Catch Me If You Can Author Frank W. Abagnale Speaks at Clarkson University

good morning it's my pleasure to be here this morning normally when I walk up to the podium it is to talk about fraud and cybercrime and counterfeiting and identity theft and things of that nature but the school has asked me today if I would just come and talk a little bit about my life as you know I've had many people tell my story in books movies television Broadway musicals and of course those very creative people have enjoyed telling my story from their point of view so I thought that I thought this morning I would just actually tell you the story from my point of view I was raised just north of New York City in Westchester County New York and a little town called Bronxville I was actually one of four children in the family the so called middle child of the four I was educated there by the Christian Brothers of Ireland at a private Catholic school called Iona and nourished shell New York or I went to school from kindergarten to high school by the time I had reached the age of 16 in the tenth grade my parents after 22 years of marriage one day decided to get a divorce unlike most divorces where the children were usually the first to know my parents were very good about keeping that a secret I remember being in the tenth grade when the father walked in the classroom and asked her brother to excuse me to class when I came out in the hallway the father handed me my books and told me that one of the brothers would drive me to the county seat White Plains New York I would meet my parents and they would explain what was going on I remember the brothers dropped me at the steps of a big stone building and told me to go on up the steps and that my parents would be waiting for me in the lobby the climb the steps I noticed a sign on the building said family court but I really didn't understand what that meant when I arrived in the lobby my parents were not there but I was ushered into the back of an immense courtroom where my parents were standing before a judge I couldn't hear what the judge was saying nor my parents response but eventually the judge asked me to approach the bench so I walked up to stand in between my parents I remember distinctly that the judge never looked at me he never acknowledged I was standing there he just simply read from his papers and said that my parents were getting a divorce because I was 16 years old I would need to tell the court which parent I chose to live with I started to cry so I turned and ran out of the courtroom judge call for 10-minute recess but by the time my parents got outside I was gone my mother never saw me again for about seven years until I was a young adult contrary to the movie my father never saw me or ever spoke to me again in the mid-1960s running away was a very popular thing for young people a lot of them got caught up in haight-ashbury the hip scene the drug scene instead I took a few belongings from my home packed him in a bag and boarded what was in the New Haven and Hartford railroad for the short train ride down to Grand Central Terminal in New York my father did on a stationary store but in Manhattan located on the corner of 40th and Madison like all of us we had to work in the store so I made deliveries my dad from the time I was about 13 I knew the city very well so naturally I started looking for the same type of work there were a lot of signs on the window stock boy delivery boy part-time I'd walk in and apply so tell me young man how old you a 16 how hard you go in high school tenth grade I'll hire you and went to work for a small amount of money few hours a day but I soon realized I couldn't support myself on that amount of money I also realized that as long as people believed I was 16 years old they weren't going to pay me any more money at 16 I was 6 foot tall I've always had little gray hair my friends and school used to say that once a week when we dress for mass in a suit I look more like a teacher than a student so I decided to lie about my age in New York we had a driver's license at 16 back then they didn't have a photo on it just an IBM card so I altered one digit of my date of birth I was actually born in April of 1948 when I dropped the four converted it to a three and that made me ten years older or 26 years old I started round we're looking for the same type of work people did give me a little more money a few more hours but even then it was very difficult to make ends meet one of the few things I had taken when I left home was a checkbook my father had opened a checking account for me at a small community bank in in New York I had little money in that account so every so often I would write a check to supplement my income $20 $25 funds were there checks were good but it was my friends my peers who would constantly say to me you know you're the only guy I know walks into a bank in the middle of Manhattan you have no account there you don't know a soul you talk to somebody behind a desk and they okay your check well my checks are good I walked in that Bank they wouldn't touch my check you walk in they don't bat an eye years later reporters would write and speculate and say that that was my upbringing mannerisms trance appearance speech whatever it was was very easy to do so consequently when the money ran out I kept writing those checks of course the cheque started to bounce please started looking for me as a runaway so I thought maybe it was a good time to start thinking about leaving New York City but I was quite apprehensive about going to Chicago Miami wondered if they cash a New York check on a New York driver's license in Miami as quickly as they did in Manhattan I was walking up 42nd Street when afternoon about 5 o'clock in the evening 16 years old pondering all of these things when I started to approach the front door of an old hotel that used to be there called the Commodore hotel now the Grand Hyatt just as I was about to get to the front door of the hotel out stepped in Eastern airline flight crew onto the sidewalk I couldn't help but notice the captain the copilot the flight engineer about three or four flight attendants dragging their bags to the curb to load him in a van to take them to the airport as they loaded the van I thought to myself that's it I could pose as a pilot I could travel all over the world for free I probably could get just about anybody anywhere to cash a check for me so I walked up the street a little further to 42nd and Park I went to cross over but I heard a huge helicopter so I looked up and there was New York Airways landing on the roof or the Pan Am building Pan Am the nations flag care the airline it flew around the world I thought what a perfect airline to use so the next step placed a phone call to the executive corporate offices of Pan Am when the switchboard was ringing I had absolutely no idea what I was going to say when they answered and American Airlines