled back in a more flirtatious manner. The inmate then began writing her poems and painting floral pictures as gifts.

Helen was flattered by the attention and already was in trouble for not reporting the gifts. She and the inmate sneaked into the old classification office and had sex. The captain entered the office to find Helen and the inmate in flagrante delicto. The inmate was locked up in disciplinary confinement and Helen was removed from her job. However, when the inmate was transferred to another prison, Helen was added to his visitor's list.
This chapter reveals how the inmates use the staff members’ insecurities and loneliness against them. By manipulating Helen’s need for romance and telling her the right things to make her think she loved him, the inmate’s sexual needs were met.

If not sex, sometimes the inmates wanted other urges to be satisfied like their drug and alcohol addictions.
A drug treatment center was under investigation from York for this very reason. York searched the financial records and discovered that there were frequent requests for new window screens. York learned that male offenders often broke through the screens, either to be with female offenders or to pick up drugs that friends and family members dropped off in the woods outside the treatment center.
The male offenders picked up the drugs and entered the female's section through the window. The offenders engaged in sex, drinking, smoking marijuana, and taking other drugs. “They were angels by day and vampires by night,” York observed. The entire program was shut down and the officers and other staff members were relocated.

Women's prisons can also be hotbeds for contraband. Many of the items demanded are things to enhance an inmate's femininity, such as make up, perfume, and jewelry, particularly tongue rings. In a women's prison, York discovered that two female officers made extra money on the side by bringing the inmates tongue rings and name brand makeup. The makeup was provided to replace the generic makeup approved by the prison and hated by the inmates. The tongue rings were a fashion statement because they were stylish and cool and also because the inmates used the tongue rings on each other for oral sexual pleasure and arousal. After York confiscated the tongue rings and makeup, he learned the names of the officers from the inmates. The officers resigned and surrendered their correctional officer certifications for life.

Sometimes the officers are just as corrupt as the employees as York shows in his chapter involving Florida's former Department of Corrections Secretary James Crosby. Crosby hosted wild parties with bigwigs, booze, and girls. He and other officials accepted kickbacks from private vendors and state funds. Other officials imported and sold steroids to give to the prison softball team. Crosby also protected officers who abused and intimidated inmates and staff.
Many of Crosby's cohorts were exposed and investigated. Some came clean particularly about the steroid use and the parties. Eventually in 2006, Florida governor, Jeb Bush ordered Crosby to resign. He agreed to plead guilty for accepting kickbacks and was sentenced to eight years in a federal prison.
The chapter on Crosby shows what happens when a prison official is as corrupt and scheming as the inmates. When that happens, the whole system can fall apart when citizens can't trust that law officers will protect them.

Sometimes the favors that staff members grant inmates seem innocuous but are symbols of power one has over them. This is particularly true for Warden David Farcas of the Charlottesville Correctional Institution. Farcas recruited captains, officers, and supervisors into what was called “The Family” a small group of prison officials who did favors for each other like covering up abuse. While inmates spoke up against the mistreatment, authorities did not take their claims seriously. Officers were supposed to testify as well, but the officers were too afraid of “The Family” to protest.
Farcas also granted favors to prisoners that he liked such as letting some use his cell phone to make long distance calls. In his previous position, Farcas gave an inmate and his father a steak dinner. He later had the same inmate transferred to Charlottesville.
One of the more bizarre favors that Farcas granted the inmates was to invite a skydiving team land on the prison compound during their annual Christian program. It is forbidden to allow airplanes to enter a prison without receiving approval from the State Capitol, conducting background checks on those who use the plane, and searching the plane for contraband or potential escapees. Farcas sidestepped these regulations and granted the skydiving team permission for no motive but to show off his power and prove that he could grant such a huge favor.
The Inspector General's office received various complaints on Farcas’ behavior from inmates and officers who were willing to talk about the Family's doings. Farcas was removed from his position, but temporarily received a new wardenship at Cross City Correctional Institution during the rise of Secretary James Crosby (see above). When Crosby resigned, Farcas was one of several prison employees terminated by Governor Jeb Bush’s actions to end illegal activity in Florida's prisons.

Juvenile correctional facilities also have their share of illegal activity going on inside those walls. In Hillsborough Correctional Institution, The young offenders got into fights, arming themselves with broom handles and padlocks as makeshift weapons. Warden Roderick James declared “If you want to act like animals, then you will be treated as animals.” Officers then handcuffed the young men to a chain link fence then laughed as a thunderstorm poured down on the boys.
James ordered the officers to use pepper spray on any dissenters. The inmates spent the night on the gymnasium floor handcuffed on the basketball court floor and sleeping on thin mattresses. The young men spent 33 hours handcuffed, before being released.
The inmates and officers, lieutenants, a major, the assistant warden, and the prison chaplain all testified that James ordered the punishment. James denied being involved in punishing the boys, but his attendance on the court log told a different story. James was demoted, suspended for a few days, and transferred to Avon Park Correctional Institution where he was eventually promoted to warden once again.
This chapter highlights a heart-breaking reality in America's prisons that sometimes when officers are caught breaking the laws that they swore to protect, unfortunately they receive very little punishment.

York's book is an eye opening look inside prisons where instead of rehabilitating and receiving second chances, the people on both sides of the law are often guilty of doing more of the same.

Classics Corner: Midnight In The Garden of Good and Evil by John Berendt; True Southern Gothic Tale is Filled With Eccentric Characters and a Sense of Place

Classics Corner: Midnight In The Garden of Good and Evil by John Berendt; True Southern Gothic Tale is Filled With Eccentric Characters and a Sense of Place

By Julie Sara Porter

Bookworm Reviews




Spoilers: It is hard to treat Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil as a nonfiction book. It is a true story with real people and involves a real crime: The shooting of hustler, Danny Hansford by his older on-and-off lover, antiques dealer, Jim Williams. But it is not written like a non-fiction book filled with dry facts, statistics, and interviews, court reports, and newspaper articles about the shooting and the people involved.

