'What about the Frank Abagnale (the one played by Leonardo Di Caprio). Remember he spent years a pediatrician at a hospital'
Re Frank Abagnale, this is a good example but it's worth noting several of his claims about the extent of his successful frauds have since been questioned. Catch Me If You Can should not be taken as necessarily wholly factual, as per sources linked to on Wiki :
Beginning in the late 1970s, Abagnale claimed in public lectures and interviews that between the ages of 16 and 21 he had impersonated a Pan American pilot, a Georgia hospital physician, a Louisiana assistant attorney general, and a sociology professor, while evading a sustained FBI manhunt across 26 countries and cashing more than $2.5 million in fraudulent checks.[29] Journalists who investigated these claims beginning in 1978 found them to be largely or entirely unsupported. Individuals whom Abagnale had criminally targeted described the lasting effects of his actual, documented offenses:
He had a key to our front door, it was never recovered. We changed the lock. I fed him. I cooked. I don't trust people as much anymore.
— Charlette Parks, Abagnale victim interviewed April 27, 1981, The Advocate
The Louisiana attorney general claim
edit
Abagnale claimed that he passed the Louisiana bar examination, worked for Attorney General Jack P. F. Gremillion, and closed 33 cases. These claims were challenged by journalists as early as 1978.[29][5] No record has been found of Abagnale ever being a member of the Louisiana Bar.[30] In 1978, the Louisiana State Bar Association reviewed all bar exam records and concluded Abagnale had never taken the exam under his name or any alias; the state attorney general's office examined payroll records for the period Abagnale claimed to have worked there and found no trace of him.[5] First Assistant Attorney General Kenneth C. DeJean, after testing Abagnale's claimed familiarity with the office, was direct in his assessment:
The man is not an imposter, he is a liar.
— Kenneth C. DeJean, First Assistant Attorney General, 'The Great Imposter', April 24, 1981, The Advocate[31]
The Georgia pediatrician claim
edit
Abagnale claimed to have worked for a year as a supervising pediatrician at Cobb General Hospital in Marietta, Georgia, overseeing seven residents and 42 nurses on a midnight-to-8 am shift. Hospital administrators told journalist Ira Perry that no such overnight pediatrician shift existed at the hospital during the period in question.[5] Author Alan C. Logan later demonstrated, using New York State Archives records, that Abagnale was incarcerated at Great Meadow Prison at the age of 18, the same age at which he claimed to have worked at Cobb General.[6]
Abagnale's impersonation of a doctor is not entirely without basis. In 1970, at the University of Arizona, he told students he was a physician and conducted physical examinations on female students under the pretense of a Pan Am recruitment program. University officials confirmed the interactions with 12 students.[5] In 2021, Louisiana State University journalism professor Robert Mann expressed regret that he had not challenged Abagnale's account of this episode when he covered a campus lecture: "Reading those words now, in which Abagnale bragged about sexual abuse, makes me sick."[32]
The BYU professor claim
edit
In public lectures, Abagnale claimed to have taught sociology for two semesters at Brigham Young University (BYU) using a falsified doctorate. In 2006, KSL-TV journalist Scott Haws challenged Abagnale on this claim, presenting his own published words as evidence. Abagnale initially said he could not recall the details and attributed the claim to his co-author Stan Redding. Haws then showed him that the claim appeared in materials Abagnale himself had authored, including the film's closing credits. Abagnale ultimately conceded he may have been a guest lecturer.[33] BYU spokepeople have insisted there is no record of Abnagale or any of his aliases having been on the faculty or staff there, something that would exist for even a guest lecturer.[34]
Claims regarding the FBI
edit
In the years following the release of Catch Me If You Can, Abagnale increasingly claimed a long and formal relationship with the FBI. He told audiences he had been placed on the FBI Ten Most Wanted Fugitives list as a teenager, that he was granted a special parole in 1974 or 1975 to conduct undercover work for the bureau, that he received assignments directly from Director Clarence M. Kelley, and that he worked as an ethics instructor at the FBI Academy in Quantico, Virginia. By 2014, he was publicly stating that he was celebrating 38 years at the FBI.[35]
