Scamfluencers - ENCORE: The Quarter Horse Queen

Episode Date: March 17, 2025

We’ll be back next week with all-new episodes but in the meantime we’re bringing back a very timely episode. In 2024, President Biden commuted the sentences of nearly 1,500 people in one day… including one of our very own Scamfluencers. Rita Crundwell had horse girl dreams, and she used her job as comptroller of a small Illinois town to pull off a colossal fraud. She poured millions into showing quarter horses and lived extravagantly… until one nosy co-worker unraveled the entire scheme. Rita bankrupted an entire town in what became the biggest case of municipal embezzlement in U.S. history. Be the first to know about Wondery’s newest podcasts, curated recommendations, and more! Sign up now at https://wondery.fm/wonderynewsletterListen to Scamfluencers on the Wondery App or wherever you get your podcasts. You can listen early and ad-free on Wondery+. Join Wondery+ in the Wondery App, Apple Podcasts or Spotify. Start your free trial by visiting wondery.com/links/scamfluencers/ now.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Wondery Plus subscribers can listen to scamfluencers early and ad-free right now. Join Wondery Plus in the Wondery app or Apple podcasts. Hey everyone, we'll be back next week with all new episodes. But in the meantime, we're returning to one of our scammers who actually has a huge update. Yeah, Rita Cronwell was an unassuming comptroller of her small hometown of Dixon, Illinois, until she decided to crime big time to pursue her horse girl dreams. Rita stole more than $53 million to buy fancy horses, trailers, and outfits for horse shows. But she also built a mansion with a pool, a house in Florida, and crystal-studded sponge bob jewelry.

It was the largest municipal theft in U.S. history. She was sentenced to nearly 20 years in federal prison, but in 2021, after serving just eight years, she was released to a halfway house to serve the rest of her time. But in December 2024, then President Joe Biden commuted the sentences of nearly 1,500 people in one day, including Rita. Biden said that, quote, these commutation recipients who are placed on home confinement during the COVID pandemic have successfully reintegrated into their families and communities and have shown that they deserve a second chance. You know, I feel kind of ambivalent about this.

This is not the worst thing Biden did at any point in his political career. But I imagine people in her hometown weren't very happy about this. This is not the worst thing Biden did at any point in his political career. But I imagine people in her hometown were very happy about it. Yeah, this did not go over well with the people of Dixon. Dixon City Manager Danny Langloss Jr. said the decision to commute Rita's sentence was, quote, a complete travesty of justice and a slap in the face for our entire community. No word on whether Rita has plans to reenter the horse world, but wherever she is, she's living scot-free. This story came up during our Thanksgiving special and it reminded us just how insane this story was.

And now we're sharing it with you so you can join the course online screaming how crazy the part in is. Happy listening. Sachi, when you hear the term horse girl, what comes to mind? Rich, 20-year-old girls and Bushwick doing ketamine. Okay, well, I picture something a bit more wholesome. I just honestly picture a girl with a long ponytail ponytail and maybe she's a bit of a bitch, but she gets shit done, you know? Is she also doing ketamine? She could be. Okay, all right,

then I'm on board. Well, I am about to tell you about the ultimate horse girl, one who actually almost got away with a record-breaking scam. It's November 2011, and thousands of people are gathered in Oklahoma City for the American Quarter Horse Association's World Championship show. This is like the Super Bowl of the horse show world. It is a very big deal. But there's one woman who's the biggest deal of all. She's probably rolling up in her $.1 million dollar RV. Her name is Rita Crundwell and she's a blonde in her 50s. She's wearing a huge white cowboy

hat and a matching bedazzled jacket. She's known for her fancy show outfits with shirts that cost around $1,800. And it's not just a giant RV and bougie fits that make Rita the one to watch here. She's also got a caravan of trailers with her initials emblazoned on the side and a small herd of horses. Most competitors have one or two, maybe three horses here today, but Rita's got six times that. The more horses an owner has, the more wins it can rack up.

And no one is surprised when Rita wins the Oklahoma City Leading Owner Award for the eighth year in a row. It's her undisputed crown. She's leagues ahead of her competitors, mostly because she spent millions over the last two decades buying and breeding some 400 quarter horses. But Rita is hiding a dark secret. Her dominance has only been possible because she's running one of the biggest city government

scams ever. She's stealing practically every last penny from her hometown. When the truth comes out, it'll topple her horse kingdom and make her infamous. Until April 2nd, sky-high elegance at dream prices during the Air France Rendez-Vous. It's time to book your Rendez-Vous with Paris starting at $765 or Madrid starting at $885 return. From Toronto, tax included. You can enjoy a glass of champagne however you fly, economy included. Elegance is a journey. Air France.

