The Honolulu Advertiser from Honolulu, Hawaii • 49

also in Honolulu Advertiser Entertainment: E4-8 Friday. July 7. 1978 IP lmp)fft QQQ (TO life names and faces Frank Abagnale Jr. Robert Speca Jr. spent six hours yesterday placing 7,000 dominoes on end in Springfield, Mass.

then watched them topple in less than three minutes as hundreds of spectators cheered. Speca, dubbed the "domino king" by the Guinness Book of World Records, performed the stunt to kick off the United Way campaign. A senior at the University of Pennsylvania, he's been doing similar displays for five years. "I got started with a couple of boxes in my basement," he said, "but I wanted to see what it looked like when it got bigger." His most recent domino-toppling record is his ultimate goal is 1,111,111. politician once required a strong grip and durable vocal cords, but the pressing need now is for reinforced lapels, accord Th con hi an hi ing to Rep.

Barry Goldwater R-Calif. Goldwater says that after meeting voters at four Fourth of July celebrations, his suit jacket is "in shreds" because so many grabbed him by the lapels to voice outrage at government spending. "The people are mad," he says, "raging mad." Why take it out on Goldwater, a fiscal conservative like his father? "I was the most visible representa fi -vt fciniil-niiDimHiWii-" Goldwater con man tive of government," he says, "and the people took advantage of it." Kurt Metzger and Jody Sussman will be married Sunday in front of the gorilla cage, at the Cincinnati Zoo. "We both have a tremendous love for animals and wanted to be married in a place that means the most to us and that's the explained Metzger. "I think it's going to be great to get married in front of gorillas.

I prefer them as wedding guests over a lot of people I know." The Tel Aviv Zoo is trying to capture a parrot in order to restore telephone service to dozens of families in the neighboring Ramat Gan suburb. It was reported on the army radio's "action line" program that the parrot, who moved to the neighborhood last week, has twice cut off overhead telephone lines in the area. Technicians have refused to fix them unless the bird is captured. Advertmr photo bv Rov I to Abagnale: Some lessons from the master himself. impersonal and could absorb the losses.

Conversely he felt it would have been "immoral" to victimize a small businessman To atone for the huge sums he cost the big companies he works for a year for free for any airline or hotel he accepts as a Chicago Mayor Michael Bilandic yesterday barred all supersonic aircraft from O'H-are Airport, the world's busiest airfield, until the planes meet existing 1 c- A noise regulations. "A review of the recent regulations issued by the U.S. Department of Transportation indicated that local administrators have the ultimate decision as to whether supersonic aircraft are permitted to use particular airports," he said. "As mayor of Chicago, I'm exercising that discretionary power I see no reason to jeopardize the client. A con man is primarily a person of disguises, one who puts on new identities as easily as new clothes.

Abagnale turned, first, into an airline pilot. He had passed an airline crew as he walked out of a hotel six months after he ran away from home "and it occured to me that would be a perfect cover." It was, for almost six years, but it was what finally caught up with him in France. A stewardess recognized him from Interpol posters and notified authorities. It may not be Abagnale's favorite con, but the one he pulled while he was in custody was certainly one of his flashiest. He'd already served six months in a French prison, dropping from 198 to 109 pounds, another six months in an enlightened Swedish prison, and was on his way back to the United States, extradicted by the FBI.

The Swedish police escorted him onto the plane and the FBI was waiting at Kennedy Airport in New York but there was no Frank Abagnale on board. Abagnale tells it without fanfare, of how his impersonation of a pilot throughout Europe had given him a good working knowledge of airplanes. He knew, for instance, that you could push the toilet apparatus aside by pulling Bilandic comfort, health and safety of Chicago citizens by allowing them to land in Chicago." two knobs on either side of it. Below the toilet there's a hatch that opens to the Students who tried to enroll a basset hound at the University of Hartford were discovered because they failed to give the dog a zip code. University officials yesterday said pranksters registered the dog at a recent freshman orientation under the name of Leo D.

Canine, 18, 42 Puppy Lane, Canine Corner, Mass. and enrolled him in five engineering courses. But when the dog's registration forms surfaced in the bursar's office, an employee noted that Canine's address lacked a zip code. In pursuing the matter, he learned that Leo is the school mascot. Joan Baez cut an album in Moscow this but she doesn't know if it will ever become available to the Soviet public.

Baez, in Russia for a Fourth of July concert in canceled at ground, a 12 to 15 foot drop. Just as the plane was landing, a desperate Abagnale locked himself into the toilet, pulled the knobs back, squeezed himself into the opening, and opened the hatch below. By BEVERLY CREAMER Advtrtiter Staff Writer You wait for it. The con. For Frank Abagnale Jr.

has a reputation no-one can take lightly. The best con man of this century. A man who eluded the FBI for six years. Who successfully impersonated an airline pilot, a doctor, a lawyer, a college teacher, a millionaire stockbroker. Who played cat and mouse with Interpol so slyly that Paramount Studios is doing' a movie about him, starring Dustin Hoffman.

