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From the Vault - Frank Abagnale Jnr · Who Did What Now With Katie Charlwood

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: Hello, delicious friends, and welcome to Who Did What Now?
• 0:05
  Speaker 1: The history podcast That's Not Your History Class with me
• 0:08
  Speaker 1: your host Katie Charlewood, history harlot and reader of books.
• 0:15
  Speaker 1: So over the last few months on the podcast, I
• 0:18
  Speaker 1: have chosen a specific theme for that month and then
• 0:21
  Speaker 1: made you know the episodes related to that theme and
• 0:25
  Speaker 1: correspondingly on the social media. Is correspondingly a word, I
• 0:31
  Speaker 1: don't think it is, anyway, I've been doing that and
• 0:36
  Speaker 1: for November, as it's my birthday month. It's actually my
• 0:39
  Speaker 1: birthday this week at time of recording release, and I
• 0:46
  Speaker 1: was like, let's do like one theme per week. It'll
• 0:48
  Speaker 1: be really fun stuff that I really love. And so
• 0:51
  Speaker 1: this week we are focusing on cons. I love cons
• 0:57
  Speaker 1: so much. I think they're so fascinating, interesting, like from
• 1:01
  Speaker 1: like a sociological and from psychological perspective, and sometimes they're
• 1:05
  Speaker 1: just silly and fun and sometimes they're just a little
• 1:08
  Speaker 1: bit too good to be true. AnyWho, I have actually
• 1:13
  Speaker 1: been quite unwell the last few days and I haven't
• 1:17
  Speaker 1: been able to finish writing this week's episode, but I
• 1:21
  Speaker 1: thought let's do a little encore and for those of
• 1:25
  Speaker 1: you who haven't heard the story of Frank Abagnail Junior, Well,
• 1:31
  Speaker 1: why don't you enjoy this this time? And I know
• 1:34
  Speaker 1: what you're thinking. You're thinking, Kerry, please take your medicine
• 1:38
  Speaker 1: and quit your jabbel jaba and also fact me in
• 1:42
  Speaker 1: fact you I will. But first we've got to get
• 1:45
  Speaker 1: our source on. Our sources are catch me if you
• 1:51
  Speaker 1: can by Frank Abagnail Junior, The Greatest Hooks on Earth,
• 1:59
  Speaker 1: catching truth all we can. Alan c Logan is great impostor,
• 2:07
  Speaker 1: A great impostor by Fayette Tompkins. To Tell the Truth
• 2:14
  Speaker 1: by Joe Garygola, The FBI is Centennial History nineteen oh eight, two,
• 2:19
  Speaker 1: two thousand and eight. And of course, scam me if
• 2:22
  Speaker 1: you can by Frank Abagnail Junior. I hosted Incomfortably Good.
• 2:27
  Speaker 1: Then let's begin. Now. I don't really talk about men
• 2:31
  Speaker 1: on this podcast too much because I feel like a
• 2:36
  Speaker 1: lot of history but men has already been said, it's
• 2:38
  Speaker 1: already been out.
• 2:39
  Speaker 2: There, and there's not really a lot else to say.
• 2:43
  Speaker 2: But then sometimes you'll find a very interesting man, whether
• 2:48
  Speaker 2: it's for a good reason or a bad reason. And
• 2:50
  Speaker 2: Frank Abagneil Junior is I simultaneously incredibly boring but also
• 2:58
  Speaker 2: incredibly interesting. And I have an unnatural sort of obsession
• 3:05
  Speaker 2: with thieves and heist and con men. Like I find
• 3:12
  Speaker 2: the sort of the concept of trickery just very interesting,
• 3:17
  Speaker 2: and I think this might be the ultimate con and
• 3:22
  Speaker 2: I kind.
• 3:22
  Speaker 1: Of begrudgingly respect awe bit because of it, and like
• 3:30
  Speaker 1: the concept of the con itself, not the man. The
• 3:32
  Speaker 1: man is. The man is not worth your time, because
• 3:39
  Speaker 1: I'm going to share the story of Frank Abignail Junior.
• 3:46
  Speaker 1: Some of you mere remember a movie that came out
• 3:48
  Speaker 1: in two thousand and seven. It starred Leonardo DiCaprio as
• 3:52
  Speaker 1: a youthful fellow, roguish, charming, just a HUCKSTERU grifta a schema.
• 4:01
  Speaker 1: He was all of these things. And he from the
• 4:05
  Speaker 1: age of sixteen all the way up to like his
• 4:08
  Speaker 1: early twenties, he performs in array of feats which would
• 4:14
  Speaker 1: dazzle in the maze even you know, even the most
• 4:18
  Speaker 1: veteran of criminals. The film itself is based on an
• 4:22
  Speaker 1: autobiography by Frank Abagnail and it opens with an FBI
• 4:30
  Speaker 1: agent played by Tom Hanks. He's in Marseilles, France, and
• 4:36
  Speaker 1: he's there to pick up a prisoner called Frank Abagnail Junior.
• 4:41
  Speaker 1: Who's sick because he's in a horrible you know, prison
• 4:45
  Speaker 1: in France. And then it pans back to six years earlier,
• 4:52
  Speaker 1: in nineteen sixty three, and Frank he lives with his
• 4:57
  Speaker 1: parents in New Roussal, New York, and because his dad's
• 5:02
  Speaker 1: a bit of a schemer, he's not doing well with
• 5:04
  Speaker 1: his money. The irs are there and they're forced to
• 5:07
  Speaker 1: move out of their lovely home into a tiny little apartment.
• 5:11
  Speaker 1: Right then, Frank discovers that his mother is having an
• 5:17
  Speaker 1: affair well the family friend know less. Then obviously the
• 5:23
  Speaker 1: cat's out of the bag, and the parents divorce, and
• 5:26
  Speaker 1: being a sixteen year old and upset at his parents' divorce,
• 5:30
  Speaker 1: he runs away from home and so he starts doing
• 5:34
  Speaker 1: a bunch of cons just to make money. He starts
• 5:37
  Speaker 1: off writing some bad checks, which sort of snowballs him
• 5:42
  Speaker 1: to eventually impersonating a PanAm pilot called Frank Taylor, and
• 5:48
  Speaker 1: he ends up using this to forge a bunch of checks,
• 5:54
  Speaker 1: thus calling PanAm out of millions, because not only is
• 5:57
  Speaker 1: he forging checks, but he's dead heading. He's like, you know,
• 6:01
  Speaker 1: the crew member that comes on board and just flies
• 6:05
  Speaker 1: for free because he needs to get to his next
• 6:07
  Speaker 1: destination that's dead heading, So off he goes. But it's
• 6:11
  Speaker 1: these PanAm checks that get you know, Tom Hanks involved,
• 6:14
  Speaker 1: So as Leonardo DiCaprio is still full of youth and vigor,
• 6:18
  Speaker 1: comes face to face with the grumpy Hanks and he
• 6:23
  Speaker 1: ends up pretending to be a secret Service agent who's
• 6:26
  Speaker 1: also on the lookout for this this con man, this forger,
• 6:31
  Speaker 1: and he pretends to be a secret Service agent called
• 6:34
  Speaker 1: Barry Allen, which is you know, the flash, because remember
• 6:39
  Speaker 1: he's only meant to be like sixteen seventeen at this point,
• 6:42
  Speaker 1: so you know, comics at that point were in their infancy,
• 6:47
  Speaker 1: and he was very much into what would then become
• 6:50
  Speaker 1: the Golden Age of comics, right, But by pretending to
• 6:53
  Speaker 1: be the secret Service agent, he gets the heck at
• 6:56
  Speaker 1: a dodge and he flees Tom Hanks. It's at this
• 6:59
  Speaker 1: point he decides to impersonate a doctor, because that is
• 7:02
  Speaker 1: a perfectly acceptable and reasonable idea. So he goes and
• 7:07
  Speaker 1: does that, and he falls in love with this nurse
• 7:10
  Speaker 1: named Brenda, and she's meant to be sort of cute
• 7:16
  Speaker 1: and adorable naive. Frank decides he's going to marry Brenda.
