Frank Abagnale - Catch Me If You Can

The Fulton County Jail was a pest hole, a real roach pit. “It’s bad news, man,” said another prisoner I met in the day room of our cruddy cellblock. “The only decent facility in the joint is the hospital, and you have to be dying to get in there.”

The only decent facility in the day room was a pay telephone. I plopped a dime in and dialed the desk sergeant. “This is Dr. John Petsky,” I said in authoritative tones.

“You have a patient of mine as a prisoner, one Frank Abagnale. Mr. Abagnale is a severe diabetic, subject to frequent comas, and I would appreciate it, Sergeant, if you could confine him in your medical ward where I can visit him and administer proper treatment.”

Within thirty minutes a jailer appeared to escort me to the hospital ward, leaving the other inmates who had heard my conversation grinning in admiration.

A week later a U.S. marshal appeared, took me into custody and transferred me to the Federal Detention Center in Atlanta to await trial. It was from this prison that I perpetrated what has to be one of the most hilarious escapes in the annals of prison history. At least I thought it was funny, and I’m still amused by the episode, although there’re several others who still hold an opposite view.

Actually, mine wasn’t so much an escape as it was a cooperative eviction, made possible by the time and the circumstances. I was ensconced in the detention facility during a period when U.S. prisons were being condemned by civil rights groups, scrutinized by congressional committees and investigated by Justice Department agents. Prison inspectors were working overtime, and undercover, and earning the enmity and hostility of prison administrators and guards.

I was brought into this atmosphere under exactly the right circumstances. The U.S. marshal who. delivered me to the facility had no commitment papers for me, but did have a short temper.

The admissions officer to whom I was offered had a lot of questions for the U.S. marshal. Who was I? Why was I being lodged here? And why didn’t the marshal have the proper papers?

The marshal blew his cool. “He’s here under a court order,” he snapped. “Just put him in a damned cell and feed him until we come after him.”

The admissions officer reluctantly accepted custody of me. He really had no choice. The marshal had stormed out. I think I could have followed him without anyone’s stopping me, in light of what I learned. “Another damned prison inspector, eh?” murmured the guard who escorted me to my cell.

“Not me, I’m here awaiting trial,” I replied truthfully.

“Sure you are,” he scoffed, slamming the cell door. “You bastards think you’re slick, don’t you? You people got two of our guys fired last month. We’ve learned how to spot you.”

I wasn’t issued the white cotton uniform the other inmates sported. I was allowed to keep my regular clothing. I noted, too, that the cell in which I was placed, while not posh, was exceedingly livable. The food was good and the Atlanta papers were brought to me daily, usually with a sarcastic remark. I was never called by name, but was addressed as “fink,” “stoolie,” “ 007” or some other derisive term meant to connote my assumed status as a prison inspector. Reading the Atlanta papers, which twice the first week contained stories relating to conditions in federal penal institutions, I realized the personnel of this facility really did suspect I was an undercover federal agent.

Had I been, they would have had no worries, and I v as puzzled as to why large numbers of influential people thought American prisons were a disgrace to the nation. I thought this one was great. Not quite up to the standards of the Malmo ward, but much better than some motels in which I’d stayed.

However, if the guards here wanted me to be a prison inspector, that’s what I’d be. I contacted a still loyal girl friend in Atlanta. The prison rules were not overly lenient, but once a week we were allowed to use the telephone in privacy. I got her on the phone when it was my turn.

“Look, I know what it usually takes to get out of here,” I told her. “See what you have to do to get in, will you?”

Her name was Jean Sebring, and she didn’t have to do much to get in to see me. She merely identified herself as my girl friend, my fiancee, in fact, and she was allowed to visit me. We met across a table in one of the large visiting rooms. We were separated by a three-foot-high pane of glass perforated by a wire-mesh aperture through which we could talk. A guard was at either end of the room, but out of earshot. “If you want to give him something, hold it up and we’ll nod if it’s permissible,” one guard instructed her.

I had concocted a plan before Jean arrived. It might prove to be merely an intellectual exercise, I knew, but I thought it was worth a try. However, I first had to persuade Jean to help me, for outside assistance was vital to my plot. She was not difficult to persuade. “Sure, why not?” she agreed, smiling. “I think it would be funny as hell if you pulled it off.”

“Have you met an FBI agent named Sean O’Riley or talked to him?” I asked.

She nodded. “In fact, he gave me one of his cards when he came around asking about you,” she said.

“Great!” I enthused. “I think we’re in business, baby.”

We really were. That week, Jean, posing as a free-lance magazine writer, called at the U.S. Bureau of Prisons in Washington, D.C., and finagled an interview with Inspector C. W. Dunlap, purportedly on fire safety measures in federal detention centers. She pulled it off beautifully, but then Jean is not only talented, she is also chic, sophisticated and lovely, a woman to whom any man would readily talk.

She turned at the door as she left. “Oh, may I have one of your cards, Inspector, in case some other question comes to mind and I have to call you?” she asked.

Dunlap promptly handed over his card.

She laughingly detailed her success during her next visit, in the course of which she held up Dunlap’s card, and when the one guard nodded, she passed it over the barrier to me.

Her visits only bolstered the guards’ belief that I was a Bureau of Prisons prober. “Who is she, your secretary, or is she a prison inspector, too?” one guard asked me as he returned me to my cell.

“That’s the girl I’m going to marry,” I replied cheerfully.

Jean visited a stationery print shop that week. “My father just moved into a new apartment and has a new telephone number,” she told the printer. “I want to present him with five hundred new personal cards as a house-warming gift. I want them to look exactly like this, but with his new home telephone number and his new office number inserted.” She gave the printer O’Riley’s card.

O’Riley’s new telephone numbers were the numbers of side-by-side pay telephones in an Atlanta shopping mall.

The printer had Jean’s order ready in three days. She passed me one of the cards on her next visit, and we finalized our plans. Jean said she’d enlisted the aid of a male friend just in case. “I didn’t fill him in on anything, of course; I just told him we were pulling a practical joke,” she said.

“Okay, we’ll try it tomorrow night,” I said. “Let’s hope no one wants to use those phones around 9 p.m.”

Shortly before 9 p.m. the following day, I hailed the cellblock guard, whom I had cultivated into a friendly adversary. “Listen, Rick, something’s come up and I need to see the lieutenant on duty. You were right about me. I am a prison inspector. Here’s my card.” I handed him Dunlap’s card, which bore only his Washington office number. If anyone decided to call the Bureau of Prisons, they’d be told the offices were closed.

Rick scanned the card and laughed. “By God, we knew we were right about you,” he chortled. “Combs is gonna like this. Come on.” He opened the cell door and led me to Lieutenant Combs’ office.