It will be called "Who Is That Man" after his book by the same name that will be out in November. Abagnale is the kind of guy about whom movies are made; a Butch Cassidy of the 60s and 70s, a James Bond of bad guys. "People love to think of someone who got away with all this," he says, a reflective tone in his glib but softly spoken words. "Everyone would love to do something like that. They dream about it, but they'd never do it.

It's a fantasy." Listening to Abagnale, you're still waiting for the con and you're wary, of his good looks, despite the tendency toward jowls, his quiet charm, his eyes, his facile words. Then whammo. He's got you. He's conned you into thinking he's the nicest guy in the world, a guy who missed out on his youth, who lived a lonely despairing life until he was finally caught and sent to jail where he vowed to change. And who knows.

It's probably all true. Frank Abagnale is just 30 years old, a high-school dropout, an ex-convict with no intention of forgetting his past, and a man who has been sought-after half his life. First, because he was a crook. Nowadays because he's one of the most popular faces on the talk show circuit (he'll be hosting the -Johnny Carson Show soon); because he's a dynamite crusader against white collar crime and because he's someone who knows the answer to how crooks think, how they get away with what they do, and how to begin stopping them. All because he's been one.

Newspapers have called him America's outstanding "consumer advocate" and though he wrote $2.5 million worth of bum checks in 26 countries before he was caught at the age of 22, businessmen are clamoring to ask his advice about everything from spotting bad checks to catching pilferage among employes. He's in Hawaii at the invitation of Tele-check Hawaii Inc. and the Retail Merchants of Hawaii. He spoke to the latter's annual business meeting last night at the Ala Moana American Hotel. Abagnale doesn't disappoint.

In an interview he's so persuasive that you walk away running over what he's just taught you the six ways to spot a bad check. His technique is as smooth as a baby's cheek. He wins people effortlessly it seems, masterfully working them into his corner. The perfect con man, he explains, "is exactly what you want him to be. who has his hair cut exactly the right length, not one inch too long or one inch too short.

"He's got manicured nails. He dresses well. He's distinguished looking. He has a good vocabulary, and is neither overweight nor underweight. "I would never have gotten away with anything if I was a pimply-faced teenager." In addition, says Abagnale, a con artist has got to have panache.

"Who will question someone who drives year," he says. "That's $189 for every man, woman and child in this country." Some major department store chains such as Nieman Marcus, one of his clients, lose as much as $3 million annually to white collar crime. Last year he saved that company $3 million in such losses. "It's a great feeling saving a company $3 million or seeing a city cut its losses (from forgeries) by 87 percent." Austin, Texas is such a case. It had such a severe problem with bad checks recently that the city hired Abagnale to help them design "Operation Crackdown." Austin had become known as a "marked city," says Abagnale, an easy place to pass bad paper.

When that happens "you're in big trouble. Every forger from everywhere comes to town." In the first six months of that program, the losses were cut 87" percent and it was due in part, he says, to training every teller in the city how to spot bad checks. Abagnale hammers away at that point whenever he talks to a group of businessmen such as the Retail Merchants of Hawaii. "Spend a little time and train your employes," he advises. In the training given by most banks to their tellers "there's not one minute of time spent on what to watch for in a bad check.

"Only three tellers of every 10 bank employes could tell you what the numbers (in the lefthand corner of any check) mean," he says. "But every forger in the United States knows what every one means." In fact, changing one of those first four numbers is one common method of check forging, he said. It delays the check's clearing process, often long enough for the forger to write more bad money and clear town. The first two numbers indicate the Federal Reserve district where the check Hawaii, for instance, is in the 12th Federal Reserve district so the first two numbers in the bottom lefthand comer must be 12. Anything else and it's bogus.

Hawaii is already a prime target for bad checks, says the man who, in his criminal heyday, wrote $48,000 worth of bad money here at the Hilton alone. "Any kind of resort or tourist destination is an easy mark," he said, adding that Hawaii is particularly susceptible to checks forged on Mainland accounts that have been closed. Abagnale, the con man, first started writing bad checks when he was 16 years old. His wealthy upstate New York parents were divorcing and, in confusion and turmoil, Frank ran away from home. He tried to get a job but a 16-year-old' paycheck wasn't enough to support him.

"So when I ran out of money I started writing bad checks." Being bright, dapper and looking much older than his age, it wasn't long before he was running one scam after another. With an IQ in the genius range and a nearly perfect photographic memory, it was child's play to figure out how to use available materials to produce false identification for anything he needed. During his criminal career he came up with everything from a pilot's license to a Harvard Law School diploma. He was rarely questioned (when he was he just left town) and it wasn't long before he realized how easily duped most people can be. Though he had extravagant tastes-expensive clothes, cars and women Abagnale never intentionally picked on the little guy.