good morning could help you yes ma'am I'd like to I'd like to speak to somebody in the purchasing department purchasing one moment the clerk came on to say yes I'm a beacon I mean my name is John black I'm a co-pilot with the company based out of San Francisco been with the company about seven years never done anything like this come up before what's the problem what we flew a trip in here yesterday or we're going out today yesterday I sent my uniform out through the hotel to have a dry clean now the hotel and the cleaner said they can't find it okay I am with a flight in about four hours new uniform don't you have a spare uniform certainly back home in San Francisco but I'd never get it here in time for my flight do you understand that this would cost you the price of a uniform not the company I understand well hold on I'll be right back he came back and said my supervisor says you need to go down to the well-built Uniform Company on Fifth Avenue they're our supplier I'll call them and let them know you're on the way well that's exactly what I wanted to know so I went down to the well-built Uniform Company little fella mr. Rosen fitted me out in the uniform back then they were black gabardine two three gold stripes on the arm two gray hair I certainly looked old enough to be the pilot when he was all done it said how much do you wear the uniforms two hundred eighty six dollars said no problem I'll write you a check no we can't take any checks oh well then um I'll just pay cash no we can't accept cash you need to fill out this computer card then in these boxes put your employee number we build this back under uniform allowance comes out of your next Pan Am paycheck that's even better go ahead and do that New York had two airports LaGuardia in Kennedy LaGuardia was 20 minutes from Manhattan Kennedy was 50 so naturally LaGuardia being the closer of the two that's where I went I spent most of the morning walking around LaGuardia in the uniform trying to figure out now that I had this uniform how the hell do you get on this plane well I got a little hungry about lunchtime so I walked in the luncheonette sat down at the counter on the stool and ordered a sandwich moments later a TWA crew walked in flight attendants sat in the booth pilots up at the counter on either side of me captain right next to me now back before deregulation of the airlines airline people thought of themselves as just one big family they didn't hesitate a moment to talk to each other and the captain kind of leaned over a young man I was Pan Am doing doing just fine captain tell me what's Pan Am doing out here at LaGuardia Pan Am doesn't fly into LaGuardia the only flying the Kimball well I picked up on that right away yeah we came into Kennedy but I had a short layover and I came over to business some friends of my matter of fact I'm on my way back to Kennedy now so tell me young man what type of equipment are you on now airline people have a lot of jargon for things and one of them is they never call a plane a plane or an aircraft they call it equipment and what type of equipment you're on and what type of plane do you fly back then to dc-8 a 707 of course I didn't know that and I thought what type of equipment and my arm the equipment I'm on is this stool they must mean what type of equipment is on the planes I fly so I thought well they've got the wing they got the engine it always had a sticker on the engine who manufactured the engine so I said yes General Electric all three pilots kind of just stopped eating and leaned over Gabon said oh really what do you fly washing machine so I know I said the wrong thing out there darling everybody had an airline ID card a plastic laminated card much like a driver's license today yet without the ID card the uniform was worthless I went back to Manhattan pretty discouraged thinking where would I come up with the pan-american airline corporate ID I was sitting in the hotel room I noticed a big thick Manhattan yellow pages on the dresser so I pulled them down on the bed flipped him open looked under the word identification there were two or three pages of companies who made convention badges metal badges plastic badges police badges fire badges start to call around and finally one company said listen most of those airline IDs manufactured by Polaroid 3m company need to call one of them finally got the 3m company on the phone in Manhattan yes we manufacture Pan Am's identification system along with a number of other carriers how come tell you I'm a purchasing officer for a major US carrier I'm in New York just for the day we're getting ready to expand our routes hire a lot of new employees go to a formal ID we're very impressed with this Pan Am format one that if I came by your office this afternoon briefly we could discuss quantity and price by all means come on by so I went by dressed in the suit and the sales were Pope in the book yeah we do Braniff National Eastern Delta Pan Am PanAm we like this Pan Am format think he'd have a sample I could bring back sure I'll be right back he brought me back actually a 5x7 glossy piece of paper with a picture of an ID card blown up in the middle of it someone else's picture in the picture John Doe for a name and bold red ink across the front this is a sample only I said no I'm afraid this won't do you know I need to bring back an actual physical card and by the way what is all this equipment on the floor oh now we don't just sell this card we sell this system camera laminates you have to buy all this absolutely well tell you what since we have to buy it all once you just demonstrate how it works and use me buy never see right here took my picture made at the garden I was going down the elevators studying the card it had a blue border across the top about a quarter of an inch and Pan Am's color blue but not a single thing on the card said Pan Am no logo no insignia no company name this is a plastic card like a credit card you couldn't type on it you couldn't write on it you couldn't print on it discouraged I put it in my pocket headed back to the hotel as I was walking back I noticed that I had passed a hobby shop so I turned around and walked back excuse me sighs see you sell a lot of models here you sell models of commercial jetliners sure right over there and I bought a model of a Pan Am 707 cargo jet for about two dollars and forty cents took it back to my room open the box through all the parts out but there on the bottom of the box was a sheet of decals that went on the model and the little Pan Am blue globe that would have went on the tail of the plastic plane went perfect up at the top of the plastic card and the word Pan Am and their special styling of graphics it would have went on the fuselage went perfect across the top of the card the clear decal on the laminated plastic made a beautiful identification car Pan Am says they estimate that between the ages of 16 and 18 years old I flew on more