Jared Smith
Frank Abagnale Jr. Speech
While the average sixteen-year-old youth is preoccupied with worrying about who they'll take to Prom or considering which college to attend, Frank Abagnale Jr. was quickly rising to the top of the federal most wanted list with a John Doe warrant already out for his arrest. Abagnale who has now been working with the FBI for 35 years was approached because of his expertise in the area of check fraud. When others would make a remark around him to the effect of his being a genius he would respond, “had I been a genius I wouldn't have broken the law.” In 1962 Abagnale was caught off guard by the divorce of his mother and father causing him to run out of the courtroom and thus began his career running from the law. “Being young I was always inquisitive,” said Abagnale. He began committing check fraud across New York until he saw some Pan Am employees walking out of a hotel. He decided he was going to pretend to be an airplane co-pilot and began flying all over the world in the jump chair of the cockpit, the seat behind the pilot. Once he found out there was a warrant out for his arrest he decided to leave New York for Florida where he began pretending he was a Pediatrician. “Not being one to pass up a challenge,” Abagnale went all over the US and even the world pretending to be different people in different careers, using his intellect and charisma to talk his way into getting people to trust him. He was able to pass the Louisiana Bar exam in only two months and even magnetically transposed his own bank account number onto blank deposit slips so unsuspecting people would deposit their checks into his account by mistake. Abagnale was finally caught in France at age 21 on a Swedish warrant but the French found out he had performed various forms of fraud in their country and held him in prison for six months where he lost 98 pounds because of the treatment he received there, coming out weighing only 108 pounds. From France, Abagnale was deported to Sweden where he was imprisoned for another six months and was then extradited to the United States. In the United States he served just under five years in prison until he was offered a position with the FBI to help prevent identity fraud as a substitute for his remaining time in jail. Abagnale finished his speech by explaining that he always knew he would get caught, the law will always catch up with us, maybe not right away but it will, he said. He also explained that every child had a right to have both their mother and father there to take care of them and that to be a true man is to be faithful to his wife, his family, his country, and to God.