• 7:20
  Speaker 1: He asks her father for her hand in marriage, and
• 7:22
  Speaker 1: then at their engagement party, they are tracked down by
• 7:25
  Speaker 1: Tom Hanks again did it Ada? So he escapes their
• 7:29
  Speaker 1: bathroom window, and Brenda is compromised because as he's waiting
• 7:34
  Speaker 1: for her to shop at the airport, she shows up
• 7:36
  Speaker 1: with some plain clothed agents and he's like, I ah,
• 7:41
  Speaker 1: no of hegoes flees to Spain and then France after
• 7:47
  Speaker 1: like pretending to be a pilot again impersonating a pilot,
• 7:51
  Speaker 1: making it all the way back to his mum's hometown
• 7:54
  Speaker 1: in France, right where he gets tricked into being arrested,
• 7:59
  Speaker 1: and then the time skips forward a little bit and
• 8:04
  Speaker 1: it's you know, Frank being on the plane with Hank
• 8:09
  Speaker 1: Carl Carl Hank, I don't know anyway, So they're back
• 8:12
  Speaker 1: on the plane. The FBI agent informs him that his.
• 8:15
  Speaker 3: Father has passed away, and he is so upset, like
• 8:20
  Speaker 3: Leonardo DiCaprio, full of emotions, great actor, and he ends
• 8:25
  Speaker 3: up just escaping the plane and going to his mum,
• 8:31
  Speaker 3: who is now with the family friend that she was
• 8:33
  Speaker 3: having an affair with and they have a child, and
• 8:36
  Speaker 3: so he is so grief stricken and so upset.
• 8:40
  Speaker 1: By this that he just surrenders himself to Carl. He's like, Carl,
• 8:44
  Speaker 1: here we go. And then he ends up working for
• 8:48
  Speaker 1: the FBI, but he's like super bordered it and stuff
• 8:51
  Speaker 1: because ugh admin oo. And so he decides he's gonna
• 8:55
  Speaker 1: pretend to be a pilot again. But then he's caught
• 8:57
  Speaker 1: by Carl. Oh. Tom Hanks is like, don't do that,
• 9:01
  Speaker 1: and he's like, I will, you know, let you do
• 9:03
  Speaker 1: it one last time and he's like eh, And they
• 9:07
  Speaker 1: end up working together in like a bunch of stuff.
• 9:08
  Speaker 1: Like that's how it ends. And yeah, that's that's the movie.
• 9:12
  Speaker 1: And it's basically based on an autobiography called Catch Me
• 9:17
  Speaker 1: if you Can by Frank Abagnail. And of course this
• 9:20
  Speaker 1: is the Hollywood version, so it's gonna be a bit
• 9:23
  Speaker 1: more colorful and fun and just you know, a good time.
• 9:27
  Speaker 1: So the real story, or the story that Frank was
• 9:31
  Speaker 1: pushing was that between like the mid sixties and up
• 9:34
  Speaker 1: to the early seventies, Frank was being a no good
• 9:39
  Speaker 1: gone man. He was impersonating pilots. He was a doctor
• 9:44
  Speaker 1: in Georgia. He was a lawyer for the Attorney General's
• 9:47
  Speaker 1: office in Baden Rouge, Louisiana. He was a professor at
• 9:51
  Speaker 1: Brigham Young University. And he also cashed more than two
• 9:57
  Speaker 1: million dollars worth of bad checks and across sixty that's
• 10:01
  Speaker 1: a lie, I know, twenty six. I was going to
• 10:03
  Speaker 1: say sixty two, twenty six countries across the world. And
• 10:07
  Speaker 1: this was while he was a teenager and being chased
• 10:10
  Speaker 1: by the FBI. So this story of this amazing con man,
• 10:25
  Speaker 1: it's a fucking hawx. He made it up. It's it's
• 10:31
  Speaker 1: the greatest corn he ever pulled. Was convincing people that
• 10:34
  Speaker 1: he was, in fact, this amazing, amazing con man. Right,
• 10:38
  Speaker 1: So let me tell you the real story of Frank
• 10:43
  Speaker 1: William Abigneil Junior, who was born on the twenty seventh
• 10:48
  Speaker 1: of April nineteen forty eight, to Paula Abigneil, who was
• 10:55
  Speaker 1: French American, and Frank Abgneil Senior, who was a Tell American.
• 11:02
  Speaker 1: I don't know if being French American and Italian American
• 11:05
  Speaker 1: is a good mix. I don't think it was for them,
• 11:07
  Speaker 1: because they got divorced when he was twelve, or they
• 11:11
  Speaker 1: separated when he was twelve, and they divorced like three
• 11:14
  Speaker 1: years later. So when his parents split, Frank moves in
• 11:18
  Speaker 1: with his dad, and his stepmom, right, and so Frank
• 11:24
  Speaker 1: basically claims that, you know, the very first person he
• 11:26
  Speaker 1: ever conned was his dad. Clearly he wasn't happy about
• 11:30
  Speaker 1: having a step mom, right, And so he gives him
• 11:33
  Speaker 1: a credit card and a truck and he racks up
• 11:36
  Speaker 1: like over three thousand dollars worth of a bill on it,
• 11:38
  Speaker 1: and yeah, yeah, doesn't really do too well for him there.
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  Speaker 1: So because of this, he gets sent to this reform school,
• 11:46
  Speaker 1: or he says, he gets sent to reform school in Westchester,
• 11:52
  Speaker 1: a Catholic reform school, so, you know, one of the
• 11:54
  Speaker 1: dodgy ones. But like he always said that he went
• 11:57
  Speaker 1: to like these really prestigious private schools, and the schools
• 12:04
  Speaker 1: he says he went to, which is quite funny that
• 12:06
  Speaker 1: he says he went to, they don't have any record
• 12:10
  Speaker 1: of him being there or anyone with a name even
• 12:13
  Speaker 1: similar to his being there. So like he was not
• 12:16
  Speaker 1: at any of these private schools. It was all zobollocks.
• 12:20
  Speaker 1: And on top of that, like not only is there
• 12:23
  Speaker 1: no record of them, but like people who went to
• 12:25
  Speaker 1: these schools don't ever remember even a whisper of the man,
• 12:30
  Speaker 1: Like nobody remembers him. So clearly clearly either the best
• 12:35
  Speaker 1: comment on Earth or you know, didn't actually go to
• 12:39
  Speaker 1: these places. But anyway, once Frank reaches sixteen, he enlists
• 12:43
  Speaker 1: in the US Army and he's there for like three
• 12:47
  Speaker 1: months before he gets discharged, and two weeks, not even
• 12:54
  Speaker 1: two weeks, like a barely a fortnite after he's discharged,
• 12:58
  Speaker 1: he gets arrested for petty larceny. Right, and that's what,
• 13:03
  Speaker 1: like in February nineteen sixty five. A month later, he
• 13:09
  Speaker 1: enters the apartment of this person in Mount Vernon in
• 13:13
  Speaker 1: New York. Right, he is dressed as a cop, so
• 13:19
  Speaker 1: he's impersonating a cop, and he says that he's investigating
• 13:23
  Speaker 1: this guy's daughter. And he's like, you know, suspicious as fuck,
• 13:28
  Speaker 1: because of course he is. There's an incredibly young looking
• 13:32
  Speaker 1: police officer asking about your teenage daughter. You know, your
• 13:36
  Speaker 1: hackles are going to be up just a wee bit.