than a million miles for free boarding more than 260 commercial aircraft in 26 countries around the world Pan Am says keep in mind that though Frank Abagnale did in fact pose as one of our pilots he never once stepped on board one of our aircraft that's true I never flew on Pan Am because I was afraid that someone might say to me you know I'm based in San Francisco been out there 16 years don't recall of a meeting you before or someone might say you know your ID card is not exactly like my ID card so instead I flew on everyone else if I wanted to go somewhere I literally just walked out to the airport and looked up on the board United flight 800 to Chicago then it went downstairs to the door marked United operations and walked in the operations clerk a Pan Am what can we do for you I wonder if the jump seats open on 802 Chicago I like the deadhead Chicago this evening it's opened this evening like to get a pink slip pass I give my ID'd right now to pass sidewalk out hand it to the flight attendant she'd opened the door to the cockpit and I'd step in they had a captain a co-pilot a flight engineer and a seat behind the captain called jump seat where pilots dead head on company time now because pilots loved the talk shop once you picked up that jargon it was the same conversation over and over and over so I just step on board even Jim Bob Davis beer I'm in Chicago on the taxi out always the same question so Bob how long you been with Pan Am been flying about seven years what position you fly a right seat which is airline terminology for a co-pilot what type of equipment are you on had that one down perfect matter of fact whatever they flew I didn't fly so I no problems with that then we'd arrive in Chicago I'd go by the Pan Am ticket counter but just enough to get the attention of the passenger service rep yes I could help you excuse me where do we lay over here the dead editor for somebody got ill never laid over in Chicago so he was apartment house Hilton downtown catch approvals low level door 3 out I'd go down with apartment house Hilton walk in and on the corner of the registration death was a little sign said airline cruise that was a three-ring binder you've signed in referenced your flight numbers showed your ID they give me a key I'd stayed two or three days and paying him would be direct billed from my room and my meals I also pick cash a personal check at the front desk because I wasn't employed the airline the airline had a contract with a hotel and they'd cash your check but then I found out that every airline honors every other airline employees personal check a reciprocal agreement still practice today in 2016 so a delta flight attendant at the Syracuse Airport can walk over to the American ticket counter show her Delta ID and they'll cash a personal check up $200 and vice versa of course when I found that out I'd go out to JFK or LAX only I'd go to everybody North East National KLM Air France it would take me a good eight hours stopping in every counter in every building by the time I got around the other end of the airport at least eight hours have gone by what do you have an eight hours shift change new people so I go all the way back around the other way of course as many of you know went on to impersonate a doctor in a Georgia hospital for a while it took the bar in the state of Louisiana passed the bar went to work for the Attorney General of the state in that civil court where I spent about a year and no one the wiser in either case I resigned on my own and left of course like any criminal sooner or later you get caught and I was no exception to that rule I was arrested just once in my life at the age of 21 by the French police in a small town in southern France calm on PA the French police actually arresting me on an Interpol warrant from the Swedish police who are looking for me for forgery in Sweden but believe that I was residing in France when the French authorities took me into custody on the Swedish warrant they realized I had forged checks all over France refused to honor the warrant and my request for extradition they later convicted me a forgery and sent me to French prison I served my time in a place called the mids on D array the house of arrest in a small town in southern France Coppa pinyon Steven Speilberg told Barbara Walters it was extremely important to me to go back to that prison to the exact cell he was in and reconstructed according to the logbooks during his stay there which he said was a blanket on the floor no mattress a hole in the floor to go to the bathroom no plumbing no electricity he said according to the logbooks I entered the prison at 198 pounds left the prison at 109 pounds when my sentence was over I was extradited to Sweden where I was later convicted of forgery in a Swedish court of law and sent to a Swedish Penitentiary in Malmo Sweden when my prison term was up in Sweden US federal authorities took custody of me and returned me to the United States eventually a United States federal judge which sentenced me to 12 years in federal prison I served for of those 12 years at a federal prison in Petersburg Virginia when I was 26 years old the government offered to take me out of prison on the condition I go to work for an agency of the federal government for the remainder of my sentence or until my parole had expired I agreed and was released this year I'm celebrating 40 years with the FBI I have been there for four decades I work out of Washington DC but I make my home in Charleston South Carolina so I commute up by plane on Monday mornings and back on Thursday afternoon I live in Charleston with my one and only wife of 39 years and my three sons my youngest boy graduated from University of Beijing in China he went on to get his master's degree there he reads writes and speaks Chinese fluently he works for an American company in San Francisco my middle son graduated from University of Nevada and Las Vegas his degree was in hotel management he and his wife own a business in South Carolina and he manages that business my oldest boy 36 graduated from Universe Kansas @k you went on to Loyola School of Law in Chicago to get his law degree in passed the bar in Illinois went on to make his dad very very proud he's an FBI agent in our Baltimore field office he's celebrating 11 years in the FBI he's our supervisory agent over the espionage squad that we operate out of the Baltimore field office as many of you know I had very little to do with the film I would have preferred not to had a movie made about my life I raised my three boys in Tulsa Oklahoma for 25 years and commuted to Washington DC just to keep them away from just that in the end it was very pleased that Steven Spielberg decided to make the movie as he said I did not immortalize Frank Abagnale on film because what he did some 40 years ago as a teenage boy immortalized him on film because of what he's done for his country for close to 40 years in