Frank Abagnale - Catch Me If You Can

“Swedish law requires that an interpreter fluent in the language of a prisoner be present when that prisoner is questioned, if he or she is a foreigner,” said Jan, still speaking in correct tones as if she had never seen me before.

“The law also says you have the right to an attorney, and your attorney must be present at all times during your interrogation. Since you have no funds to retain a lawyer, the government of Sweden has appointed you a counsel. Her name is Elsa Kristiansson and she will meet with you later today. Do you understand everything I have told you?”

“Perfectly,” I said.

“I will see you tomorrow, then,” she said, and left.

An hour later there was a knock on my door and then the portal opened. It was one of the guards with my supper, a bountiful and tasteful meal, which he arranged on a portable table as if he were a waiter and not a jailer.

When he returned to gather up the dishes, he grinned at me. “Would you like to take a walk?” he asked. “It will only be in the building, as I make my rounds, but I thought perhaps you might be getting tired of being shut inside.”

I accompanied him to the kitchen, where a waiter from a nearby restaurant took the tray and used dishes from him. The kitchen was not really a kitchen, just a nook where the guards could brew coffee for themselves. He then led me on a tour of the jail, a two-story affair that could accommodate only twenty prisoners. At each cell, he knocked before opening the door, greeted the occupant pleasantly and inquired of the prisoner’s needs. He bade each a cheery good night before closing and locking the door.

When I returned to my cell, Elsa Kristiansson was waiting for me, as was the interpreter, Rev. Carl Greek. I wondered at his presence until he explained that Mrs. Kristiansson did not speak any English at all. Nor did she spend any time inquiring about rny case. She merely acknowledged the introduction and then told me she would be on hand the next morning when Jan commenced her interrogation.

She was a tall, handsome woman of about forty, I judged, serene and courteous, but I had misgivings about her acting as my lawyer. Still, I had no choice. I had no funds to hire an attorney of my choice. The French police had seized all my assets in France, or so I presumed. They had not mentioned anything about my loot following my arrest or during my detention, and they certainly hadn’t returned any money to me on my release. And, here in Sweden, I had no way of getting funds from one of my many caches.

Jan appeared the next morning with Mrs. Kristiansson and Herre Greek. She commenced immediately to question me about my criminal activities in Sweden, with Bergen translating her queries for Mrs. Kristiansson, who sat silent, merely nodding now and then.

I was evasive with Jan during the first two interrogative sessions. Either I refused to answer or I would reply “I don’t remember” or “I can’t say.”

On the third day Jan became exasperated. “Frank! Frank!” she exclaimed. “Why are you so defensive? Why are you so evasive? You’re here, you’re going to go to trial, and it would be much better for you if you are honest with me. We know who you are and we know what you’ve done, and you know we have the evidence. Why are you so reluctant to talk?”

“Because I don’t want to go to prison for twenty years, even if it is a nice prison like this one,” I replied bluntly.

Bergen translated for Mrs. Kristiansson. The reaction of all three was totally unexpected. They burst into laughter, the loud, tear-producing peals of laughter usually provoked only by fine slapstick comedy. I sat looking at them in amazement.

Jan calmed herself somewhat, but still shaking with delight, she looked at me. “Twenty years?” she gulped.

“Or five years, or ten years, or whatever,” I replied defensively, irritated at their attitude.

“Five years? Ten years?” Jan exclaimed. “Frank, the maximum penalty for the crime you are charged with is one year, and I will be very surprised if you receive that much time, since you are a first offender. Frank, murderers and bank robbers rarely receive over ten years on conviction in this country. What you did is a very serious offense, but we consider a year in prison a very serious punishment, and I assure you that is the maximum sentence you face.”

I gave her a complete confession, detailing what I could recall of my transactions in Sweden. A week later I was brought to trial in Malmo before a jury of eight men and women who would determine both my guilt and my punishment, my confession having excluded any question of innocence.

Yet I almost beat the rap. Or Mrs. Kristiansson did. She surprised me by challenging the whole proceedings at the close of testimony against me. The charge against me was “serious fraud by check,” she told the presiding judge.

“I would point out to the court that the instruments introduced here today are not checks, as defined by Swedish law,” she contended. “They are instruments he made up himself. They never were checks. They are not checks at this time.

“Under Swedish law, Your Honor, these instruments could never be checks, since they are utter counterfeits. Under the law, Your Honor, my client has not really forged any checks, since these instruments are not checks, but merely creations of his own, and therefore the charges against him should be dismissed.”

The charges weren’t dismissed. But they were reduced to a lesser felony, the equivalent of obtaining money under false pretenses, and the jury sentenced me to six months in prison. I considered it a victory and rendered my enthusiastic thanks to Mrs. Kristiansson, who was also pleased with the verdict.

I was returned to my cell in the Klippan jail, and the next day Jan appeared to congratulate me. However, she also had disquieting news. I was not to serve my time in my comfortable and homey little hostelry in Klippan, but was to be transferred to the state institution in Malmo, located on the campus of Lund University, the oldest college in Europe. “You will find it very different from the prisons in France. In fact it is very different from any of your American prisons,” Jan assured me.

My misgivings evaporated when I was delivered to the prison, known on the campus as “The Criminal Ward.” There was nothing of a prison atmosphere about the ward- no fences, no guard towers, no bars, no electronic gates or doors. It blended right in with the other large and stately buildings on the campus. It was, in fact, a completely open facility.

I was checked in and escorted to my quarters, for I no longer looked on Swedish detention rooms as cells. My room in the ward was slightly smaller, but just as comfortable, and with similar furnishings and facilities, to those of the one in which I’d been lodged at Klippan.

The prison rules were relaxed, the restrictions lenient. I could wear my own clothes, and since I had only the one set, I was escorted to a clothing store in the city where I was outfitted with two changes of clothes. I was given unrestricted freedom to write and receive letters or other mail, and my mail was not censored. Since the ward housed only one hundred prisoners, and it was not deemed economical to maintain a kitchen, food was brought to prisoners from outside restaurants and the prisoner prepared his own menu within reason.

The ward was a coed prison. Several women were housed in the institution, but sexual cohabitation was prohibited between inmates. Conjugal visits were allowed between a man and wife, a wife and husband or between an inmate and his/her boy/girl friend. The prisoners had the freedom of the building between 7 a.m. and 10 p.m., and they could receive visitors in their quarters between 4 p.m. and 10 p.m. daily. The inmates were locked into their rooms at 10 p.m., curfew time in the ward.