• 13:39
  Speaker 1: So he ends up calling the Mount Vernon Police, you know,
• 13:42
  Speaker 1: just a double check to say if you know they
• 13:46
  Speaker 1: sent this office around, and they're like absolutely fucking not,
• 13:50
  Speaker 1: not even a little bit. So the police come in
• 13:55
  Speaker 1: and as it turns out he's in, he's somehow I've
• 14:00
  Speaker 1: got a uniform. I don't know how he got the uniform,
• 14:02
  Speaker 1: but he has a toy gun and a paper badge, Like, yeah,
• 14:11
  Speaker 1: a paper badge. I mean, I know it's the sixties,
• 14:14
  Speaker 1: but that's a bit much, right. So he gets arrested
• 14:18
  Speaker 1: and he gets booked in these charges, and he then
• 14:25
  Speaker 1: instead of going to like prison and you, get sent
• 14:28
  Speaker 1: for evaluation in the Grassland Psychiatric Institute in Westchester. Anyway,
• 14:34
  Speaker 1: they clearly think he's okay, or at least not too bad,
• 14:38
  Speaker 1: and he gets released. They're just like, hey, he's just
• 14:41
  Speaker 1: being a silly billy, right, And so he gets he
• 14:46
  Speaker 1: gets out, and in June nineteen sixty five, he gets
• 14:52
  Speaker 1: arrested in Eureka, California, because he stole a Ford Mustang
• 14:57
  Speaker 1: from one of his dad's nighbors. And so there was
• 15:01
  Speaker 1: like a picture of him in like the paper being
• 15:03
  Speaker 1: questioned by like an FBI agent. Because in order to
• 15:07
  Speaker 1: like pay this, he had, you know, forged a bunch
• 15:11
  Speaker 1: of checks and done a bunch of like bad checks,
• 15:14
  Speaker 1: and so he'd driven from New York all the way
• 15:18
  Speaker 1: over to California. And these checks actually he had actually
• 15:24
  Speaker 1: stolen them from like a family, so he wasn't even
• 15:26
  Speaker 1: like forging them. Really, I mean, he was forging them,
• 15:30
  Speaker 1: but he wasn't doing anything like clever. He was just
• 15:35
  Speaker 1: writing checks that belong to this family. Like, and so
• 15:41
  Speaker 1: he gets arrested. He's also charged with impersonating a customs official,
• 15:49
  Speaker 1: but that gets dropped because clearly they didn't have enough
• 15:51
  Speaker 1: like tangible evidence, but they could prove that he stole
• 15:55
  Speaker 1: the checks, wrote the checks, cashed the checks, and stole
• 15:59
  Speaker 1: the car. And yeah. Yeah, so although he's like cought
• 16:05
  Speaker 1: in California, like the FBI is involved because it crosses
• 16:09
  Speaker 1: state lines, right, the crime crosses state lines. Yeah, he
• 16:14
  Speaker 1: ends up getting transferred back to New York and he
• 16:17
  Speaker 1: gets released into his father's custoday because he's seventeen, and
• 16:22
  Speaker 1: they're like, oh, come on, your dad's gonna take care
• 16:26
  Speaker 1: of you now, you know, give you a good smack
• 16:29
  Speaker 1: because you know, corporal punishment was the way of things
• 16:31
  Speaker 1: back then and not atle sort of out because boy,
• 16:35
  Speaker 1: golly goosh, what a silly boy just just you know,
• 16:40
  Speaker 1: like every teenage boy does. Every boy just nexts a
• 16:43
  Speaker 1: car and goes in across country drive right, No, okay,
• 16:50
  Speaker 1: So he yeah, he's and his dad's custoday and he decides,
• 16:57
  Speaker 1: I don't want to stay here, and this is where
• 17:00
  Speaker 1: he impersonates a pilot. So he goes to like a
• 17:05
  Speaker 1: uniform company. It's probably the same place that he got
• 17:09
  Speaker 1: the police officer's uniform. So he goes there gets this
• 17:14
  Speaker 1: pilot's uniform, which he pays for with money cashed from
• 17:19
  Speaker 1: forge checks. Right, So he's learned a wee bit since clearly,
• 17:24
  Speaker 1: and he goes around and promotes himself, like he actually
• 17:32
  Speaker 1: goes to local media and local papers and stuff, and
• 17:36
  Speaker 1: he tells them he's a graduate of the American Airlines
• 17:38
  Speaker 1: Pilot School in Fort Worth, Texas. And then he's out
• 17:45
  Speaker 1: there selling this. But then he gets arrested a couple
• 17:48
  Speaker 1: days later for bad checks right or was it bad
• 17:53
  Speaker 1: checks or theft for stealing for stealing checks? Right? He
• 17:56
  Speaker 1: gets arrested again and he gets sentenced to three years
• 18:01
  Speaker 1: in prison. So he's supposed to go to the Great
• 18:03
  Speaker 1: Metal Prison and he's supposed to serve three years. He
• 18:08
  Speaker 1: only serves two and he gets released into the custody
• 18:12
  Speaker 1: of his mom. Now, this is what I wonder, right,
• 18:16
  Speaker 1: was he released into his mom's custody, because when he
• 18:19
  Speaker 1: was in his dad's custody, he just buckered up or
• 18:22
  Speaker 1: was his dad just like absolutely fucking not, no chance,
• 18:26
  Speaker 1: he's your problem now, Like do you think it was
• 18:29
  Speaker 1: maybe like that? But yeah, he's you know, in the
• 18:34
  Speaker 1: custody of his mom. He's on parole because he's what sixteen, seventeen,
• 18:41
  Speaker 1: twenty two and no, nineteen, he's nineteen. Oh my goodness,
• 18:45
  Speaker 1: I cannot math. Sometimes math is hard, cheez uh. Yeah,
• 18:51
  Speaker 1: So he violates his parole right by stealing a car
• 18:57
  Speaker 1: in Boston. He's nineteen, he's nineteen, and he's already buggered
• 19:01
  Speaker 1: up again, right, So yeah, he has to go back
• 19:09
  Speaker 1: to prison, and so there he is sent back to
• 19:15
  Speaker 1: Great Metal Prison for another year. So he does eventually
• 19:19
  Speaker 1: serve as full sentence. I mean that's good, right, right,
• 19:25
  Speaker 1: And after finally serving all three years of his sentence,
• 19:29
  Speaker 1: Frank is finally released on Christmas Eve nineteen sixty eight. Now,
• 19:37
  Speaker 1: habits are hard to break, especially for Frank, and he
• 19:41
  Speaker 1: decides that he is going to impersonate being a pilot again,
• 19:46
  Speaker 1: and so he's on It's not PanAm this time or
• 19:51
  Speaker 1: American Airlines, it's twa right, And so he's on a
• 19:56
  Speaker 1: plane flying from New York to Miami, and this is
• 20:00
  Speaker 1: nineteen sixty nine where he meets a stewardess, a flight attendant,
• 20:06
  Speaker 1: Paula Parks. Right, Paula is pretty, she's smart, she's you know,
• 20:15
  Speaker 1: she's what he wants, right obviously, And he found out
• 20:21
  Speaker 1: what hotel she's staying in. He finds her room, and
• 20:24
  Speaker 1: he sends two dozen red roses and a five pound
• 20:29
  Speaker 1: box of chocolate. And she's like, okay, that's nice. I guess,
• 20:36
  Speaker 1: you know, in his defense, right in this moment, right,
• 20:39
  Speaker 1: it's the nineteen sixties, in the nineteen sixties, if a handsome,
• 20:43
  Speaker 1: young gentleman were to send me two dozen roses and
• 20:46
  Speaker 1: a five pound box of chocolate, listen, use I use
• 20:50
  Speaker 1: the decimal system. I don't know pounds, right, it sounds heavy.
