By the time she was a 13-year-old in 1973, Tanya Smith had procured a plane ticket, flown to Michael Jackson’s childhood home and begged to meet him. By the time she was 20, she accrued millions by breaking into banks’ computer systems. By 30, she was spending what would be more than 13 years in prison for wire fraud, bank fraud, conspiracy and attempted credit card fraud.

In a new memoir, Smith tells all those stories and more — including teasing a friend’s big brother, a guy named Prince, who rehearsed and performed at the Capri Theater, then owned by Smith’s dad. “Never Saw Me Coming: How I Outsmarted the FBI and the Entire Banking System — and Pocketed $40 Million,” is in stores now.

Reading more like fiction than memoir, “Never” is a page-turner. It’s packed with: Unbelievable computer scams. Terrible choices in men, whom she writes stole much of the money (she hid some and never recovered it). Prison escapes. And heartbreaking loss — Smith is very close to her daughter, recent college graduate Makala, who learned of her mom’s former life a decade ago when she stumbled upon some news clippings. But she declined to talk about her two other children, born while she was imprisoned.

Smith now lives in Los Angeles, where she rides her bike 15 miles a day, stopping to care for unhoused people along her route and working a part-time customer service job. The conversation has been edited for length and clarity.

Q: You’ve been out of prison for 25 years and a lot of these memories are painful. Why pour them into a book now?

A: My daughter was pushing me to tell the story. I was reluctant to do it. She was like, “Mom, you have this great story. You’ve got to tell the world everything you went through.” And I finally did it. I wanted it to be really raw and relatable.

Q: “Insecure” series creator Issa Rae blurbs your book on the cover and I can easily imagine her in a movie or series based on it. …

A: They actually had my first movie deal with Netflix. Her and David Heyman, who (produced) “Barbie.” But I’m no longer with Netflix. I have other things going on that I’m not at liberty to talk about.

Q: So there is a movie in the works?

A: We’ve got some great things coming up. I wish I could talk about it. But I have to let other people announce that. (After a “lively auction,” there’s “exciting adaptation news” coming soon, according to Smith’s publisher.) My life has been a roller-coaster ride. People needed to feel that to understand me and why I did what I did.

Q: Why did you start stealing money and depositing it in the accounts of friends and family?

A: My parents always said I could have been anything I wanted to be. But when I was younger, I used to think, “I want to change the world. I want to make it better.” My two best girlfriends, it drove me crazy when people would discriminate against them. It drove me crazy when people tried to be who they weren’t so I was always defending them. I always wanted to help people.

Q: Some fun stories in the book have to do with pre-fame Prince. You were friends with his younger sister, Tyka. Did you have any idea he was destined for greatness?

A: No, never. Prince was just — we knew he was talented. We watched him play all these instruments ever since he was very young. But he was just Tyka’s brother. He was always a nice person.

Q: How were you able as a teenager, with a computer you hid in your family’s attic, to bust into banking networks and steal tens of millions of dollars?

A: Somehow my brain just kicks in and I can figure stuff out. I can make it happen. I’ve always been like that.

Q: You write about being questioned by Minneapolis police, who refused to believe a young Black woman was smart enough to do what you were doing. You had a strong reaction to them incorrectly insisting someone else was pulling your strings, correct?

A: Growing up in north Minneapolis, I never experienced racism. My friends were all races of people, all religions, and I grew up in a household where we were all just human beings. So the first time I encountered racism, really, was when I was in that interrogation room. That was the turning point for me. I was always trying to help other people but that’s when I felt, “OK, let me show you how smart this Black woman is.”

Q: And if you hadn’t been treated like that, do you think your life could have gone another way?

A: The thing is, if they would have came to me and said, “Tanya, you’re brilliant. You’re smart. Let’s figure out a way you can help us stop people from doing these things with banks,” I would have been more than happy and willing. But that didn’t happen.

Q: And the racism continued in prison?

A: I never minded taking responsibility for the things I did but being given 24 ½ years for a crime that only carried a five-year penalty, that was my biggest problem. I believe in equality. If someone does the same thing, you don’t give one person more time because of the color of their skin.

Q: The book was originally announced for release in 2021 but it’s coming out three years later. Why?

A: For so long, before I decided to write this book, I never talked about my life. No one ever knew. My daughter never knew. So it was really heavy because I was keeping this all inside. I felt like I wasn’t being who I really am. It was a heavy burden lifted, being able to say, “I’m Tanya Smith,” because it was really (she begins crying) difficult not being able to be who I am. I feel like just at the beginning of writing this book is when I became free. Even when I got out of prison, I couldn’t find a job because of my background, or I’d get hired for a job and then they’d run a background check.

Q: But someone finally gave you a chance, the man who hired you for the part-time customer service job you’ve had for more than eight years. Was it hard to tell him the truth about your background?

A: He doesn’t know yet. I didn’t tell him yet. But when the book comes out, he will. I’m OK with it now.

Tribune News Service