Ray William Johnson: True Story Podcast - The Real Story of Frank Abagnale and Catch Me If You Can

Episode Date: February 15, 2025

This is the real story of Frank Abagnale and Catch Me If You Can

On December 12, Disney Plus invites you to go behind the scenes with Taylor Swift in an exclusive six-episode docu-series. I wanted to give something to the fans that they didn't expect. The only thing left is to close the book. The End of an Era. And Don't Miss Taylor Swift, The Era's Tour, the final show, featuring for the first time the tortured poets department. Streaming December 12, only on Disney Plus. guy, he's a liar, but his lies are about to make him rich. Let's call him Francis. And Francis is 16, he's from New York, and he can't stay out of trouble. He's always lying and stealing

from his parents and stealing from local businesses. But then one day he commits forgery. And he gets arrested. Here's his mugshot. And after he's bailed out, Francis goes on another crime spree and he eventually steals a car and flees to California. And then a few weeks later, he's arrested there. And they send him back to New York where he has a bunch of outstanding warrants. And then, back in New York, Francis uses a bunch of forged checks to purchase an airline pilot's uniform. Because he thinks if he dresses like a pilot, which is a well-respected job, businesses will be more likely to trust him and cash his fake checks. But this plan doesn't really work. Because he gets arrested for trying to use stolen checks and he spends the next two years in prison.

And by the time he gets out, he's 19. And a month later, he's arrested again in Boston for trying to steal a car and writing more bad checks. So they send him back to prison for another year. He's 20 now. So he eventually gets out and continues to be a turd. He gets that old pilots uniform he bought and he uses it to scam a few free flights from the airlines. Because I guess off-duty pilots get free flights. But then he gets arrested in Baton Rouge for stealing a bunch of checks from a family who was trying to help him.

And from there, he eventually flees to Europe. And there, he's right back to see him. stealing cars and cashing fake checks in France and Sweden. And then he gets arrested in France and he's deported back to the U.S. He's 22 now. And now that he's back in the U.S., surprise, surprise, he goes right back to dressing up as a pilot and cashing more forged checks. Four months later, he's caught and arrested again.

And while he's in jail, he escapes. But within a few days, they catch him again trying to cash yet another forged check. And this time, he's sentenced to 12 years in prison. But a few years later, he gets out on parole. Then he's arrested again, this time, for stealing art supplies and cameras from a children's summer camp. Here's his mugshot. And so at this point, Francis is around 26, and around this time, he moves into his parole officer's garage so his parole officer can keep an eye on him. And it's here that it finally seems like he's starting to learn his lesson.

Until. Francis is around 27 at this point, and he decides to start his own anti-fraud consulting company. And he starts holding these like crime prevention seminars where he gives speech. So he gives these speeches and he tells everyone he's a reformed criminal. But he doesn't just tell people about all the check fraud and stealing from people and dressing up as a pilot to get free flights. No, no, instead he starts making up these fantastical stories about how from the age of 16 to 20 he had snuck into a hospital and had pretended to be a pediatrician for an entire year. And how he had pretended to be a lawyer for another whole year. And how he faked being a sociology professor at BYU for a few semesters.

you for a few semesters, and that he stole two and a half million dollars from the airlines, and that the FBI had been chasing after him for years, and he made some kind of daring escape through an airline toilet. And all of these stories are bullshit. I mean, these aren't just small embellishments. These are things that he completely makes up. And we know this because during the age when he supposedly did all this stuff, he was locked up in prison, all of which is public record. The only thing he really did was write a bunch of bad checks, rip off a few of his friends, and scam a handful of free flights. But none of that ends up mattering, because when Francis tells these fantastical stories about how he faked being a pediatrician for a year or a lawyer or

whatever, people are fascinated. They love hearing him say this stuff. And eventually, Francis's bullshit stories become so popular, he gets invited to do a guest appearance on a game show where he repeats these lies. I worked for a year as chief president of a high. And people watching just eat it up. They love him. After that, he gets invited onto the Today Show. Then he gets invited onto the Johnny Carson show several times, where again, he repeats these lies. How'd you pass yourself as a pediatrician? I supervised seven interns on the midnight eight shift. And these appearances on Johnny Carson really blow him up. Suddenly, he's getting all kinds of media attention, people want to know more about him. So he teams up with an author and writes an

autobiography. But not about his actual life, about these fake stories he made up. So then two years later, his book of made up stories about his life gets published. And you've heard of it. It's called Catch Me If You Can. And it quickly becomes a New York Times bestseller. And then Francis sells the movie rights. And 17 years later, the rights end up at DreamWorks. And they make a movie directed by Steven Spielberg and starring Tom Hanks and Leonardo

to Cradle Robber. And the movie goes on to be a huge hit. And years after that, they adapt it into a Broadway musical. And this whole time, even after the success of the book and the movie, Francis is out there doing guest appearances and giving public speech, telling these same made-up stories about his life to huge crowds. I spent about a year practicing law. In both the job as the lawyer and the doctor,

no one ever doubted for a second, I was not. And it wasn't until more recently in the age of the internet that journalists really start to dig in and fact-check him in a real way. And they track his whole life through interviews and public records, and they realize Francis isn't some brilliant impersonator. He's just a pathological liar. And to this day, he's still running his and his anti-year, running his anti-fraud company and he's still out there giving speeches. Shout out to Hollywood.