For 22 years, Rita Crundwell ran the finances of Dixon, Illinois, with such devotion that a city commissioner once praised her for looking after every tax dollar as if it were her own.
He had no idea how right he was.
While the town of 16,000 cut budgets, neglected roads, and scrambled to explain why there was never enough money, their trusted comptroller was quietly siphoning $53.7 million into a secret bank account she had opened in 1990.
On the side, she was winning 52 world championship horse titles, parking a $2.1 million motor home on her ranch, and furnishing her home with a chandelier made from revolvers and a floor engraved with her own initials.
She was only caught because she took a vacation.
A deputy covering her desk found a bank account nobody recognised, called the mayor, and six months later FBI agents were waiting at her door when she showed up for work.
She was sentenced to nearly 20 years — the largest municipal theft in American history — but served just eight before being quietly released, and in December 2024, President Biden commuted her sentence entirely.
Dixon got most of its money back. Rita got her freedom. The horses were auctioned off.
One of them was named I Found a Penny.
