Frank Abangale

Good book too.

Escapes :

While being deported to the U.S., Abagnale escaped from a British VC-10 airliner as it was turning onto a taxiway at New York's JFK International Airport. Under cover of night, he scaled a nearby fence and hailed a cab to Grand Central Terminal. After stopping in The Bronx to change clothes and pick up a set of keys to a Montreal bank safe deposit box containing $20,000, Abagnale caught a train to Montreal's Dorval airport to purchase a ticket to São Paulo, Brazil.

After a close call at a Mac's Milk, he was apprehended by a constable of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police while standing in line at the ticket counter. Abagnale was subsequently handed over to the U.S. Border Patrol.[citation needed]

In April 1971, Abagnale reportedly escaped from the Federal Detention Center in Atlanta, Georgia, while awaiting trial. In his book, Abagnale considers this to be one of the most infamous escapes in history. During the time, U.S. prisons were being condemned by civil rights groups and investigated by congressional committees. In a stroke of luck that included the accompanying U.S. marshal forgetting his detention commitment papers, Abagnale was mistaken for an undercover prison inspector and was even given privileges and food far better than the other inmates.

The Federal Department of Corrections in Atlanta had already lost two employees as a result of reports written by undercover federal agents and Abagnale took advantage of their vulnerability. He contacted a friend (called in his book "Jean Sebring") who posed as his fiancée and slipped him the business card of "Inspector C.W. Dunlap" of the Bureau of Prisons, which she had obtained by posing as a freelance writer doing an article on fire safety measures in federal detention centers.

She also handed over a business card from "Sean O'Riley" (later revealed to be Joseph Shea), the FBI agent in charge of Abagnale's case, which she doctored at a stationery print shop. Abagnale told the corrections officers that he was indeed a prison inspector and handed over Dunlap's business card as proof. He told them that he needed to contact FBI Agent Sean O'Riley on a matter of urgent business.[citation needed]


O'Riley's phone number (actually the number altered by Sebring) was dialed and picked up by Jean Sebring at a payphone in an Atlanta shopping mall, posing as an operator at the Federal Bureau of Investigation. Later, he was allowed to meet unsupervised with O'Riley in a predetermined car outside the detention center.

Sebring, incognito, picked Abagnale up and drove him to an Atlanta bus station, where he took a Greyhound bus to New York, and soon thereafter, a train to Washington, D.C. Abagnale then bluffed his way through an attempted capture by posing as an FBI agent after being recognized by a motel registration clerk. Still intent on making his way to Brazil, Abagnale was picked up a few weeks later by two NYPD detectives when he inadvertently walked past their unmarked police car.[7]

Catch Me If You Can is the worst film I've ever seen. And the longest, not an entirely welcome combination.

Catch Me If You Can is a great film imo, probably the only film Di Caprios any good imo.

jed texted me and said his all time FAV was Thew Shawshank Redemption.

Shwshank is a classic so can't argue with that

Timeless movie like Back To The Future

and Titanic

Miscast in 'The Beach' too, far too pretty. Superb in 'The Wolf of Wall Street'!

Don't forget 'What's Eating Gilbert Grape' - One of his finest

forgot about blood diamond, another great film