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Rita Cronwell is basically just a horse girl who grew up, refused to let her horse girl dreams die, and went on to steal a ton of money from her day job in order to fund her obsession. And Sachi, this scam is a rare breed. Rita stole millions of dollars and somehow she got away with it for more than 20 years. I cannot wait to take you on this crazy ride. So buckle up and hold on to your horses.

This is the Quarter Horse Queen. It's June of 1971. Rita Crandwell is in her hometown of Dixon, Illinois, walking in her high school graduation ceremony. Dixon is about two hours west of Chicago, and it's quintessential Americana. Its claim to fame is that Ronald Reagan grew up there. Rita's 18 with mousy brown hair, a crooked smile, and the nerdiest octagon-shaped glasses I've ever seen. Check out this photo of her from high school. Rita looks like one of the Manson sisters. Yeah, she she definitely has the 70s vibe. Yeah, I'm

into it. And Rita's smart with a bright future ahead of her, but she's wavering over what she wants to do with her life. On the one hand, there's college, but on the other, she's got a job offer. She spent the last year interning at City Hall. Now her mentor, the city's comptroller, wants her to stay on full time. She even hints that maybe one day, Rita can take over the comptroller job, which is basically a more powerful treasurer position. We don't know what Rita dreamt of doing as a kid, but I'm gonna assume it wasn't being a glorified accountant

for her small town. What she probably dreamt of doing was showing quarter horses. They're like the Swiss army knives of the equestrian world. They're good at everything from racing to working with cattle. And also, people love to show them the same way they show dogs. Rita and her younger sister grew up on a farm.

They watched their mom compete in shows, running alongside beautiful horses and beaming at the crowd. Rita's got her mom's competitive drive. She's constantly fighting with her sister over who will show the better horses, and Rita always wins. Because when she wants something, she gets it. As she crosses a stage to collect her diploma,

I imagine she looks into the audience and finds her mom. And maybe she thinks, it wouldn't be so bad to follow in her footsteps. She could stay in Dixon and make a decent living. Showing quarter horses is an expensive hobby, but if she starts working now, she could save up to buy her own horses someday. So that summer, Rita takes a job at City Hall and starts down a path that will eventually make her famous for all the wrong reasons. It's about a decade later, and things are not going well for Rita.

She's ditched the glasses and dyed her hair blonde, but she's still in Dixon working at City Hall, and she's about to divorce a real jerk of a husband. To make matters worse, her mom recently passed away without ever seeing her daughter win a national award. But it seems like her mom's passing only makes Rita more obsessed with showing quarter horses. She's saved up enough money to buy her first horse and start competing, and she's determined to rise up the ranks. I actually have a picture of her from around

this time. Sachi, could you please describe it? It's very 80s. Uh, Rita is wearing like a puffy black vest and black jeans and white sneakers and she's got kind of bouffant blonde hair and she's uh guiding a very good looking horse. Yes. Well, one day Rita's back in the saddle at the 1985 Indiana State Quarter Horse Championship. But something feels different. She can sense it as she parades her horse around for the judges. They score both Rita and the horse's performance,

accounting for her showmanship and how well the horse hits its marks. Rita holds her breath, and then the judges announce. She's the winner. It's the biggest win of her career She's so happy she could cry and she's probably wishing that her mom was there to see it that same year Rita also wins a national quarter horse title in Texas and now she doesn't just want more ribbons and trophies She seems to crave them She set her sights on one prize in particular, the Leading Owner Award.

Winning it is like being the valedictorian of the horse show, but to get it, she'll need more horses. Quarter horses are expensive. A world champion horse can cost as much as $250,000, and that doesn't begin to cover board and care. Even a bargain horse costs thousands of dollars. To expand her stables and get to the top, Rita's gonna have to find a lot more money. About five years later, Rita's

reviewing Dixon's annual budget in her office at City Hall. It's beige and boring with a U-shaped desk and tons of filing cabinets. It's the early 90s, and Rita has taken over as comptroller, which means she controls the purse strings of the entire town. She's been working for the city for two decades, and everyone trusts her enough to basically dictate the budget.

