frank abagnale

Bronxville, New York, U.S. Charge(s) fraud, forgery, swindling Penalty 12 mo. in French prison (about 6 mo. served)

6 mo. in Swedish prison

12 yr. in US prison (4 yr. served) Occupation CEO Abagnale & Associates, security consultants Parents Frank Abagnale, Sr.

Frank William Abagnale, Jr. (born April 27, 1948) is an American security consultant and former check confidence trickster, forger and impostor. He became infamous in the 1960s for passing bad checks worth about $2.5 million in 26 countries over the course of five years.[1] During this time, he used at least eight aliases to cash bad checks.

Abagnale's life story provided the inspiration for the feature film Catch Me if You Can, based on his ghostwritten biography of the same name. As a consultant and lecturer at the FBI academy and field offices for the Federal Bureau of Investigation, he also runs Abagnale & Associates, a financial fraud consultancy company.[2] Contents [hide] 1 Childhood 2 First Con 3 Bank fraud 4 Impersonations 4.1 Airline pilot 4.2 Teaching Assistant 4.3 Doctor 4.4 Attorney 5 Capture and imprisonment 6 Alleged escapes 7 Legitimate jobs 8 Media appearances 9 Books 10 See also 11 References 12 External links //

Childhood

Abagnale was born the third of four children and spent the first sixteen years of his life in New York's Bronxville. His French mother, Paula, and father, Frank Abagnale Sr., divorced when he was 16, and afterwards he would be the only child of whom his father would gain custody. According to Abagnale, his father did not necessarily want him, but in order to reunite his family he would attempt to win his mother back until his death in 1974. His father was also an affluent local businessman who was very keen on politics, and was a major role model for Abagnale Jr.[3]

First Con

His first victim was his father. His father gave him a 1952 Ford truck, and once Frank Jr began to take a notice of girls, he could not stop spending money on them. In order to fund his exploits with the opposite sex, he asked his father for a credit card to charge gas on, since he was always short on cash. He began to make deals with gas station employees all around the New York area to falsely charge items to his card, then give him a portion of the money; in return the employee got to keep the item and "resell" it for the full price. Over the course of 2 months, Frank Jr "bought" the following items for his vehicle: 14 sets of tires 22 batteries large quantities of gasoline

The bill totaled up to $3,400, which his father discovered only after a debt collector contacted him in person, as Frank Jr was throwing away the bills that came in the mail. When confronting his son, Frank Sr wasn't so worried about the expenses he'd accumulated, but rather that his son replied, "It's the girls dad, they do funny things to me. I can't explain