Ray William Johnson: True Story Podcast - Greedy Woman Steals $53,000,000 From Her City - The Rita Crundwell story

Episode Date: April 12, 2025

The Rita Crundwell story is one of the largest municipal fraud cases in U.S. history. As the longtime comptroller of Dixon, Illinois, Crundwell embezzled over $53 million from the small town over two decades, using the funds to finance a lavish lifestyle that included luxury cars, jewelry, and one of the nation’s top quarter horse breeding operations. She kept the theft hidden by creating a fake bank account and manipulating city financial records, all while Dixon struggled with budget cuts and deficits.

Paraday presents, in the red corner, the undisputed, undefeated weed whacker guys. Champion of hurling grass and pollen everywhere. And in the blue corner, the challenger, extra strength, Padaday! Eye drops and work all day to prevent the release of histamines that cause itchy allergy eyes. And the winner, by knockout, is Padaday. Padaday. Bring it on. I have created the most advanced AI soldier.

The wait is over. Tron Aries now streaming on Disney Plus. We are looking for something. Something you've discovered. And some of us will stop at nothing to get it. Ready? The countdown is complete. There's no going back.

Dr. Rective is clear. Hang on! Tron Ares now streaming on Disney Plus, rated PG-13. So this horse lady, she has... has a problem. She really wants to be rich. But unfortunately she has no way to make that kind of money. She's just a regular woman from a small town. And one day in 1990, she figures out exactly how she's going to do it. She's going to rob the city. Now, her name is Rita and Rita's 37 and she's living in the small town of Dixon, Illinois, and she works in City Hall as the treasurer and

comptroller, which basically means she controls this little city's finance. And because she controls the finances, she decides to divert some of that money to herself. So she goes and she opens a secret bank account in the city's name. And no one knows this account exists. And she starts funneling the city's money into that account, tens of thousands of dollars at a time. And within the first year, she has stolen $181,000. Not bad. And of course, Rita's got to take this money and spend it on some bulls.

Like she treats herself to a shopping spree, she buys some $3,000 diamond earrings, she buys a $19,000 pontoon boat with a barbecue grill and a whole ass bar on it. Oh, and she doesn't stop there. Over the next two years, she funnels even more of the city's money into the account. So now she's up to over $300,000 that she's taken. And still, no one notices because she's the treasurer and comptroller. So she just keeps going. Over the next decade, she takes more and more of that money and she spends it on herself.

And she buys all kinds of stuff. She buys Versace glasses, $3,000 worth of jewelry, an entire furniture set for her living room. And then two years later, she steals more. And she buys herself a golf cart and a quarter horse and a $7,000 custom saddle for that horse. And a year after that, she buys a new truck in a second boat. Because, you know, you got to have two boats. plus a $100,000 motor home to travel around in. In a year or so after that, she spends $125,000 on yet another horse.

Then she spends a half a million dollars remodeling her home, and she adds a pool and a sauna. Rita is out of control with this spending. Here's the thing, though. At this point, she's been pulling the scam for over a decade, and still, no one working at City Hall has caught on, Which is weird because her salary, the salary that the city pays her, is only $80,000 a year. So you'd think at least some people would be like, where the hell is Rita getting all this money for like new horses and shit?

Because a big chunk of what Rita buys herself are new horses. I mean, this woman loves horses. And so she starts buying herself tons of them. And she's always traveling around the country in her $100,000 motorhome to compete in like horse shows. Because I guess that's her thing. And she actually wins a lot of these horse shows. Here she is winning one of them. Here she is winning another.

And here she is winning another. And just for fun, here she is drunk holding up a sign that says, It's good to be queen. Meanwhile, this whole time, the city, the city that she works for, is running out of money. They're in tons of debt. And they don't have sufficient funds for things like they can't afford to replace broken traffic lights. They can't afford wheelchair ramps.

They have to make cuts to the fire department and the police department, and they cut some of the funding for ambulances, you know, shit that people need. And Rita oversees the budget so she knows the city's broke and that all these cuts are happening, but she doesn't give a damn. In fact, when the city's lack of funds ever comes up, she'll always suggest that they just make more budget cuts. And the whole time, she keeps on spending so that she can travel around and win more horse shows. She buys herself more cars and more horses. She buys herself a whole ass ranch to keep

all these new horses in. She upgrades to a new motor home. This one costs two million dollars. And still, no one in city hall and no one in this town is like, how in the hell is this city worker driving around a two million dollar motor home? And to make it worse, Rita's wealth, it kind of shows. It's not like she's hiding it well. I mean, look at this picture. She's got on the rindon Cowboy Jacket and what looks like several diamond necklaces. Even the names of her horses are all suspect as hell. They got names like I'm Money to have faith in money, money's moxie, money is hot, jewels by Tiffany,

packing jewels. And by the way, those are the real names of her horses. I didn't make any of those up. And so by 2006, Rita has been funneling money from the city's budget into her own secret bank account for 15 years. And at this point, she's stolen almost $26 million. And she is not going to stop. She keeps stealing more and more and spending it on herself. She spends $5.6 million and buys a house in Florida and she adds an elevator. She buys a new horse trailer. She buys two new cars. So now she has over a dozen cars. And yes, she buys even more horses, which means at this point in time, Rita has bought herself over 300 horses. So while the city is crumbling,

she's just like, well, guess I'll just buy myself another horse. So by 2009, she's stolen more than $40 million from the city's budget. 40 million, just one bank transfer at a time. The thing is, because she controls the city's funds, she's gotten really good at covering her tracks. Like she makes all kinds of fake invoices so that every expense looks legit. Even the secret bank account that she funnels all the money into, she names it the reserve sewer capital development account, which not only sounds official and boring, it sounds like it's connected to the city's sewer system. And no one's going to second guess a bank account that holds the money to pay for the city's sewer. Until, until it all starts to fall apart. Because,

Rita is around 58 years old at this point, and she's still embezzling city money, and she ain't slowing down anytime soon. Like here she is at a party in a white fur coat, just looking rich as fuck. So one day in 2011, Rita decides to take a little trip. She's going to be gone for a few months because she has to go compete in a bunch of these horse shows. While she's gone from work, this woman has to step in. And her nickname is Swan, so that's what we'll call her. And so Rita's gone and Swan is there filling in and she's done this a million times for Rita. Every time Rita goes to horse shows, Swan will fill in. Now, normally when Swan needs bank records for something, she calls the bank and she tells

them the account and the bank faxes over the records. But on this particular day, I guess she's too busy to be specific or something. So she calls the bank and asks for the records and the bank's like, which account? And Swan's like, just send all the records. Just send them all. Now the bank is supposed to send over the records for the six bank accounts the city has with them. But in fact, the bank sends over the records for seven bank accounts. So Swan is like seven bank accounts.

I thought we only had six. And she notices one of them is an account for the city's sewer system. And she knows the city ain't got no bank account for the funds for the sewer. So she immediately knows some fraud is going on. And so she takes this info to the city's city. mayor and the mayor is like, yep, looks like fraud. And so he alerts the FBI. And six months later, the fed swoop into City Hall and bam, they arrest Rita. Here's her mugshot. And so after more than 20 years, Rita had stolen over $53 million. She goes to trial and she's found guilty and she gets

sentenced to 20 years in prison. But after eight years, the president commutes her sentence and she's out now so it's crazy