The Humble Side Of Celebrity—

From Fraud To Prison To Family

By Kendra Bobowick

Frank Abagnale, Jr’s story is sensational.

As Reed Intermediate School students wedged into the gymnasium and sat knee-to-knee recently, Principal Donna Denniston introduced him saying: “Our guest this afternoon is the person whose life the movie was all about.”

Ms Denniston was referencing the 2002 film Catch Me If You Can, which starred Tom Hanks as a federal agent trying to catch a young man played by Leonardo DiCaprio. “The movie is about my life,” Mr Abagnale admitted. He was the young man who had led authorities on a chase for five years during the 1960s.

As if he were reading from a familiar menu, Mr Abagnale quickly noted his escapades — he spent years eluding the police, falsely claiming to be a doctor, pilot and lawyer, made up names for himself, and signed those “names” to fabricated checks against a nonexistent account. His frauds totaled nearly $2.5 million.

His message to students on April 27 had nothing to do with his infamous tales, however.

Leaving behind the infamous chapters about himself, Mr Abagnale spoke about the other character: a boy who grew up in Westchester County in New York, who attended school in New Rochelle, and lived with his family.

Frank Abagnale’s true-life story of his young adulthood following his parents’ divorce is about a young man who found himself traveling for free as a pilot to Paris, moving into his own apartment when he was pretending to be a doctor, and eluding the police and Federal Bureau of Investigation for five years. The moral of the story that Mr Abagnale wanted to share lay behind the façade of the imposters.

He began with heartbreak.

“My parents were getting divorced,” he said. “I was in tenth grade and suddenly found myself in court in front of a judge. The judge wanted me to choose one parent over the other.” Those moments produced a desperate young man. “I couldn’t choose, so I ran away.”

Being alone at 16 was “scary,” he confessed. He faced problems, like where to sleep and how to earn money. “I went to work as a delivery man,” he said, which is when he first began to alter his identity. “I realized that as long as people believed I was only 16, I would only get a little money [at work]. So I changed my identification,” he said. Mr Abagnale literally created a more mature version of himself. “Overnight I was 26,” he said. At the time he also remembered that he had his own checkbook.

“I started writing checks,” he said. Soon, police were looking for a runaway bearing checks. Mr Abagnale was forced to “change” again.

“One day I saw pilots, and I thought that if I could pose as a pilot, I could travel for free.” He had learned that traveling pilots often were welcomed aboard flights for free. When he needed cash, he said, “I could still write checks.” Joking with the students, he said, “Two years later I decided to become a doctor.” After that, a lawyer.

Between the ages of 16 and 25, he dodged the authorities. “The police and FBI thought they were looking for an adult,” he said. A comic book character was his undoing. The federal agent wondered aloud one day about a name — one of Mr Abagnale’s aliases, when a teenage waiter overheard. “The waiter told him the name was from a comic book,” he said.

The investigation shifted, and officials eventually found him.

The experience was not exciting, but frightening, and although he could not have known it at the time, his decision had permanent consequences. “My mother didn’t see me for seven years,” he said. And worse, “My father never saw me again.”

“Like all criminals, I got caught,” he said. He spent jail time in Paris, Sweden, then in the United States. When he was 26 the government offered freedom if he worked for them. He has been affiliated with the FBI for the last 32 years, and looks back on a consulting career that is only part of what he is thankful for today.

According to his website, Mr Abagnale is one of the world’s most respected authorities on the subjects of forgery, embezzlement and secure documents. For more than 30 years he has lectured to and consulted with hundreds of financial institutions, corporations, and government agencies around the world.

Mr Abagnale has been associated with the FBI for more than 30 years. He lectures extensively at the FBI Academy and for the field offices of the Federal Bureau of Investigation. More than 14,000 financial institutions, corporations and law enforcement agencies use his fraud prevention programs.

No One Worries

Like Your Parents

Approaching the most important message of his visit, Mr Abagnale first gave students a glimpse of how he perceived himself.

“People say I’m a genius. I think I was a teenager,” he said. Further discrediting himself, he said, “If I had been a genius I wouldn’t have needed to break the law.” Hammering his point to the Reed students, Mr Abagnale said, “It was illegal, immoral, and wrong.”

Making a point of another comment he has heard, he said, “People say I was gifted. I was,” he said, but then got to the point he most wants students — children with parents at home — to hear.

“I had a dad,” he said. “There are lots of fathers, but few can be a dad.” Remembering his father, he said, “He loved his children, would kiss us good night and say, ‘I love you,’ before we went to bed.”

Remembering his teens, he said, “When I was a child, I needed my mother and father, and when a stranger told me I had to choose, I had no choice but to run.

“I cried myself to sleep until I was 19. It was a lonely way to go.”

His high school years elapsed while he was missing from home.

“I never got to go to the prom or football games,” he said. Fear was always with him. “I knew I’d be caught, the law never sleeps,” he said.

While his story was one of hardship so far, he had a darker card to reveal.

“Then, I went to the tough places,” he said. “My dad died while I was in a prison cell.” He admitted to the full gymnasium, “I never got to kiss him and tell him I love him.” Mr Abagnale then moved to another topic, but the hooks to the moral of his story had sunk in — the importance of a family. The room was silent, faces edged forward when he said, “No one loves you more than your parents. No one worries about you more night and day. They’ll be the ones who love you most.” He speaks not only from his past, but has learned the lesson from his own wife and sons.

Taking the long way around to his explanation, he said, “I turned down three pardons from three presidents because it won’t excuse what I did; only actions can excuse what I did.” Mr Abagnale had made a manuscript of his life, and one day handed the pages to his eldest son to read.

“I told him, ‘I am the person in the book. You understand that I did those things, and what I do today?’” His sons didn’t turn on him, however.

“They judge me, I think, as what I do as their father,” Mr Abagnale said.

“I could tell you prison rehabilitated me. It didn’t,” he said.

In fact, his wife changed his life. “Because of the love of a woman and the respect of three sons.”

Warning the children, he said, “Please, always stay in touch with your family, brothers, sisters.” Raising the shadow of divorce that had clouded his life, he encouraged the students, “Even if mom and dad aren’t living together, you still have a mom and dad. Keep the relationship,” he said.

By the time the talk was finished many hands shot into the air with questions. Mr Abagnale’s point had taken hold. One young man had brought the story back to Mr Abagnale’s father. The student asked how the man had died. Answering the tough inquiry directly, Mr Abagnale said, “He tripped on subway stairs, missed the rail and hit his head.” Mr Abagnale’s mother is living, and he now has a close relationship with her, however.

Another voice from far back in the audience asked if he would change his life, if he could. “Yes,” he said.

Elaborating, Mr Abagnale said, “If I had my life to do over, I would not run away from home. I don’t want to have a life like that again. It was very lonely.”

As students quieted down in the Reed gymnasium, brother and sister Dan and Natalie Poeltl joined Mr Abagnale at the front of the room. Dan, a student at Reed School, and Natalie, a fourth grader at Middle Gate School, are the grandchildren of Mr Abagnale’s cousin Lew Abagnale of Westport. The children’s parents are Bobbie and John Poeltl of Newtown.

Natalie had asked him to come to Newtown to speak, she knew he spoke “all over the country,” said Mrs Poeltl. “He wrote back to her and said he would be honored.”

Natalie’s class joined the Reed students to hear Mr Abagnale speak.