• 20:55
  Speaker 1: I assume that's a lot of chocolate. Okay, So in verness,
• 20:59
  Speaker 1: if somebody were to send me two dozen roses now
• 21:02
  Speaker 1: and a box of chocolates, I would also be very,
• 21:05
  Speaker 1: very appreciative. But he sends her this, and when she
• 21:11
  Speaker 1: goes to fly to New Orleans the next day, he's
• 21:16
  Speaker 1: waiting for her at the airport. Because what he does
• 21:19
  Speaker 1: is he being a sneaky we bastard. He finds out
• 21:24
  Speaker 1: her work schedule and he stalks her. He actually stalks her.
• 21:30
  Speaker 1: Not so fucking romantic, now, is it so? Paula? She
• 21:33
  Speaker 1: does try and tell him that she's not interested. Like
• 21:37
  Speaker 1: my favorite thing I ever heard her say about him
• 21:40
  Speaker 1: was that he smelt really bad because he smelt like fear,
• 21:47
  Speaker 1: which I think is probably one of the worst insults
• 21:51
  Speaker 1: you can get, Like, he he's smelt awful because he
• 21:55
  Speaker 1: smelt like fear. But yes, stinky man, you're completely unable
• 22:01
  Speaker 1: to take a fucking hint. He ends up following her
• 22:05
  Speaker 1: all over the Eastern Seaboard, like what and yeah, this
• 22:10
  Speaker 1: lasts for bloody weeks. So he's doing this, and he
• 22:14
  Speaker 1: even shows up at her apartment in New Orleans, just
• 22:20
  Speaker 1: shows up, and she's like, oh, hi, I have to
• 22:24
  Speaker 1: go visit my parents in Baton Rouge. Clearly this is
• 22:28
  Speaker 1: like a very gentle rejection. You know, I can't spend
• 22:34
  Speaker 1: time with you because I have to go to Baton
• 22:36
  Speaker 1: Rouge and visit my parents. And again, like talking to
• 22:41
  Speaker 1: a brick wall, he thinks, sure, this does sound like
• 22:46
  Speaker 1: a swell idea. I'll tag along too, So he goes
• 22:50
  Speaker 1: with her to her parents in Baton Rouge. He goes there,
• 22:56
  Speaker 1: he meets her mum, her dad, her brother, and they
• 22:59
  Speaker 1: all think he's just super. The family are so taken
• 23:03
  Speaker 1: by him that, like Paula's mom like invites him back
• 23:07
  Speaker 1: and promises to teach him how to fish, and they
• 23:11
  Speaker 1: just they just adore him because they just find him
• 23:13
  Speaker 1: so charming. But as they're driving back, you know, to Louisiana,
• 23:19
  Speaker 1: Paula tells him, no, we're done. I don't want to
• 23:23
  Speaker 1: see you anymore, you know, showing up my apartment and
• 23:27
  Speaker 1: then traveling with me to see my family a bit much,
• 23:32
  Speaker 1: and we're kind at well, no, just no. Paula and Frank,
• 23:36
  Speaker 1: they you know, they part ways. They they disperse, you know,
• 23:41
  Speaker 1: and she thinks that's going to be the end of it.
• 23:45
  Speaker 1: Of course she does, because she thinks he's a sleekyway bastard.
• 23:49
  Speaker 1: He is suspicious and just kind of slazy, and he
• 23:54
  Speaker 1: doesn't pass the vibe check, not even a little bit.
• 23:59
  Speaker 1: But Paula unaware of just how skeazy this fella is.
• 24:06
  Speaker 1: So after Paula goes back to work, you know, because
• 24:08
  Speaker 1: she's a flight attendants, she's going to go do her thing.
• 24:12
  Speaker 1: She's going to be away for a while. As she's away,
• 24:16
  Speaker 1: you know, on the planes, rationally thinking this isn't going
• 24:21
  Speaker 1: to be an issue anymore. This is done. He's aware
• 24:24
  Speaker 1: now right, nothing more is going to come with this,
• 24:27
  Speaker 1: and that this weird fella is going to be a
• 24:30
  Speaker 1: distant memory. And she's hoping, dear Lord, I'm not going
• 24:33
  Speaker 1: to wait one another plane. But in a move that
• 24:37
  Speaker 1: is absolutely batshit, Frank shows up at her parents' house,
• 24:42
  Speaker 1: like a couple days after she's gone. He shows up
• 24:45
  Speaker 1: and he's like, Hey, I'm a pilot on furlough. I'm
• 24:49
  Speaker 1: Paula's friend. Can I stay with you? And they invite
• 24:55
  Speaker 1: him in because you know, they're kind and considerate humans,
• 24:59
  Speaker 1: So the take him in for a little bit and
• 25:01
  Speaker 1: he's supposed to stay for a couple of days and
• 25:04
  Speaker 1: he ends up staying for weeks, like like four, six
• 25:08
  Speaker 1: weeks in total. He's staying in Paula's bedroom. And the
• 25:15
  Speaker 1: family they think he's our friend. They think he's just
• 25:18
  Speaker 1: you know, a kind cute little pilot, like he's adorable,
• 25:25
  Speaker 1: he's fine. They trust him, like they feed him, and
• 25:32
  Speaker 1: they like introduce him to people who were all around
• 25:36
  Speaker 1: and he would just like con this family. He would
• 25:40
  Speaker 1: take them out to dinner. He would buy them like
• 25:43
  Speaker 1: flowers and shit, and he would just do all these
• 25:47
  Speaker 1: little wee confidence tricks, some might say, But how he
• 25:55
  Speaker 1: did this, like how he paid for the meals and
• 25:58
  Speaker 1: the gifts and the flowers, was by stealing their fucking money.
• 26:05
  Speaker 1: Like he rifled through their papers, he found their checks,
• 26:10
  Speaker 1: and he stole from this family. He steals like was
• 26:16
  Speaker 1: it twelve hundred dollars at the time. And he also
• 26:19
  Speaker 1: like goes around Baton Rouge sort of nicking like money
• 26:22
  Speaker 1: from these businesses too. So he's hanging out with the
• 26:26
  Speaker 1: Parks and mister Parks as it turns out, as a lawyer,
• 26:30
  Speaker 1: and so he's he's saying that, you know, maybe being
• 26:33
  Speaker 1: a pilot isn't for me. I think law might be
• 26:36
  Speaker 1: the way to go. And Paul's dad straight up offers
• 26:40
  Speaker 1: to help him past the Louisiana bar exam, like he's like,
• 26:44
  Speaker 1: I'll help you do this. You know, this could be
• 26:46
  Speaker 1: something great for you. Because he's a fucking kind hearted
• 26:50
  Speaker 1: person who doesn't realize he's being absolutely fucked over by him. No,
• 26:57
  Speaker 1: So Frank's and Baton Rouge, he's staying with the Park
• 27:00
  Speaker 1: and he befriends like a local minister who works in
• 27:05
  Speaker 1: all of these areas to do with children, and Frank
• 27:09
  Speaker 1: convinces him that he has a master's degree in social
• 27:13
  Speaker 1: work from Ithaca College. Like he's a pilot with a
• 27:19
  Speaker 1: social work degree. Now I'm not claiming that you can't
• 27:22
  Speaker 1: have a social work degree and have another job, but
• 27:26
  Speaker 1: those are two very long training programs, and he is
• 27:31
  Speaker 1: clearly a young man. Like the times just don't add up.
