While Mulder and Scully and Doggett and Reyes take a break from their ominous caseloads, I'd like to tell you a story -- three, actually. As a reporter/writer, I've met some interesting folks. Some have turned out to share my love of The X-Files and the generally weird and criminous. Here, in stories I've previously written for Illinois Farm Bureau's Almanac and Partners publications, we meet an X-Files fan who's used War of the Coprophages as a teaching tool, the real-life master imposter whose story was no Small Potatoes for Steven Spielberg, and a late Chicago cop who staked out his plot in Mulder/Scully territory before The X-Files hit the airwaves. I hope you'll enjoy these stories and come back soon for more tales from the files of 10X.

Young May Berenbaum was bugged by bugs, creeped out over crawly things.

She has confronted her fears in a bold manner: Berenbaum today is a University of Illinois entomologist, surrounded by the arthropods which once rendered her inarticulate. She also serves as the host of U of I's Insect Fear Film Festival, an annual exercise in therapy through cinema wrapped in a cocoon of fun and informational comments and facts.

The subject of roaches (not to be confused with the Jack Lemmon classic The Subject Was Roses) is especially dear to Berenbaum, who was the apparent model for Bambi Berenbaum, a U.S. Department of Agriculture entomologist helping investigate a smalltown infestation of "killer" cockroaches in a 1996 episode of The X-Files. 1996 and 1997 were bursting with riches for the roach film aficionado.

"'97 was one of the best years for bringing back insects in the movies," Berenbaum said. "I've been interviewed at least a half dozen times by people wondering, 'What's the deal? Why all of a sudden is Hollywood so enamored of insects?'"

Berenbaum offers a few theories about the double-edged human fear and fascination with cockroaches -- The insect exhibits a complex chemical communications system, using chemicals to elicit sex and mark territory, and has been genetically able to weather "whatever we throw at them." She put her entomological thumbs to the task of rating the recent swarm of insect films:

Mimic -- This critical favorite receives less than glowing reviews from Berenbaum, who deems the tale of genetic tampering "utterly ludicrous and chock-a-block with ridiculous science." Mira Sorvino's scientist character incorporates genes from several insects with a cockroach to fight other disease-carrying roaches. Within three years, the predatory creature develops a yen for humans and a set of lungs. "I don't care what genes you pull from insects -- you're not going to get genes for lungs," Berenbaum said.

Men in Black -- "Edgar," a particularly loathsome insectile alien, dons the skin of an upstate New York farmer, commandeers an exterminator's van, and goes on a murderous spree through the Big Apple. But Edgar has a warm and squishy spot for the terrestrial cockroach. "It's an interesting depiction," Berenbaum observed.

Starship Troopers -- This films' loathsome aliens are referred to as "Bugs," and civilians are shown a wartime propoganda film featuring children stomping cockroaches to build hatred for the verminous invaders. Berenbaum reported some humans "seriously believe insects are descendants of alien visitors millions of years ago."

Joe's Apartment -- An admirable example of anatomical adherence, according to Berenbaum. "Other than the singing and dancing" of the cockroaches dwelling in the title character's New York home, the film's animators obviously invested lavish time and energy into recreating roach form and function, she said. "It was a wonderful movie," Berenbaum said. "I'm disappointed it did so badly at the box office."

Big-screen bugs still too creepy? Revisit the X-Files episode "War of the Coprophages" (dung eaters), available in network and cable reruns and in a video edition. The mystique of the cockroach is explored in exhaustive detail, from theories of extraterrestrial origins and extraordinary insectile intelligence to the possibility of mini-robotic roaches with metallic legs and antennae.

"The science in the episode is really pretty accurate," Berenbaum said. "There's a scientist who is creating hexapod (six-legged) robots. That work is very much ongoing -- it's a pretty accurate depiction of the current state of cockroach locomotion research. One of my colleagues here is working on a robotic 'cockroach.'"
 
 

‘World’s greatest con man’ finds true identity

The real Frank Abagnale stands up.

Not Frank Williams, the adolescent airline pilot and post-pubescent pediatrician; nor Robert Conrad, the assistant attorney general; nor Frank Adams, the sociology professor. Not the Frank Abagnale once dubbed "the world’s greatest con man" by the Wall Street Journal.

This Frank Abagnale is a somber man whose memories of a dark French prison cell continue to inspire "cold sweats," who insists his life of crime was "not a James Bond story," and who has finally found his true identity. Abagnale’s story came to the screen recently in the Steven Spielberg-directed biography, Catch Me If You Can, starring Leonardo diCaprio as the master forger/conman and Tom Hanks as the FBI agent who doggedly tracked him down.