Here's how Dixon's chief of police later described Rita's role in an interview with NBC. If you had a question, go to Rita. If you need something, go to Rita. Any time you have an expenditure of any significance, you need to check through Rita. But Rita doesn't just want to be known around City Hall. She wants to be famous and fabulous in the horse world. And if she really wants to compete for world championships, her city employee's salary is just not going to cut it. She could ask for a raise, but even that

probably wouldn't cover her big aspirations. So she starts to think, maybe she could just borrow money from the city. They've got plenty, and they probably wouldn't even notice if someone missing. So Rita opens a new bank account in the city's name. She calls it the Reserve Sewer Capital Development Account. The idea is to make it sound as official and boring as possible so people won't ask questions. You know what? She's right.

Just hearing the name of that bank account is so fucking boring that I don't want to ask any follow-up questions about it. It's boring and who knows how much that stuff costs. Yeah, I guess like how much does a sewer cost like a billion dollars? Well, Rita knows. She creates fake invoices that look like they're for real city projects. She takes tens of thousands of dollars out of the fake city account and puts it into her personal one. Within a year, she steals $181,000.

Endless in satchel, Rita loves horses and definitely wants more, but she decides to treat herself a bit first. She uses her new money to buy some diamond stud earrings. Then she buys a pontoon boat with a wet bar and a barbecue on board, followed by more earrings. Once Rita gets a taste for luxury, there's no turning back. As the years go by, Rita starts taking more and more from Dixon. By 1993, she's stolen more and more from Dixon.

By 1993, she's stolen more than $300,000 without anyone noticing. And now she really hits her stride. Sachi, I'm about to walk you through the next decade of purchases that Rita makes with the money she steals from Dixon. Are you ready? Yes, this is the shopping makeover montage that I've always wanted from the show. I imagine Julia Roberts in Pretty Woman, but for 10 years and it's a city's money. In 1995, Rita steals a hundred grand.

And around this time, she buys an entire furniture set for her living room, Versace glasses, and a $3,000 piece of jewelry from the Tracy White collection. Two years later, she spends $35,000 on a new quarter horse named Two Thumbs Up. She also gets a custom saddle for nearly $7,000 and a golf cart. Then the year after that, she buys a nearly $100,000 mobile home to travel around to all her horse shows. Then she buys a second boat and a Chevy pickup. And in 1999, she spends $125,000 for a horse called Can't Fool Patty.

The next year, she spends nearly half a million dollars remodeling her home into a log cabin palace. She builds a pool and an underground garage and doubles the square footage. Sachi, you have to check out this video tour of her Midwestern mansion. This is such a rich cowboy lady house. The house is lousy with those those like big brass stars that you always see on people's houses in small towns. Yes it's very yellowstone. Yeah it's very yellowstone. It's a lot of barrels and

oak and leather. It looks expensive. Well after nearly a decade of stealing, Rita really escalates. I don't know what gets into her, but in 2001, she spends another half million on three more horses. It's not clear exactly how many horses Rita's got at this point, but it's enough for her to compete in the biggest horse shows and win. At the 2004 Oklahoma City Select Finals, Rita finally takes home the award

she's been coveting for years. She's the newest leading owner. Queen Rita has arrived. This is a beautiful story about how if you believe in yourself and you work really hard and you steal millions of dollars from your municipality, your dreams can come true. The next year, she upgrades to a motorhome worth nearly $2 million.

She buys more horses, more cars, and builds a whole ranch. It's got a 20,000-square-foot barn, an arena, and stables. A year later, she wins a Leading Owner Award again. She's known all over the country as the undisputed queen of quarter horses, just like she's dreamt about since she was a kid. And Sachi, it is good to be queen. Just take a look at this picture of her.

Oh, I love photography of zany, drunk white women, and this is top tier. It's Rita wearing a nice little sweater set, but she's also wearing like a party city masquerade mask over her eyes, and then also a sign that says, it's good to be queen. And you know she thought that was so clever. Yeah, she is on top of the world in this photo.

Rita is living it up, and at the same time, So clever. Yeah, she is on top of the world in this photo. Rita is living it up, and at the same time, she's kind of rubbing the scam in everyone's face. I mean, just listen to some of the names of her horses. She scores, I money too, I found a penny, good I will be, and careful who you invite. Why don't people give horses normal names? Like, dogs are out here being called like Chester and Jake, and this horse is called like, suck my butt, I'm stealing money from the city.

Well, I guess if it costs that much money, you want to maximize the name you could give it. Yeah, you know what? If a piece of livestock cost me like $10,000, I probably also couldn't be like, come on, Steve, get on the barn. Well, by 2006, Rita's been siphoning money from the city for 15 years, and she's stolen almost $26 million.

