People are not always honest, but some lie more than others. Frank Abagnale Jr. became famous for his crimes and alleged hijinks, which were immortalized in the 2002 Steven Spielberg film Catch Me If You Can. The film tells the story of a young man who cashes 17,000 fraudulent checks worth $2.5 million with the FBI hot on his trail. The FBI eventually catches up with him and puts him to work. Along the way he does outlandish things such as impersonating Pan Am pilots for free airfare and room and board.
Abagnale also shares these stories and more in his memoir. He travels the world giving talks about his crimes and redemption story. But two men were not buying it. Jim Keith and William Toney claim much of Abagnale’s story is made up.
Keith first encountered Abagnale in 1981, when he was giving a talk at a local high school about how he turned his life around. At the time, he was working as the manager of security at a JC Penney in St. Louis. Abagnale’s talk did not seem truthful to Keith.
“We walked away with a sick feeling that we and those students were sold a bill of worthless goods,” Keith recalled. He decided to look into it himself and began researching Abagnale’s claims.
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Keith’s daughter, Heather Crosby, remembers her dad as “like a dog with a bone … He was determined to show this guy was a fraud.” Keith eventually partnered with William Toney, a professor of criminal justice at Stephen F. Austin State University. Together they compiled an 87-page document concluding that only some of Abagnale’s story was true.
According to Keith and Toney's findings, Abagnale did forge checks and pretend to be a pilot. He even escaped from a jailhouse and served time in a European prison. The rest … not so much.
Many of Abagnale’s stories were “inaccurate, misleading, exaggerated or totally false,” according to Keith. He did not impersonate a Brigham Young professor, a doctor in Georgia, or a lawyer in the attorney general’s office in Baton Rouge.
Many former professional colleagues now distance themselves from him. “He was a two-bit criminal. I’m embarrassed that I ever associated with the man,” Mark Zinder, his former speaking agent, said.
According to Keith and Toney’s research, Abagnale did not work for the US Senate Judiciary Committee, nor did he steal money from a Logan Airport deposit drop in Boston. Even his Pan Am adventures were embellished.
“I am sorry not to have the time or the inclination to rebut the same dribble this individual has been peddling for years,” stated Andrew K. Bentley, Pan Am’s director of security in 1982.
Alan C. Logan agrees with Keith and Toney, publishing his findings in the book The Greatest Hoax on Earth. “He could never have cashed 17,000 fraudulent checks worth $2.5 million. The time he wasn’t in some prison or jail amounts to about 14 months. Cashing 17,000 checks in that period is 40 checks per day,” Logan explained.
Toney presented his findings in a speech at the International Platform Association in 1982. Abagnale was also scheduled to appear but declined when he found out about Toney’s talk. A lawsuit was threatened by Abagnale and filed by Toney but was settled in 1985 out of the court system.