• 27:36
  Speaker 1: But you know, everyone is charmed by him. He is convincing.
• 27:40
  Speaker 1: And so when he says that he's looking for work
• 27:44
  Speaker 1: with you know, vulnerable young people with disabilities, specifically intellectual
• 27:51
  Speaker 1: and developmental disabilities, the reverend is like, yes, we need
• 27:57
  Speaker 1: more kind, young, considerate people like you, especially those with
• 28:02
  Speaker 1: you know, social work degrees, because you know what you're
• 28:07
  Speaker 1: talking about, Like you can genuinely help these people. But
• 28:13
  Speaker 1: as we know, can he fuck absolutely not. So the
• 28:18
  Speaker 1: reverend introduces him to like the faculty of Louisiana State
• 28:23
  Speaker 1: University and they take one look at this boy and go, ha, what, No,
• 28:33
  Speaker 1: this is bullshit. As one of my friends says, my
• 28:38
  Speaker 1: favorite saying is what absolute fucking bullshit? Is this nonsense?
• 28:43
  Speaker 1: What absolute fucking bullshit, is this nonsense? Who is this child?
• 28:47
  Speaker 1: Why is he here? So and absolutely unsurprisingly, they inform
• 28:53
  Speaker 1: the Reverend that this dude has no fucking clue what
• 28:56
  Speaker 1: he's talking about. He is just a fraud. He's a fraud.
• 29:02
  Speaker 1: And so the Reverend is like, okay, taking this on
• 29:05
  Speaker 1: board because these guys, he knows, they know what they're
• 29:07
  Speaker 1: talking about. And Frank is you know, he's claiming to
• 29:11
  Speaker 1: be our fur lowed pilot for twa and being you know,
• 29:18
  Speaker 1: not a total idiot, and he calls the airline. He's like, hey,
• 29:24
  Speaker 1: any chance this guy is a pilot for you? And
• 29:29
  Speaker 1: they clearly andconcisely tell him no, this man does not
• 29:34
  Speaker 1: work for us. And after getting this information, the first
• 29:38
  Speaker 1: thing the Reverend does is contact the Baton Rouge police department,
• 29:43
  Speaker 1: and then on Valentine's Day nineteen sixty nine, he's arrested.
• 29:49
  Speaker 1: So initially they arrest him on vagrancy charges, but as
• 29:53
  Speaker 1: it turns out, the car that Frank was driving was
• 29:57
  Speaker 1: a rental car from Florida, so he has stolen a car,
• 30:03
  Speaker 1: driven it across state lines, which he's you know, I'm
• 30:07
  Speaker 1: fairly certainly not supposed to be doing anyway. You know,
• 30:11
  Speaker 1: like he's this is a general rule. So he had
• 30:16
  Speaker 1: you know, fake fake identification, fake id's he had a
• 30:21
  Speaker 1: fake ID. Hey mister, he's got a fake ID. And
• 30:26
  Speaker 1: so he's got like a fake like airline personnel ID
• 30:30
  Speaker 1: and you know that's two for two. So naturally the
• 30:34
  Speaker 1: police are like, we need to investigate a little bit more.
• 30:37
  Speaker 1: And that's when they realized that he was stealing checks
• 30:41
  Speaker 1: from the family and from Baton Rouge businesses, and so
• 30:45
  Speaker 1: he's charged with theft and forgery. Naturally, he's unable to
• 30:50
  Speaker 1: make bail and he gets convicted on the second of
• 30:52
  Speaker 1: June nineteen sixty nine. But instead of sending the little
• 30:57
  Speaker 1: shit to prison, what they do is they sendence him
• 30:59
  Speaker 1: to twelve years supervised probation. Now, of all the choices
• 31:05
  Speaker 1: they could have made, they thought this was the right one.
• 31:09
  Speaker 1: The slimy motherfucker right here. But he's like, fuck this
• 31:12
  Speaker 1: for a game of soldiers and gets the heck at
• 31:14
  Speaker 1: at dodge and he flees to Europe. So he ends
• 31:18
  Speaker 1: up going to Sweden and France. So when he's in Sweden,
• 31:23
  Speaker 1: he's in I think clipping. I'm not going to try
• 31:28
  Speaker 1: and pronounce that in a Swedish accent because I sound
• 31:31
  Speaker 1: like the Swedish chef whoy, which is funny because my
• 31:36
  Speaker 1: brother lives in Sweden. So that so he ends up
• 31:39
  Speaker 1: defrauding two families in Sweden. He steals one of their cars.
• 31:48
  Speaker 1: I think it's an automobile. He steals a car, and
• 31:51
  Speaker 1: then he ends up in Montpellier in France. So when
• 31:55
  Speaker 1: he gets there, it's like two weeks after the warrant
• 31:59
  Speaker 1: has gone out for his rest for you know, disappearing,
• 32:03
  Speaker 1: and this is the part where he's caught. He's caught
• 32:08
  Speaker 1: en Montpellier, and I don't know if it's like his
• 32:11
  Speaker 1: mum's hometown or his mum's family's hometown, because I'm fairly
• 32:14
  Speaker 1: certain his mum is just like a French American as
• 32:17
  Speaker 1: opposed to you know, French, because they want to make
• 32:19
  Speaker 1: it sound fancier for the movie. But yeah, So he
• 32:23
  Speaker 1: gets arrested in France and he gets sentenced to four
• 32:27
  Speaker 1: months in prison, so because he's stolen shit, and they're
• 32:33
  Speaker 1: like okay. So he goes to France and he serves
• 32:35
  Speaker 1: three months in Berg prison and here he only sends
• 32:41
  Speaker 1: three months there because he then gets extradited to Sweden
• 32:46
  Speaker 1: because he's convicted of gross fraud by forgery, and then
• 32:51
  Speaker 1: he's in Malmo. In Malmo, which I think is near
• 32:54
  Speaker 1: where my brother lives. Ah, he doesn't care. He doesn't
• 32:57
  Speaker 1: listen to this podcast High Dominic. He doesn't give a shit,
• 33:00
  Speaker 1: Like he doesn't. He doesn't listen to anything I do.
• 33:04
  Speaker 1: But yeah, he lives I think near Malmo. And if
• 33:07
  Speaker 1: he doesn't, then I wasn't paying any attention to anything
• 33:11
  Speaker 1: he said. And it's conveniently now Swedish accent. But I digress.