And meanwhile, the city of Dixon is suffering. They've had to make some intense cuts. They've abandoned projects to replace traffic lights and add more wheelchair ramps. They've also slashed the budgets of the fire and police departments, but no matter what they do, they keep coming up short. And even though Rita's bawling out

at horse shows around the country, she keeps a low profile in town. So it seems like no one connects Dixon's deflated budget with Rita's over-the-top lifestyle. A few people wonder how she's able to afford her growing herd of horses, but nobody wants to pry. Rita's gotten away with it for so long, she probably figures she'll keep stealing until she retires. But a mix-up at the office will finally threaten

to knock her off her high horse. for women. Bite Back with Abby Sharp is proudly sponsored by Tenna Sensitive Care Incontinence Pads for Women. 77% of women with bladder weakness experience skin irritation while wearing incontinence protection. Tenna Sensitive Care Pads are enriched with skin comfort formula to help protect intimate skin from irritation while providing triple protection against leaks odor and moisture. Sleep tight, wake up bright with Tenna-sensitive care pads. Learn more at tenna.ca. This new year, why not let Audible expand your life by listening? Audible CA contains over 890,000 total titles within its current library,

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There's a framed photo of Ronald Reagan on the wall behind him. The country is still reeling from the financial crisis, and the city of Dixon is suffering. At this point, Dixon is more than a million dollars in debt. Things are so bad that they've considered taking out massive loans, but that's more of a stopgap than anything. They need to do something to fix this now. At one point in the budget meeting, Dixon's finance commissioner takes a microphone. His name is Roy Bridgman. He's in his late 60s and bald, with thin, translucent glasses. He tells a room that they're looking at potential layoffs and cuts to work hours, benefits,

and city services. Roy turns to Rita. He's known her almost her whole life. He was actually her high school teacher. And now he needs her help getting the city out of this mess. The truth is, the city would be fine if Rita stopped stealing. Because by this point, nearly two decades into her con, she's stolen more than $40 million from the city's accounts. But of course, Rita can't admit that. Instead, she probably repeats the same bogus explanation she's been giving for years, that the state of Illinois is withholding loan payments or is too slow to send them because of the recession.

Rita says they just have to keep making more cuts. And because everyone trusts her so much, they take her word for it. They brainstorm ways to make up for their debt. They start by cutting $38,000 worth of ambulances, equipment, and training from the city's emergency vehicle fund. But Roy says they'll need to cut a lot more. And he says each department should get their recommended cuts to Rita.

Oh, gross. I know. And meanwhile, Rita's still bawling out. And apparently she feels no guilt about it. While her colleagues are talking about budget cuts, she wires more than $100,000 to herself to buy a two-bedroom Mediterranean-style house in Florida. She remodels it, orders custom furniture,

and even adds an elevator. Then she spends more than $250,000 for a horse trailer. A few months later, she buys a Ford Thunderbird and a Chevy Silverado. So she has about a dozen cars now, and that's not counting the tractors, trailers, and boats. Thunderbird and a Chevy Silverado. So she has about a dozen cars now, and that's not counting the tractors, trailers, and boats. But of course, the horses are really the main event.

And in September, Rita buys a new one named Pizzazzi Lady for a whopping quarter million dollars. Do you think that horse is depressed because the horse is named Pizzazzi Lady? I feel like if the horse knew its name was Pizzazzi Lady and how much it was worth, it would probably like have a mental breakdown. Yeah, exactly. I feel like, just shoot me. It's time.

I don't want to be known as Pizzazzi Lady. My name is Denise. Rita's at the top of the horse world, racking up wins left, right, and center. If there were ever a time to celebrate, it's now. And let me tell you, the only thing Rita seems to love more than spending money on horses is an excuse to throw an extravagant party. A few months later, in January 2010, a young woman named Dakota Diamond Griffith walks along the pier in Venice Beach, Florida.