Abagnale has been associated with the Federal Bureau of Investigation for more than 30 years, and he lectures extensively at the FBI Academy and for the field offices of the Bureau. More than 14,000 financial institutions, corporations and law enforcement agencies use his fraud prevention programs. In 1998, he was selected as a distinguished member of "Pinnacle 400" by CNN Financial News.
"Life is really quite simple," Abagnale nonetheless holds. "It is not important to be successful. It is not important to have millions of dollars and materialistic things. What is important is to have your family, to keep them together, and to be a success in the eyes of your children. That is the greatest success of all."

Between the ages of 16 and 21, Abagnale netted an estimated $2.5 million, largely by cashing phony checks, in 50 states and 26 countries. Today, he has made restitution and serves as a consultant to financial institutions and law enforcement agencies on fraud and other white collar crimes.

ABAGNALE’S LIFE of deception began in 1964, following the breakup of his parents’ 23-year marriage. Their divorce was revealed to the 16-year-old by the presiding judge, who informed Abagnale he was required by New York law to choose the parent with whom he would live. He chose to run, to New York City.

At roughly six feet tall, Abagnale was told by his friends he could "easily" pass for a man in his 20s. Armed with a doctored driver’s license, dissatisfaction with the wages he earned, and a fantasy of free travel and easy check-cashing, Abagnale secured a "spare" airline co-pilot’s uniform, improvised a reasonably realistic corporate identification card, and went to "work" for Pan American World Airways.

Over the next two years, he flew an estimated two million miles for free -- "on everybody else."

At 18, motivated by an FBI warrant for his arrest for interstate transportation of fraudulent checks, Abagnale moved to a singles apartment complex in Atlanta, Ga., where he was convinced his new identity as a pediatrician would be unchallenged by parental inquiries.

Abagnale was soon befriended by a fellow tenant -- the chief resident pediatrician at a nearby hospital -- and the former "pilot" eventually was asked to supervise a shift at a county hospital; he served as resident supervisor for nearly a year.

"The year I was there, I never laid a finger on a patient, never diagnosed anything, never administered drugs -- just a shift," he said.

ABAGNALE’S NEXT stop was Louisiana, where, "having never been to law school in my life," he passed the state bar, was licensed under the name Robert Conrad, and tried civil cases for nearly a year with the state attorney general’s office.

At the age of 20, Abagnale became a college professor at Brigham Young University in Provo, Utah, and taught two full semesters as a PhD. "Before I was old enough to drink, before reaching my 21st birthday, I was a millionaire twice over," he said.

What seemed to be a dream life turned into a nightmare when, at 21, Abagnale was arrested in the small French town where he was then living. Twenty-six countries filed extradition papers for Abagnale’s arrest, and a French court sent him to a prison In Southern France where he was to serve an undetermined sentence.

The prison, built in the 17th century, had no plumbing or electricity; Abagnale was stripped, placed in a "pitch-black" cell measuring five feet square, and equipped only with a bucket. His weight fell from 198 pounds to 109, and he contracted double pneumonia during what turned out to be a six-month stay.

THE CON MAN was then extradited to Sweden, where he was again convicted and imprisoned. The United States was third in line.

Abagnale’s parole, after nearly five years of a 12-year sentence, was not the end of his problems. His advancement in the modest jobs he was able to find was repeatedly blocked after higher-ups discovered his past transgressions.

Then Abagnale began, through what was to become Abagnale and Associates, to develop programs to help financial institutions deal with fraud. He initially offered his program on a six-month free trial basis and found he could turn his reputation into "something very positive."
 
 

Chicago cop staked out X territory before Files opened

Mad scientists, socialite thrill-killers, globe-trotting assassins, and flame-thrower wielding sociopaths? Not on Capt. Hugh Holton's watch.

But for Larry Cole, the late 31-year Chicago Police Department veteran's badge-wearing detective creation, the supernormal and supervillainous are part of the beat. Holton, who was promoted from lieutenant prior to his death in 2001, has set out in his series of Cole novels to write "essentially the book I would like to read."

Imagine a little NYPD Blue, an occasional smattering of the X-Files -- except Holton knows the policeman lot firsthand and Cole's debut novel, 1994's Presumed Dead, was in development well before the macabre files of Agents Mulder and Scully hit the airwaves.