• 33:16
  Speaker 1: So Frank says that the time he spent in these
• 33:20
  Speaker 1: two prisons were the worst in his life because he
• 33:22
  Speaker 1: lost like a third of his body weight in the
• 33:25
  Speaker 1: French prison, and when he gets into the Swedish prison,
• 33:33
  Speaker 1: it's like worse. It's dank, and he gets ill and
• 33:35
  Speaker 1: he's just not feeling it. So when he's in prison,
• 33:41
  Speaker 1: he promises to you know, refund and reimburse and compensate
• 33:46
  Speaker 1: you know, his Swedish victims, these families that he's frauded.
• 33:50
  Speaker 1: He does not, and he gets deported back to the
• 33:55
  Speaker 1: US in June nineteen seventy. So he serves two months
• 34:00
  Speaker 1: Marmo prison and then he is banned from Sweden for
• 34:05
  Speaker 1: eight years. Sweden just kicks him out. You're not allowed
• 34:08
  Speaker 1: in and he appeals this, but no, he gets he
• 34:13
  Speaker 1: gets deported back to the US, and you think they
• 34:16
  Speaker 1: would do something, but no, No. June nineteen seventy he
• 34:23
  Speaker 1: is back in the US and he's twenty two years
• 34:31
  Speaker 1: old and again cannot help himself, gets himself a pilot's
• 34:39
  Speaker 1: uniform and he starts traveling around all these college campuses
• 34:44
  Speaker 1: like more bad checks. Course he is, but he's doing
• 34:49
  Speaker 1: this sort of PanAm recruitment, or he claims he's doing
• 34:52
  Speaker 1: a PanAm recruitment. And you know, sometimes when people lie,
• 35:00
  Speaker 1: like they say, the best lies are closer to the truth, right,
• 35:02
  Speaker 1: And that's fine. But this guy, he says he's a
• 35:08
  Speaker 1: pilot and a doctor, and he goes around these colleges
• 35:15
  Speaker 1: and like at the University of Arizona, he states that he's,
• 35:18
  Speaker 1: you know, part doctor, part pilot, you know, like fucking
• 35:22
  Speaker 1: batman mineaire by day, vigilante by night. What, No, You're
• 35:28
  Speaker 1: not a pilot and a doctor, you absolute titwank. No. Oh,
• 35:34
  Speaker 1: so he he is an absolute creepy piece of shit,
• 35:43
  Speaker 1: right because what he does a trigger warding for sexual
• 35:46
  Speaker 1: assault okay, skip like forty five seconds. So what he does.
• 35:53
  Speaker 1: He's doing this recruitment for PanAm, and in order for
• 35:56
  Speaker 1: women to be recruited, they have to undergo physical examination.
• 36:02
  Speaker 1: So he physically examines these fucking teenagers, right, teenage girls,
• 36:10
  Speaker 1: and he molests them because that's what this is assault.
• 36:13
  Speaker 1: This is molestation, that's what it is. Like he just
• 36:20
  Speaker 1: and he got away with it. Absolute piece of shit.
• 36:25
  Speaker 1: I want to punch him in his face, but he's
• 36:27
  Speaker 1: already dead. Spoiler warning. So anyway, the biography sort of
• 36:38
  Speaker 1: implies that he does actually, you know, recruit these new
• 36:42
  Speaker 1: women for like a flight this fictional flight attendant program, right,
• 36:49
  Speaker 1: but he never actually sets this up. He just seems
• 36:53
  Speaker 1: to use this as an excuse to run around make
• 36:55
  Speaker 1: money and molested women. So he's doing this for like
• 37:06
  Speaker 1: a couple of weeks, maybe maybe a month, where he
• 37:10
  Speaker 1: cashes like ten PanAm checks and on it's like the
• 37:17
  Speaker 1: thirtieth of July nineteen seventy in Durham, North Carolina. He
• 37:26
  Speaker 1: you know, he catches the attention of the FBI at
• 37:28
  Speaker 1: this point because he has cashed ten PanAm payroll checks
• 37:33
  Speaker 1: in these different towns like and eventually gets caught, I
• 37:39
  Speaker 1: think in November, three months, three months he cashes his
• 37:45
  Speaker 1: checks for and he gets arrested in November nineteen seventy
• 37:50
  Speaker 1: in Cobb County and Georgia. And this is the jail
• 37:56
  Speaker 1: that he escapes. So he did it. So he escapes
• 38:01
  Speaker 1: Cobb County jail, Cobb County jail. But then he gets
• 38:06
  Speaker 1: arrested again, like Forty's letter in New York, Like, he
• 38:09
  Speaker 1: gets caught, and then in nineteen seventy one, he gets
• 38:15
  Speaker 1: sentenced to a decade in prison for forging a grand
• 38:21
  Speaker 1: total well forging checks that come up to a grand
• 38:24
  Speaker 1: total of one thousand, four hundred and forty eight dollars
• 38:28
  Speaker 1: and sixty cents. And then he also gets like two
• 38:33
  Speaker 1: more years added on to that, just tapped on to
• 38:35
  Speaker 1: the end, because you know, he fucking escaped prison. You know.
• 38:40
  Speaker 1: So while he's in jail, he writes letters to the family,
• 38:45
  Speaker 1: to the Parks family back in pattern Rouge, you know,
• 38:48
  Speaker 1: telling them what they did, that he forged the checks
• 38:51
  Speaker 1: that he stole money from, you know, Paula's brother's like
• 38:53
  Speaker 1: savings account, and he was gonna like repair them. Now
• 38:59
  Speaker 1: this may come as a shit shocked to some of you,
• 39:01
  Speaker 1: but he did not do that. He did not pay
• 39:04
  Speaker 1: them back one bloody cent nothing. So after spending I
• 39:13
  Speaker 1: think only two out of the twelve years he was
• 39:16
  Speaker 1: supposed to serve in prison because I don't know, I
• 39:19
  Speaker 1: guess the Federal Correctoral Institute in Petersburg, Virginia just like
• 39:25
  Speaker 1: just wasn't feeling it anymore. So he gets released on
• 39:28
  Speaker 1: parole and he doesn't want to go back to his
• 39:31
  Speaker 1: family in New York. He just doesn't want to do it,
• 39:35
  Speaker 1: and so he requests the court to choose his parole
• 39:38
  Speaker 1: location and they sent him to Houston, Texas, because of
• 39:43
  Speaker 1: course they do. So he's in Texas and he needs
• 39:48
  Speaker 1: to get a job now. Abigneil, he says, Abergneil, Frank
• 39:57
  Speaker 1: fucking Frank. He he says that he he's like doing
• 40:00
  Speaker 1: all these jobs, you know, but he gets fired from
• 40:03
  Speaker 1: those jobs because, you know, they realize that he is
• 40:08
  Speaker 1: a parolee, that he had you know, criminal shit. But
• 40:14
  Speaker 1: the maybe maybe, but again, sorry for that being really
• 40:20
  Speaker 1: harsh for anybody listening with headphones. On nineteen seventy four,
• 40:25
  Speaker 1: what does he do. He gets a job at a
• 40:30
  Speaker 1: children's summer camp, Camp Madison, and it's the seventies, you
• 40:36
  Speaker 1: can get away with shit. So all he had to
• 40:38
  Speaker 1: do was keep his head down and do I don't
• 40:41
  Speaker 1: know his fucking job for once, and he would have
• 40:44
  Speaker 1: been okay. But instead he steals cameras from the other
• 40:52
  Speaker 1: people working there, right, and he only gets fined, which
• 40:59
  Speaker 1: is like so fucking shitty. But he manages to then
• 41:07
  Speaker 1: while still pretending to be a fucking pilot or with
• 41:09
  Speaker 1: a master's degree and who the fuck knows what social work,
• 41:12
  Speaker 1: probably pretending he still has that, right, and he gets
• 41:16
  Speaker 1: hired by an orphanage, a fucking orphanage. Right, here's the thing,
• 41:22
  Speaker 1: like after a parole, like this is in violation of
• 41:26
  Speaker 1: his parole, Like this is not good. So he he's
• 41:32
  Speaker 1: in like the Houston area. He's working in this orphanage
• 41:35
  Speaker 1: and his job is finding foster homes for children who
• 41:41
  Speaker 1: are living in the orphanage. And you know, he couldn't
• 41:46
  Speaker 1: just pick something small, something easy, but no, he needs
• 41:51
  Speaker 1: something that has power, doesn't he Like every job it
• 41:57
  Speaker 1: has or everything he pretends to be. There's a level
• 42:02
  Speaker 1: of what's the word, Well, there's power, but there's also respect,
• 42:08
  Speaker 1: there's reverence. You know, it's it's you're looking up to it.