Journalist Ira Perry found in 1978 that Abagnale and his publicist were directing inquiries to a retired FBI official, Robert Russ Franck, whom they described as a former Atlanta agent familiar with Abagnale's case. Franck, who had in fact retired as head of the FBI's Houston Division and had never worked in Atlanta, told Perry he had never met Abagnale and could not verify any of his claims.[5] Eugene Stewart, a retired FBI agent who had led the Atlanta division during the period Abagnale claimed to have been a pediatrician there, described Abagnale to Perry as a low-level criminal.[5]
Pressed when Catch Me If You Can was released, Abagnale acknowledged on his company's website that he had never been on the FBI's Most Wanted list.[36] Retired FBI agent Jerri Williams, a white-collar crime specialist, rejected his claims of receiving assignments directly from Director Kelley: "If anybody tells you that they got an assignment directly from the FBI director, right from the head of the FBI, you know for a fact it's bullshit. It doesn't happen that way."[37] When the film was released, an FBI spokesperson confirmed that Abagnale had given lectures at the academy "from time to time," but denied that the bureau had given him commendations as claimed in the film's marketing.[38] In September 2022, retired FBI agent Alan Brown confirmed to journalist Javier Leiva that Abagnale's 1970 arrest in Marietta, Georgia, was a routine response to a teletype request; Abagnale was found in his hotel room without incident, contrary to the dramatic escape depicted in the film.[39]
In August 2022, Google disabled comments on Abagnale's "Talks at Google" video and added a disclaimer stating that Google did not endorse or vouch for the content, noting the video was being retained for historical purposes.[40]
Logan and Leiva investigations
edit
In 2020, author Alan C. Logan published The Greatest Hoax on Earth, an investigation into Abagnale's claimed criminal history drawing on prison records, administrative documents, and newspaper archives. Logan demonstrated using New York State Archives records that Abagnale was incarcerated at Great Meadow Prison as inmate #25367 from July 26, 1965, to December 24, 1968, the precise period during which Abagnale claimed to have committed his most celebrated frauds. Logan's research also documented numerous petty crimes Abagnale had never publicly acknowledged.[6] Abagnale declined to address the book's specific findings, calling it "not worthy of a comment."[6][25]
In 2022, investigative journalist Javier Leiva independently verified Logan's findings, confirmed federal court records showing Abagnale's Pan Am check conviction involved less than $1,500, and calculated that Abagnale was free for only a matter of months between 1965 and 1970. On June 23, 2022, Leiva confronted Abagnale at the Connect IT Global conference in Las Vegas with prison and court records in hand.[41]
On September 12, 2022, Xavier University in Cincinnati presented Abagnale with a "Heroes in Ethics" award. At the conclusion of his lecture, an audience member asked Abagnale whether he would acknowledge that his stories were fabricated. Abagnale denied telling any lies and stated he had no responsibility for the content of his autobiography, the film, or the Broadway musical. Xavier University subsequently removed all online reference to the event.[41]
In a 2002 interview with USA Today, Abagnale acknowledged that the long-term impersonations in his autobiography were exaggerated: "I impersonated a doctor for a few days, I was a lawyer for a few days. In the book, it's like I am doing this for a year."[42] Despite this concession, he continued to make the long-term impersonation claims in subsequent public appearances.[12][43] Abagnale's speaking fee has been reported to be between $20,000 and $30,000.[25]'
It does seem highly unlikely a teenager could impersonated done all these roles with no training and not been found out. I definitely agree with you re Abagnale being glamorised in the film: based on his own fraudulent autobiography.
Abagnale is quite like Arday in that one of the biggest parts of their frauds seems to have been claims made about their pasts memoirs.