This article is based on information from the book "The Greatest Hoax on Earth: Catching Truth, While We Can" by Alan C. Logan, which provides a comprehensive look at Frank W. Abagnale's claims throughout his career. The book is very well researched and provides extensive citations to demonstrate that Abagnale's claims are mostly false or in a few cases, greatly embellished.
In Logan's book, throughout the 447 pages, the author outlines several times throughout Abagnale's life that his behavior was questionable or what some call "creepy". Below is a summary of those incidents to show what kind of person Abagnale was during his time before and during his professional career, including from the perspective of one of the victims he stalked.
Page 59: "I truly felt stalked by Frank Abagnale and make no apologies for saying so. I felt harassed by the unwanted attention. It was creepy that he was following my work schedule and dressing in a costume to track me. It was repeated behavior, and he knew he was making me uncomfortable. That's stalking by definition," Paula [Parks].
Page 60: But she already knew the answer. Frank Abagnale was sleeping in her bed, surrounded by all of her very personal childhood keepsakes. She was chilled at the thought of him going through her things, and he almost certainly was. "I felt sick," she said recently, recalling just how disturbing this had been. "It amped up the creep factor so much that I never wanted to stay [at my childhood home] again."
Page 61: Paula told her parents that she loved them dearly, but so long as Mr. Abagnale was in the house, she wouldn't be returning to Baton Rouge. She couldn't even bear the idea of a visit.
Page 150: "Abagnale played the Casanova and routinely said he was single. Even local journalists reported on his bachelor lifestyle. [..] Mark [Zinder, his business manager] was unaware that Frank William Abagnale had been married the whole time. Actually, since late 1976, or that he already had children. [..] "He said he was lonely, and it was difficult to find women to converse with. Especially being out on the road so much. He wondered if I knew any female students that would like to meet him." But Abagnale had specifications. "They have to be really thin," he told Mark.
Page 168: "How much for a date?" Inquired the con man. "Okay," he said as he provided the hotel name. "Make sure she's thin," Abagnale added. Evidently, an escort was on her way over to the hotel.
Page 169: "I'm not impressed by today's tomes on women's rights in the bedroom. When Henry Ford invented the Model-T, women shed their bloomers and put sex on the road." - Abagnale, 1980
Page 169: Abagnale's tale about a prostitute with a cashier's check was a fan favorite. It was really a variant of an age-old joke: "Hey, did you hear about the guy who used a bum check to pay for a call girl? They both got screwed!"
Page 170: "He asked me to put his name on my mailbox because he was giving my home address to women he met on the nationwide tours. He wanted to make sure he got all his fan letters, and his wife didn't. From college co-eds to older women in high finance and business, his appetite knew no bounds." - Mark Zinder, former business manager.
Page 201: [In a section covering Abagnale appearing on college campuses wearing a fake Pan Am pilot uniform to 'recruit' stewardesses] "Not only am I a pilot, but a doctor too," explained Abagnale. "I do everything. Interviews and physicals." [..] "The agents told me he has stolen the uniforms and credit cards," [Paul J. Holsen II] said. "Worst yet, he was not even a doctor but did all those physical examinations on the girls." Paula Parks was shocked to learn this recently. "I know that I should not be surprised, but the idea of the young students being physically examined by him under false pretenses is just terrible," she said, "it is so disturbing."
Page 227: The women had humored the charming pilot at first, but it wsa not long before they started complaining about him. Some said he was pushy. By the end of the summer, one young woman in particular had developed a very strong dislike and distrust for Abagnale. It ended in an altercation. And threats.
Page 241: Abagnale had never mentioned a wife. Or a girlfriend. Morris and his guy pals had no idea he was living with a woman in Houston. He had very much behaved as a single man all summer.
Page 298: And he always dressed the part. Whether it was a suit and tie for the bankers or a turtleneck for the students - he dressed with suave sophistication. Almost always with a jacket. And in his top pocket, what appeared to be an expensive pocket square was really a pair of women's silk panties. The panties were part of one of his favorite stage routines. [..] The men in the crowd especially would hoot when they saw him waving the silk panties in the air. Abagnale would stare at the panties. "Makes you want to catch a cold or a flu," he would add. [..] He often admitted that women were his only vice - apart from crime. Not everyone was impressed. "The faces of the mostly female audience turned [red] when Abagnale drew from his lapel a pair of ladies underwear," wrote journalist Jim Schlosser on one such occasion, who was not impressed with the bawdy antics or Abagnale's portrayal of women, especially at an even where they comprised the majority of his audience.
Page 335: Crowds still enjoyed seeing him produce women's silk panties from his jacket pocket. He enjoyed injecting bawdy innuendo, as he often did when introducing his story as a pediatrician in Cobb County. "I'd have been a gynecologist, but at eighteen I didn't know any better," he would say.