His two major victims were airlines and hotels big corporations he felt were up in a limousine? I used to rent them everyday." As he talked, Abagnale demonstrated one scam after another, sometimes acting them out. He does a short-change artist that takes your breath away, flashing papers past your face as fast as a magician pulling rabbits out of hats. "The greatest con I ever pulled was in Chicago," he said, perhaps with just a hint of fondness. He opened a bank account and then picked up a stack of the blank bank deposit slips left as a courtesy for customers. On each blank deposit slip he put his new account number using magnetic tape you can buy almost anywhere.

Then he put the deposit slips back on the customer service counter where he'd found them. In a couple of days he'd collected almost $50,000 all from other peoples' deposits. Then there was that time in Boston where he'd written about $38,000 worth of bad checks and decided he'd better get out of town. It was almost midnight. "I went to Logan Airport and asked 'when's the last flight out?" "I'm afraid you just missed it," said the clerk.

Abagnale sat down to ponder his next move and idly watched as all the airline office clerks closed up for the night, packed up their receipts and dropped them, one at a time, into a First City National Bank night deposit box. The next night Abagnale was back, this time in a First City National Bank guard's uniform he'd acquired that day, and with a metal deposit box on a cart. On the real deposit box he taped a sign he'd made up that day, that said: "This box is out of order. Please make all deposits with guard on duty." One by one, the ticket clerks dropped their day's receipts into his box, never questioned how a box could be out of order, and wished him "good night officer." But Abagnale does not dwell, by choice, on the seamy exploits of his former life of crime. He'll talk about his "best con" or his most terrifying moment, but he'd far rather talk about how banks should be training their tellers to spot bad checks.

Or he'd rather talk about his seminar training programs for business people, or his work with high-school students and potential drop-outs who idolize him and whom he sets out to convince of the loneliness and despair of his former life. "I was smart enough to know I was going to get caught," he says. "It's like thinking you're going to die." Still, he didn't have the courage, the plain "guts," he says, to turn himself in. Like a snowball his criminal existence rolled inexorably to a prison term. "I'm effective with young people because I'm someone who did it," he says.

"I've been there. the road and back and when I say crime doesn't pay, it means something." Still, it seems to have paid well for Abagnale. He lived high and fast, with thousands of dollars in his pocket when he wanted it, before he was caught. And though it was difficult at first, in the three and one half years he's been out of prison, he's turned his background into a $1.2 million a year consulting business. His customers are some of the businesses he once defrauded and now they're paying him to catch people like he once was.

He is as smooth as an old-fashioned snake oil salesman when it comes to making his pitch about what he can do for businessmen. "White collar crime costs businessmen and consumers in America $40 billion a As the plane taxied in the darkness toward the terminal and the waiting FBI, he swung himself down and hung there for a moment before dropping to the runway. He fled across the runway and hailed a cab. Before he was finally captured for good, Abagnale conned an FBI agent into thinking he was an agent too, and passed himself off as a prison inspector to make good an escape. But four years in a federal prison changed his outlook.

"I grew up a lot and I realized what I did was wrong. When I made the last minute by the government said she took her guitar to dinner yesterday with Russian friends, one of them in the recording industry. "I told him I would like to tape something so that Russians could hear me," she said. "He said, 'I don't want to exploit but I told him, 'Go ahead, please Baez said the session, mostly American folk up my mind I was never tempted to change." Still, it wasn't easy, especially in the beginning when he was released on parole. Because of his past, he was fired from the first two jobs he took, waiting table at a Baez pizza parlor and stacking groceries, even though he'd worked himself up into a managerial position in both companies.

Up to that point he'd been trying to hide his past. Then he realized, through some music, went well, but there's no way to tell if the tape will make it through the recording bureaucracy. Delia Flood, 69, was down to her last $10 when she sent her foster daughter to a Newport store for disinfectant and three Ver inadvertent pumicity and the positive response he received, that it could be an asset. That it was saleable. Now he even has people asking for autographs.

But Abagnale admits there are still a couple of problems. He still finds he has to convince people of his sincerity, despite almost four years as an anticrime crusader. mont instant lottery tickets. When she scratched the first two cards, both were losers. "Well, a fool and her money are soon parted," she remarked.

The third ticket offered a $5,000 prize and Flood could barely believe it. "It's the first money I ever got in my life that I didn't earn," she said, adding that' she hasn't decided what to do with the windfall. Carol Johnson aome peopie wui say i sun a con. He shrugs, realizing credibility takes time. The second problem is stickier.

It's about checks. He still has no trouble cashing them, but he never gets them back. "People never cash them in because they want to save them. I have the biggest trouble keeping, my check book balanced.".