the end my family and I were very pleased with the outcome of the film I assumed that the film would run and after a couple years of film would be forgotten I never dreamed that catch me if you can would go on to earn more than a billion dollars for DreamWorks and be shown over and over around the world and then become a popular Broadway musical and then a kind of popular television show white color on TV because of that I get a lot of emails back in Washington I can go to work on Monday mornings and know that that TV movie at the movie has been played on TV somewhere in the world just by the emails that I receive whether they be in Russian Chinese or American they come from people as young as eight years old to people as old as 80 who feel compelled to send the email they have no idea whether I'll ever see them or read them they just feel they have a statement to make and they write some write and say you know you were brilliant you're a absolute genius I was neither I was just a child had been brilliant had it been a genius I don't know that I would have found it necessary to break the law in order to just simply survive and while I know that there are people fascinated by what I did some 50 years ago as a teenage boy I've always looked upon what I did is something was immoral illegal unethical and a burden I live with every day of my life and will until my death there are many who write and say well you know you were certainly gifted that I was I was one of those few children who got to grow up in the world with the daddy now the world is full of fathers but there are very few men worthy of being called daddy by their child I had a daddy who loved his children Warren he loved life itself Steven Spielberg would rather write that the more I research Frank's shoes without ever having met Frank I couldn't help but put his father in the film through the likes of Christopher Walken my father was a man who had four children three boys and a daughter every night at bedtime he'd walk into your room he was 6 3 he would drop down on one knee kiss you on the cheek pull the cover up and he put his lip right upon your earlobe and he'd whisper deep into you I love you I love you very much he never ever missed a night as I grew older I sometimes fell asleep before he got home but always woke up in the next morning and knew he had been by my bedside years later my older brother joined me in my room he was 6 4 in the marine corps played semi-pro football for Buffalo but my father would walk around to his bed hug him kisum whisperers Erie loved him when I was 16 years old I was just a child all 16 year olds are just children much as we like to be adults they're just children and like all children they need their mother and they need their father all children need their mother and their father all children are entitled to their mother and their father and though it is not popular to say so divorce is a very devastating thing for a child to deal with and then have to deal with the rest of their natural life for me a complete stranger said I had to choose one parent over the other that was a choice I could not so I ran how could I tell you my life was glamorous I cried myself to sleep till I was 19 years old I spent every birthday Christmas Mother's Day Father's Day in a hotel room some in the world by myself the only people that associated with me where people believed me to be leap that I was their peer ten years older than I actually was I never got to go to a senior prom High School football game share a relationship with someone my own age I always knew I'd get caught it was just a matter of time the law sometimes sleeps but the law never dies I was caught I went to some very bad places my boys have grown up asking your mother why is it that Dad wakes up in the middle of the night because you know he goes down the TV room he doesn't turn the TV on he just sits there all night because there are things you can't forget things you're not meant to forget well I was sitting in that pitch-black cell in France my father 57 was climbing the subway stairs in New York as he did every day he was in great physical shape he just happened to trip he reached his arm out to break his fall he slipped hit his head on a railing landed at the bottom of the step he was dead I didn't know he was dead I was sitting in that cell thinking about him how much I couldn't wait to see him hold him hug him kiss him tell him how sorry I was but I never got the opportunity to do that I was very fortunate because I was brought up in a great country where everyone gets a second chance I owe my country 800 times more than I could ever repay it for the opportunities it's given me these past 40 years that is why I'm at the FBI today 32 years after a federal court order has expired for me to do so I have turned down three pardons from three sitting presidents of the United States because I do not believe nor will I ever believe that a piece of paper will excuse my actions that only in the end my actions will thirty-nine years ago on an undercover assignment in Houston Texas I met my wife when my assignment was over I broke protocol to tell her who I really was I didn't have a dime to my name but I eventually asked her to marry me against the wishes of her parents she did and I could sit here and tell you I was born again I saw the light prison rehabilitated me but the truth is God gave me a wife she gave me three beautiful children she gave me a family and she changed my life she and she alone everything I have everything I've achieved Who I am today is because of love of a woman and the respect three boys have for their father something I would never ever jeopardize there comes a time in all of our lifetimes a we grow older and we have children and as every parent in this room knows whether your child is three months old or 36 years old when you lay your head on a pillow at night no matter where that pillow is and you are just about to close your eyes the last thing you think about last thing you worry about are your children so if you still have your mother you still have your father you give him a hug you give him a kiss you tell them you love them while you can into those men in the audience both young and old I remind you what it is to truly actually be a man it has nothing to do with money achievements skills accomplishments degrees professions positions a real man loves his wife a real man is faithful to his wife and a real man next to God in his country put his wife and his children as the most important thing in his life Steven Spielberg made a wonderful film but I've done nothing greater nothing more rewarding nothing more worthwhile nothing that's brought me more peace more joy more happiness our content in my life than simply being a good husband a good father and what I strive to be every day of my life a great daddy pleasure being here with you this morning god bless you thanks for coming

