In late 2011, a clerk in the city of Dixon, IL, discovered a bank account controlled solely by the city’s comptroller and treasurer that looked suspicious. After some investigation, the fraud was discovered, and the scheme was exposed. Rather than confronting the controller of the account, then-Mayor James Burke notified the FBI, and an investigation quietly and quickly began. At that point, the house of cards immediately began to crumble. Dixon, known early on by most Americans as the childhood residence of Ronald Reagan, later became the victim of the nation’s largest municipality fraud scheme in history, reaching nearly $54 million
Hired in 1983 as a comptroller and assuming duties as treasurer, Rita Crundwell began her tenure with the city of nearly 15,000 residents. For the first seven years, everything stayed above board until control of many of the city’s finances became under her guidance.
Crundwell also had a passion for showing horses on a national scale. She built a breeding program that established her as one of the nation’s best and most astute breeders in the country. As her program developed, so did her scheme with the city’s finances, which helped fund her lavish lifestyle at the nation’s largest horse shows.
When Crundwell began her scheme, the city had built a $10 million dollar balance, but by the time the FBI had her in cuffs in the spring of 2012, the city was in debt nearly $22 million.
RC Quarter Horses, the name of Crundwell’s ranch, included 52 world champions that had garnered over 1,000 trophies, award saddles and memorabilia for her winnings. The assets of her operation were sold off in a complete dispersal sale in September of 2012 in which 29 of the world champions were listed in the sale catalog. With over 400 head of horses in a fully integrated breeding facility, the auction brought attention from across the globe. The year prior to her arrest, at the World Championships in Oklahoma City, she entered 19 horses and captured nine world titles.
At the time of the sale, her most famous stud, Good I Will Be, brought $775,000 and two months later tied to win the senior western riding at the national Congress show and was third in the AQHA World Show at the same time. Unfortunately, he was later euthanized due to surgery complications the following fall.
Crundwell’s actions have been highly documented, dissected and reported on. Her scheme wasn’t lavish in terms of sophistication but was most definitely in terms of amount for a small city. Creating a bank account that appeared to be city-maintained, she hid funds through false invoices and wrote checks to “Treasurer,” depositing the checks of various amounts. Starting small at first, Crundwell then began depositing larger amounts. In a single year, she defrauded the city over $5 million dollars. The city’s budget ranges from $8-9 million per year at the time of the crimes.
Since her arrest, the city was able to recoup some of the value stolen, mostly through a settlement against the city’s auditors and bank. The dispersal sale garnered $9 million. She was sentenced to 19.5 years in prison. After serving eight and a half years, she petitioned to be released due to concerns for COVID-19 and was eventually moved to a halfway house, which is alleged at her brother’s residence near where her horse operation functioned.
In what has become a trend of outgoing presidents, the Biden administration included Crundwell in the nation’s largest sweeping act of clemency where her sentence was commuted. Now, residents of Dixon are outraged over the move, saying she hasn’t paid her price while the city is still reeling from her actions. President Joe Biden pardoned 39 individuals and commuted nearly 1,500 individuals, the largest amount by any president in history. This is also on the heels of granting his own son of a full pardon, which gives off a terrible smell of deflection. Independent Sen. Bernie Sanders (VT) said of the pardon of Hunter Biden, “I think the precedent being set is kind of a dangerous one. It was a very wide open pardon which could, under different circumstances, lead to problems in terms of future presidents.”
Residents of Dixon have signaled their frustration, including City Administrator Danny Langloss, who claimed, “We’re the victims of this crime and there was no consideration of that by the federal government or the president.”
The issue we run into is there was a unanimous gasp when the list of individuals was released. High-profile crimes with several multimillion-dollar fraud schemes and heavy sentences were among this group. It seems hypocritical to not want someone to have a second chance at a lawful life, but when individuals have served fractions of their sentences, and there are victims in these situations including an entire rural city, the uproar seems unified in this circumstance. — LOGAN IPSEN