"I didn't join the force to be a writer; I joined the force to be a cop," he related. "I worked as a patrol officer for about three years, then I was promoted to detective. I was assigned to work crimes on the West Side, mostly felonies, in the Violent Crimes Unit.

"I was a big reader, also, and as I began to encounter things, I was saying, 'This, in conjunction with maybe two or three other cases, would make a good novel.' I was reading a book after I'd solved a homicide, a very good police procedural called The First Deadly Sin, by Lawrence Sanders, and I remember when I said, 'You know, I could do something like this, if I could put enough elements together.' It took me about 16 years to do it."

Holton's posthumous Larry Cole novel, The Devil's Shadow, released in 2002, dealing with the death of a mystery author, an international thief, the Mob, and Cole's first undercover assignment is due in bookstores in May. He is editing a nonfiction work, The Thin Black Line, a three-year "work-in-progress" collecting anecdotes from African-American police officers from across the nation, and is fine-tuning new Cole novels to be published tentatively in 2003 and 2004.

Unlike cops-turned-author such as Joseph Wambaugh, who have incorporated their police experiences into their fiction, Holton is quick to admit Cole's cases transpire largely in his imagination. Presumed Dead dabbles in weird science against an eerie museum backdrop; Holton's follow-up, Windy City, pits Cole and a crew of mystery authors against a wealthy Chicago couple involved in a monstrous crime spree. Red Lightning (1998) finds Cole battling Jonathan Gault, a disenfranchised scientist with an arsenal Batman might envy, while 1999's The Left Hand of God features skullduggery at the 2004 Olympics and a shape-shifting African folk monster.

Further, Cole has enjoyed what in law enforcement circles would be considered a meteoric rise in the ranks: In 1996' Violent Crimes, readers follow both Patrolman Larry Cole in 1976 and Commander Larry Cole in 1991, and by The Left Hand of God, Cole has been elevated to chief of detectives. "That was a bit of a leap, but I wanted Cole to be able to do certain things and to have a certain amount of freedom," Holton said.

Fact occasionally intrudes into Holton's fictional universe. Presumed Dead fictionalized a true incident -- the disappearance of the daughter of Chicago Museum of Science and Industry founder Julius Rosenwald -- and Violent Crimes' initial crime, as well as a key scene involving Patrolman Cole's arrest of a rapist, were based on one of his actual cases back in the early '70s.

"I caught the guy," then-patrolman Holton recalled. "I was writing up a parking violation and the guy came off a side street. He looked at me, gave me a double-take, and he put his head down and started walking. I said, 'Come here," he took off on me, and I caught him after a really short chase.

"I had nothing on this guy, and he started saying he hadn't done something to 'her.' Eventually, it led back to the (victim), but she was like, 'He didn't do anything to me.' He's just about confessed to me at this point, but I've got no complainant. I had to let me go, and he went back and raped her again."

A few of Cole's colorful police colleagues are based in part on real-life officers. Cole's friend and partner, Lt. Blackie Silvestri is in fact an amalgam of J.T. "Tom" Ford, the "no-nonsense" late partner of Holton's policeman father, Hubert Holton; highly decorated Chicago cop Jimmy Ahern; and the borrowed eccentricities of other police acquaintances.

Sean Connery or Anthony Quinn are Holton's dream picks for any cinematic portrayal of the tough but good-hearted Silvestri; Cole is more of a casting challenge for the author. Holton has discussed the notion of a Cole film with at least one Hollywood studio, but although "I would never say no to Denzel Washington or Laurence Fishburne, they're not him and he's not them."

Holton's books, which have won the policeman inclusion on the Chicago Tribune's bestseller list, join a growing list of mysteries by popular African-American authors, including fellow Chicagoland writer Eleanor Taylor Bland and Walter Mosley, whose period private eye tale Devil in a Blue Dress was brought to the big screen starring Washington. But where Mosley's Easy Rawlins books depict the changing environment for African-Americans in Southern California following World War II, Holton stressed his primary objective is entertainment.

The captain noted the initial Chicago Sun-Times review of Presumed Dead dubbed the work "Presume Nothing, because it's not the kind of book you'd expect a black cop to write."

"I'm not writing the traditional mystery, as far as it goes -- I'm writing an adventure story, No. 1," Holton explained. "If you look at Gar Anthony Haywood and Gary Phillips out on the West Coast, their private detectives are integral parts of a black community, where Larry Cole is not. Larry Cole is the chief of the Chicago Police Department, who happens to be black."