• 42:13
  Speaker 1: You're above your aspirational as my mother was like, you
• 42:18
  Speaker 1: need to be aspirational, darling. I'm like do I I'm
• 42:24
  Speaker 1: I'm cute and funny and I like history. But aspirational?
• 42:29
  Speaker 1: Who the fuck's good? One? Aspire to be? Me? Sends
• 42:32
  Speaker 1: me his literally and the pink hoodie I've been living
• 42:36
  Speaker 1: in for a little while, just while recording in my
• 42:40
  Speaker 1: mother's bedroom because there was no other room in this
• 42:42
  Speaker 1: house that's free. I'm doing my best, okay, So yeah, aspirational.
• 42:48
  Speaker 1: He goes for all of these jobs that have esteem, okay,
• 42:53
  Speaker 1: because you can't just be okay. But Lucal, his parole officer,
• 43:02
  Speaker 1: is not a fucking idiot and catches him in the act,
• 43:06
  Speaker 1: and so he removes him from the orphanage and basically
• 43:13
  Speaker 1: moves him into like this, this like little living space
• 43:19
  Speaker 1: above his garage. Like he moves him above his garage
• 43:25
  Speaker 1: because he knows he cannot trust this skeezy wee bampop
• 43:29
  Speaker 1: not one bit. After this, he gets a job at
• 43:32
  Speaker 1: ETNA where he is fired and sewed for check frod.
• 43:37
  Speaker 1: Why are we even surprised now? After this he does something.
• 43:41
  Speaker 1: He does something good. I don't know what the good is,
• 43:43
  Speaker 1: but he does something because it was enough for his
• 43:46
  Speaker 1: parole officer to suggest that he start doing talks about,
• 43:51
  Speaker 1: you know, how he is a reformed criminal, how he
• 43:56
  Speaker 1: is doing well, you know, and not being an absolute
• 44:00
  Speaker 1: dogy bastard. And it's from here where he starts doing
• 44:05
  Speaker 1: these public talks. And so he's going around saying that
• 44:12
  Speaker 1: between the ages of sixteen and twenty one, he was
• 44:15
  Speaker 1: adopted on a Georgia hospital for a year, an assistant
• 44:18
  Speaker 1: state attorney general for a year, that he served two
• 44:22
  Speaker 1: semesters as a sociology professor, and that he was a
• 44:26
  Speaker 1: pan AM pilot for two whole years. He also says
• 44:33
  Speaker 1: that he recruited university students as pan Am stewardesses and
• 44:38
  Speaker 1: that he traveled throughout Europe with them for three months.
• 44:42
  Speaker 1: He talks about escaping the FBI on an airplane. No lie,
• 44:48
  Speaker 1: And my favorite part of this is that it's like
• 44:51
  Speaker 1: he managed to escape by going through a toilet on
• 44:55
  Speaker 1: the airplane while the plane was taxing on the runway,
• 44:58
  Speaker 1: Like that's that's his story, Like yeah, okay, cool. So
• 45:05
  Speaker 1: he starts doing these talks, and then the talks get
• 45:09
  Speaker 1: really popular, and then he starts writing his books. But
• 45:13
  Speaker 1: during this he manages to get married to his wife, Kelly.
• 45:16
  Speaker 1: So they get married, they have three sons, and then
• 45:19
  Speaker 1: in nineteen eighty five they move from Houston to Tulsa.
• 45:24
  Speaker 1: So like he says, he met his wife when he
• 45:26
  Speaker 1: was working as an undercover FBI agent and she was
• 45:30
  Speaker 1: a cashier in a grocery store. Like, either this woman
• 45:34
  Speaker 1: is so naive and genuinely believes this man's bullshit, or
• 45:39
  Speaker 1: she's in on it, like that's that's gonna be it, right,
• 45:43
  Speaker 1: It's gonna be one of the other. But yeah, So
• 45:46
  Speaker 1: while he's out and about doing these speeches, he's also
• 45:49
  Speaker 1: setting up his own business. He found abag Neil and Associates.
• 45:54
  Speaker 1: The purpose of this company is to like advise company
• 45:57
  Speaker 1: on secure documents basically, you know, to warn them against
• 46:03
  Speaker 1: like you know, check fraud and other kind of fraudulent
• 46:06
  Speaker 1: shit like document frauds and other such bullshit. So it's
• 46:12
  Speaker 1: all about scammers and how scammers operate, and that's his
• 46:15
  Speaker 1: whole business. And so while he's doing that, he's doing
• 46:18
  Speaker 1: all these talks. So he starts doing this and by
• 46:24
  Speaker 1: nineteen seventy seven he ends up on to Tell the
• 46:27
  Speaker 1: Truth and he also ends up on the Tonight Show
• 46:31
  Speaker 1: with Was It Johnny Carlson? And so the story of
• 46:36
  Speaker 1: this con that he pulled that he says he pulled
• 46:40
  Speaker 1: just becomes a mega hit. So it's what year when
• 46:46
  Speaker 1: he reads writes his book. He writes his book in
• 46:51
  Speaker 1: nineteen eighty, so three years after, you know, he basically
• 46:54
  Speaker 1: goes the nineteen seventies version of going viral, right, and
• 46:58
  Speaker 1: he writes a book in nineteen eighty, and then he
• 47:00
  Speaker 1: writes like a couple more books, like like Catch Me
• 47:04
  Speaker 1: if you can, as his autobiography, but then he does
• 47:06
  Speaker 1: like other books on like identity theft and scammers and
• 47:10
  Speaker 1: all this kind of stuff, and he does really well.
• 47:13
  Speaker 1: But when he's doing these talks around all the way
• 47:15
  Speaker 1: from the seventies all the way up to like before
• 47:18
  Speaker 1: he died, these journalists start catching on that he's he's
• 47:23
  Speaker 1: talking absolute bollocks, right. So by the what was it
• 47:29
  Speaker 1: the early two thousands, you know, the kids are grown up.