Channel: Clarkson University

Views: 96,576

Rating: 4.9148183 out of 5

Keywords: Catch Me if You Can, Clarkson University, alumni, alumni weekend, Frank Abagnale, FBI, Leonardo DiCaprio, bank fraud, check fraud, cybersecurity, fraud prevention expert, Frank W. Abagnale, potsdam ny, potsdam, north country, suny potdsdam, college, university, clarkson

Id: -K6gwI4L9u4

Length: 27min 44sec (1664 seconds)

Published: Tue Jul 19 2016

Reddit Comments

[u/TheeSweeney]

Didn't expect to watch the whole thing, but damn that was riveting - even as someone who has seen the movie and read about Abagnale many time.

[u/Mr_Arkhive]

As a new parent, the end of this video really stuck with me. Great video. Thanks for posting.

[u/No_Please_Continue]

This was a great watch. Wow. He speaks so eloquently.

[u/[deleted]]

Just what I needed to hear, thank you.

[u/LadyOzma]

I gotta go hug my mom and dad now

[u/parens]

That was an incredible video. Anyone has similar strong videos to share?

[u/DraqonBourne]

My favorite speech on youtube. My absolute favorite movie. One of the most amazing true stories of all time.

[u/digitalmediamaster]

This is one of my good friend's uncle. He would tell us this story growing up and it was the craziest thing when the movie came out and was nothing like his story.

[u/StimpleSyle]

I wanted to hear his take on Speilberg’s need to show him with a hooker.