Instead Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil reads like a novel, a nonfiction novel. Like Truman Capote’s In Cold Blood, Alex Haley’s Roots, and Tom Wolfe’s The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test, Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil uses various literary techniques such as setting, plot, characterization, and dialogue to tell it's story and does it very well. It turns a true crime into a Southern Gothic story.




Author John Berendt really made Savannah, Georgia come to life in his book. He described the beautiful antebellum houses, the humid atmosphere, and the feeling of being cut off from the rest of the world (because at the time, traveling to Savannah was hard except by crossing one bridge.) expertly. He also recounted Savannah's history and transformation from the pirate’s den in Treasure Island, to the “Grand Old Southern Lady” of Gone With The Wind, to its then reputation as a place that was so caught up in tradition that it's residents refused to let Big Businesses move in. This book no doubt did wonders to Savannah's tourism and if Berendt's characterization of the locals is anything to go on, it was probably not a good thing.




Besides the setting, Berendt perfectly wrote the residents of Savannah as a group of eccentric oddballs. Everyone had so many unique quirks and characteristics that one must wonder if a phrase is written in Savannah's bylaws stating “Thou must be eccentric to reside in these city limits.”

There is Luther Driggs, an amateur chemist who hinted that he created a poison that he could pour into Savannah's water supply and kill everyone. (The real-life inspiration behind Driggs said that though he was an amateur chemist, he created no such thing and blamed Berendt for giving him such a reputation.) Emma Kelly, a pianist who was known as “The Lady of Six Thousand Songs” and who knew and played everyone's favorite song. Joe Odom, an attorney owned Sweet Georgia Brown, a piano bar with Mandy Nichols, a lovely lady that Odom forever promised to make “his third wife.” Sonny Seiler, a defense attorney who was so devoted to the University of Georgia Bulldogs football team that he owned a pit bull, Uga IV (there were three previous Ugas) that became the team’s unofficial mascot. Then there's Lady Chablis, a saucy drag performer who called herself “The Grand Empress if Savannah.” She enjoyed flirting with Berendt and making herself the center of attention, including in one memorable moment crashing a debutante ball of Savannah's African-American elite much to Berendt's embarrassed chagrin.




Standing in the center of this cast of fascinating weirdos was Jim Williams. The 52-year-old antiques dealer loved giving the impression of coming from old money by showing off his collection of antiques and buying the house built by songwriter Johnny Mercer’s great-grandfather. When asked if he minded being called “nouveau riche”, Williams said that “it's the riche that's the important part.”




Williams also went to extremes to stand out in the crowd. During the filming of a TV movie about Abraham Lincoln, Williams draped a Nazi flag over his house to ruin the shot and to protest the anger that Savannah's residents had about movies being filmed there with the constant changes to location and the often pushy cast and crew. Williams was also known for his Christmas parties which were the highlight of the year so much that people worried throughout the year whether they would be put in his “In” box or “Out” box.

Williams also loved to show off his collection of rare weapons and guns as though daring to be shot. This revealed a certain sense of danger in Williams, almost a death wish.




This sense of danger probably explained Williams’ relationship with 21-year-old hustler, Danny Hansford. Hansford was an Eighth grade dropout with a hair trigger temper and who was described by a former girlfriend as a “Walking streak of sex.” He also did odd jobs for Williams and was implied to be his lover. When Hansford entered the Williams home, it was almost a guarantee that he would be drunk, lose his temper, fight with Williams, and break something of his. Williams’ sense of danger did not seem to mind Hansford's temper, in fact seemed to enjoy it, until one night when after a fight, Williams shot Hansford to death.




Williams was arrested and charged with murder, though he claimed it was self-defense because Hansford threatened to shoot him.Thus began his trial or rather trials. Williams’ case was given four separate trials each time because of technicalities or legal issues. The miscarriages of justice are present throughout the trials as Williams,found guilty during the first three trials,looked for any reason to reopen the case. There is also a sense of fatigue as the trials go on leading to the possibility that Williams was acquitted the fourth time so they wouldn't have to go through the case again.




Williams not only used legal means to gain victory, he used supernatural means. He contacted Minerva, a voodoo priestess, to provide him good luck and to curse the prosecuting attorney. In one of the most memorable passages in the book, Minerva, Williams, and Berendt visited a cemetery in Beaufort, South Carolina where Minerva used her abilities to not only hex the attorney but to get the spirit of Hansford to lay off of Williams by getting Williams to admit good things about the young man. Williams responded by mentioning Hansford's Camaro, artistic talent, and sense of humor.




An even creepier passage occurs later in the book after Williams was acquitted. Minerva and Berendt went to another cemetery to speak to “the head man” that Minerva suspected was “working against Williams from beyond the grave”: none other than Danny Hansford. Minerva begged and argued with Hansford's spirit to leave Williams alone but the spirit continued to laugh at Minerva so she gave up in frustration.




Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil stretches nonfiction by offering an account that is so bizarre that it seems like it couldn't have happened in real life. But it did, with all of its weirdness, bizarre cast, and unique situations. The final irony gives an almost literary twist to this strange story: Shortly after his acquittal, Jim Williams suffered a fatal heart attack right in the study where he and Hansford had their final confrontation and in the exact spot where Hansford would have shot Williams if Williams hadn't shot him. You just can't make things like this up.