• 47:34
  Speaker 1: He's with Keury and they moved to this Daniel Island
• 47:38
  Speaker 1: and I was like one of the Carolinas South Carolina,
• 47:41
  Speaker 1: South Carolina. So they had filed for bankruptcy and with
• 47:49
  Speaker 1: nearly two million dollars in debt, although now they don't
• 47:52
  Speaker 1: seem to have that probably had something to do with
• 47:54
  Speaker 1: the movie. But yeah, so Frank's whole thing is that
• 48:01
  Speaker 1: he doesn't he doesn't like con the little guy. He
• 48:06
  Speaker 1: only coned the big guys, the big guns and all
• 48:09
  Speaker 1: that kind of thing. But yeah, it's it's not it's
• 48:15
  Speaker 1: not even remotely true. All he did was steal from
• 48:18
  Speaker 1: the little guy consistently, just over and over again. It's
• 48:24
  Speaker 1: like he he just kept fucking people over little people,
• 48:29
  Speaker 1: just because he wanted a better life. So between security guards,
• 48:34
  Speaker 1: small journalists, like they don't have big journalists, but these
• 48:37
  Speaker 1: people all through like the seventies upwards, get away nag
• 48:42
  Speaker 1: and feeling about this fella and they dig deep and
• 48:44
  Speaker 1: they're like, nope, this guy's a con man. The con
• 48:48
  Speaker 1: is that he's a good con man, you know, or
• 48:51
  Speaker 1: like a big commn And it becomes this whole thing
• 48:56
  Speaker 1: where they start looking at the numbers and he he's like, oh, well,
• 49:01
  Speaker 1: you know what, They didn't really, you know, want to
• 49:05
  Speaker 1: say anything, because no company wants to admit that I
• 49:08
  Speaker 1: took this much money from them, and the FBI don't
• 49:11
  Speaker 1: want to admit that they couldn't catch me, hahha, Like
• 49:14
  Speaker 1: I'm in there like like one hundred year in a
• 49:17
  Speaker 1: verse really coffee table book. I have looked through that
• 49:20
  Speaker 1: book my friends, and let me tell you, he's not
• 49:23
  Speaker 1: fucking in it. That was a hard read. It was
• 49:27
  Speaker 1: very heavy. But anyway, he says that he stole so
• 49:34
  Speaker 1: much money, right, and like millions, he says, wasn't it
• 49:40
  Speaker 1: two point five million? He says, he cashes two point
• 49:44
  Speaker 1: five million dollars and that's like seventeen thousand fake checks
• 49:49
  Speaker 1: between the ages of sixteen and twenty four. Like, remember
• 49:52
  Speaker 1: this is the time frame. He's given two point five
• 49:55
  Speaker 1: million dollars seventeen thousand forged checks between the age of
• 50:00
  Speaker 1: sixteen and twenty one. Now, I don't know about you,
• 50:04
  Speaker 1: I'm not the most genius person here, but that math
• 50:08
  Speaker 1: just ain't mathing. So if you add up all the
• 50:11
  Speaker 1: time that he, you know, wasn't in prison, that's like
• 50:17
  Speaker 1: fourteen months, thirteen months, fourteen months, fourteen months. I'm gonna
• 50:22
  Speaker 1: stick with it. And in order to cash that much money,
• 50:26
  Speaker 1: in order to cash seventeen thousand checks in fourteen months,
• 50:31
  Speaker 1: he would have to cash forty checks per day. So yeah,
• 50:38
  Speaker 1: he didn't escape a federal prison. He did not escape
• 50:43
  Speaker 1: you know, the FBI. He did not have a task
• 50:47
  Speaker 1: force chasing him. From the nineteen sixties all the way
• 50:51
  Speaker 1: through to the seventies, he spent most of his time
• 50:55
  Speaker 1: in jail, and he just lucked out so many times,
• 51:03
  Speaker 1: like he was so fucking lucky. He gets a shorter sentence,
• 51:06
  Speaker 1: he gets probation, he gets a slap in the rest,
• 51:10
  Speaker 1: of course, and some well spoken white boy, right right,
• 51:17
  Speaker 1: straight white boy. Yeah, absolute fucking lotly. But yeah, everything
• 51:24
  Speaker 1: he did was fucking county. And he didn't pay back
• 51:30
  Speaker 1: a single cent to any of the people he fucked over,
• 51:33
  Speaker 1: even after he made hundreds of thousands from you know,
• 51:39
  Speaker 1: doing his Google talks and doing his university tour and
• 51:43
  Speaker 1: the money he made from the catch me if you
• 51:46
  Speaker 1: can movee millions. Actually he would have made millions from that,
• 51:51
  Speaker 1: and nobody, nobody got recompense. No, none, none, Oh, an
• 51:57
  Speaker 1: absolute piss bag. I am. Oh, he's awful. He's awful.
• 52:04
  Speaker 1: And you know what I said, he was dead earlier.
• 52:06
  Speaker 1: I was wrong. He's not dead. I just clearly just
• 52:10
  Speaker 1: manifested that in my brain. But no, he is not dead.
• 52:14
  Speaker 1: Although if he dies like within the next couple days.
• 52:18
  Speaker 1: I didn't make it happen. I don't have that kind
• 52:21
  Speaker 1: of power, because if I did, I would have that
• 52:24
  Speaker 1: kind of power to make me more money and not
• 52:27
  Speaker 1: have all the things wrong with my body right now.
• 52:31
  Speaker 1: But yeah, he's alive. He's seventy five years old at
• 52:36
  Speaker 1: this point at time of recording. But yeah, that is
• 52:39
  Speaker 1: the story of the hoax, the myth, the absolute bollocks
• 52:46
  Speaker 1: of Frank Abid Nail Junior. So if you liked my
• 52:50
  Speaker 1: retelling of this story, feel free to writ in review
• 52:54
  Speaker 1: five stars on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you listen
• 52:58
  Speaker 1: to podcasts. You can on me and support me on Twitter,
• 53:02
  Speaker 1: which is who Did What nowpd, TikTok, Instagram and probably
• 53:10
  Speaker 1: other places with who Did What Now pod. I'm also
• 53:13
  Speaker 1: one Patreon, which I am working on at the minute.
• 53:15
  Speaker 1: It's slow, but it's getting there. And I also have
• 53:19
  Speaker 1: PayPal if you want to donate and for gummy bears
• 53:23
  Speaker 1: and other such treats and books. I spend a lot
• 53:26
  Speaker 1: of money on books. Oh it's it's it's worrying right
• 53:30
  Speaker 1: now how much money I have on books, and I
• 53:32
  Speaker 1: need somewhere to put them, so I might have to
• 53:34
  Speaker 1: invest in like a shed library. I don't know, but yes, uh,
• 53:40
  Speaker 1: let's just skip to recommendations, shall we. Yes. So for listening,
• 53:47
  Speaker 1: I am going to recommend the bar Is ankle High podcast.
• 53:53
  Speaker 1: If you have ADHD or you know anybody with ADHD,
• 53:56
  Speaker 1: or even if you don't have ADHD, and you just
• 53:58
  Speaker 1: like people who do, go listen to that. The gals
• 54:02
  Speaker 1: are absolutely fable. For reading, I am absolutely going to
• 54:09
  Speaker 1: suggest Vanity Fair because it's my favorite book because it
• 54:14
  Speaker 1: is a book without heroes and I adore that, right,
• 54:18
  Speaker 1: So gonna recommend that. And for watching, I'm gonna go
• 54:23
  Speaker 1: where She's the Man. It's been all over TikTok com
• 54:26
  Speaker 1: this week, so go watch She's the Man. Just go
• 54:28
  Speaker 1: do it. It's a retelling of Shakespeare, but it's fun.
• 54:32
  Speaker 1: I mean, I love Shakespeare anyway, but go listen to it.
• 54:34
  Speaker 1: Watch it. That's what I was going to say. And
• 54:37
  Speaker 1: with that, I am going to bid you good night.
• 54:41
  Speaker 1: Adios au revoir of Where Is Them? My friends, bye bye,