Catch Me If You Can, What You Didn't Know About the Real Man

I have just experienced ten total brain-freezes without having consumed anything cold! Yes, it's that serious...do you recall watching the 2002 Steven Spielberg movie, Catch Me If You Can, featuring Leonardo DiCaprio and Tom Hanks? I'm sure you knew this was based on a true story due to the timeline facts that appeared on the screen at the end of the movie...but I'm quite sure there are some things you probably didn't know about the real man himself.
His name is Frank Abagnale (picture to the right). He is now 64, living in Charleston, South Carolina with his wife and has three children (sons). All before the age of 21, this man created at least 8 false identities, and between the ages of 16 and 18 perpetrated as a Pan Am pilot, flying over 1,000,000 miles and to 26 countries! I don't think we can be mad at this guy because, though he committed some of the biggest frauds in history, he is a complete genius and did this all while still a teenager!

Isn't that a crazy thing to say...but perhaps I can make some sense of why we might cheer for him. After the Vietnam War, Americans' faith and trust in the U.S. government became completely diluted (as we protested the war and almost 60,000 of our young American men died) and this is where we began to see anti-establishment hero movies arise, such as the movie Bullet and Paul Newman's Hombre. Which means that we loved to see independent heroes taking on the bad guys because the federal and government institutions cannot be trusted...we still see a lot of these anti-establishment movies now. Catch Me If You Can, can arguably be one of those movies (aside from the fact that we also adore Leonardo DiCaprio so much)...so perhaps Americans still have sympathy for the underdog and hero who goes against authority (yeah...that's some of my American History in Film Class kicking in)! I digress.
In addition to pretending to be a pilot, Mr. Abagnale pretended to be a teacher of sociology by forging a Columbia University degree, a doctor for 11 whole months, and a Harvard-graduate attorney. Abagnale of course forged tons of checks and embezzled millions of dollars! He was so intelligent that he did not forge the checks but created them from scratch, including their routing numbers. When the U.S. finally caught up with him (in France), he was sentenced to only 12 years in the U.S. and ended up only serving less than five. The FBI recruited him to work with them to help find other check-forging frauds. In 1971, Abagnale even managed to escape the Federal Detention Center in Atlanta, GA by pretending to be from the Federal Prison Bureau. He eventually founded Abagnale and Associates, which is a fraud consultant firm that advises companies on fraud issues. He teaches at the FBI Academy. Recently in November 2012, he testified before the US Senate about the vulnerability of senior citizens to fraud.
This is only a portion of this man's crazily adventurous and nearly impossible life. One can only marvel at his intelligence. I am in no way condoning this type of behavior, but can only imagine what myself or one could do with a mind like that! I encourage you to read into his story, and/or purchase the book Catch Me If You Can. He has made several media appearances and even appeared in the movie as a French Police officer arresting himself--Leonardo DiCaprio! Brain-freeze! A musical came out of the same name of the movie and book, which received four Tony Awards nominations, and additional awards.
Sources: Salinger, Lawrence. Encyclopedia of White-collar and Corporate Crime. A-I, Vol I., pg 418
Abagnale, Frank. The Art of Steal (2001)