She's got white blonde hair and heavy eye makeup, and she's a bit of a rodeo queen. Dakota's a teenager, but she's on her way to the birthday bash for a much older friend, Rita Crundwell. Rita's turning 57, and she's throwing a party at a restaurant called Sharky's. The drinks are flowing and the music is blasting. Dakota mingles, waiting for the woman of the hour to arrive. When Rita eventually shows up,

she's wearing a stunning white coat with a plush fur collar, and her massive silver rings dazzle from across the room. Dakota rushes to get a picture with the birthday girl. Sachi, you gotta describe this photo. Sachi Nishizaki, Director, The New York Times Rita's in quite the fur coat, I have to say, with several large diamond rings on her fingers. And our friend Dakota Diamond is wearing a black motor jacket

and leopard print and a headband and a lot of black eyeshadow. I love this. I want to go to this party. Yeah, they look like they're ready to party. And Rita looks good. Rita looks great. Fur coat in Florida? Interesting choice. Well, that night, Dakota writes all about the party for a blog called

Go Horse Show. It's a site where she posts breathless updates from every equestrian event she attends. Her readers love hearing about Rita, and thankfully, it's not long before Dakota has more material. That same week, she goes to another one of Rita's parties, this time at a Florida horse show. Rita pulls up to the show in her $2 million RV. Sachi, take a look. All right, I opened these photos thinking that I would have a pretty good sense of what the inside of an RV would look like,

but this straight up looks like a yacht. Like everything is in white leather and there's huge TVs on the walls and the bathrooms are really glamorous. The lighting is amazing. It's crazy to imagine that on the road with like all that. It's like driving a boat. Well, obviously we know by now the RV is not the only over the top thing about Rita. When owners and breeders go to horse shows, they generally set up booths to create hangout

spaces and display their trophies. But Rita, she doesn't just set up some folding tables. She builds a replica log cabin, complete with a huge trophy wall and a bartender making free cocktails. And of course, Rita's always dressed to the nines at these shows. She usually has a different bedazzled outfit for every event, but some of her competitors are starting to question where all her money comes from. They know exactly how much she earns from each competition. On a good weekend, it could be around $40,000,

which is a lot, but nowhere near enough to cover her wardrobe and that multi-million dollar RV. There are rumors that Rita had an older boyfriend who died and left her all his money, or that she got a huge payout from Campbell's Soup Stock. Either way, Rita throws incredible parties, and as long as the cocktails are flowing, people don't ask a lot of questions.

But unfortunately for Rita, the source of her wealth won't stay hidden for much longer. More than a year after Rita's over the top Florida birthday party, Dixon City Clerk, Kathy Swanson is in her office. Think airport carpet, beige walls, banker's boxes stacked in the corner. Kathy's a sweet middle-aged woman who wears a lot of scarves and believes

maybe a little too much in her work. Today she's covering for Rita who's away at yet another horse show. Rita's actually been out a lot recently. In addition to her four weeks paid time off, she's taken another 12 weeks off to compete in horse shows. She manages the time off, she's taken another 12 weeks off to compete in horse shows. She manages the time off by docking her own pay for the missed days. She leaves detailed instructions for Cathy every time she goes to a horse show, so it's easy for Cathy to cover for her.

According to Rita's notes, when Cathy needs bank records for her reports, she's supposed to call and specify the exact accounts she wants the details for. Rita's always been very adamant about that. But on this particular day, Kathy's in a hurry, so she just asks the bank to send her everything. She probably figures, what's the difference? Turns out there's a big difference. One statement in particular catches Kathy's eye. It's the fake account, and she's never seen it before.

She starts poring over the records, and I imagine her eyes becoming saucers. She recalls this moment later at, brace yourself, Sachi, a fraud conference. My first initial instinct was that she was selling some of her prize horses and shielding the money from the IRS by opening up an account under the city of Dixon's name. So I did what any scared person would do. I folded it and took it down to my car and hid it in my car for three days.

It is honestly such a comfort to know that this woman who I think is probably extremely capable and you know, at no fault to her own, I understand it completely why she did that. But when she realizes that there's fraud, her instinct is to do what I do when I get like any mail from any organization I don't want to give money to, is to just be like, okay, received, and this will go in my butt until I'm emotionally prepared to deal with it. Yes. And eventually, Kathy goes to Mayor Jim Burke and confesses what she found.

Jimson is 70s with white hair and rimless glasses. He's a warm, kind soul. He's known Rita since she was a child. Her childhood baseball team once threw a party in his backyard pool. He's always trusted her and doesn't want to believe what Kathy's telling him. But when Jim looks at the previous month's statements, he can clearly see that Rita funneled roughly $1 million

into her fake fund. He feels like he has no choice but to bring this to the authorities. Jim later says in a documentary called All the Queen's Horses, I called the FBI. I said I think there's a cancer in City Hall but I need to talk with somebody and I took the bank statement along. When the FBI starts poking around they realize this is bigger than even Kathy and Jim thought. It turns out Rita stole around $53 million.

That is an exceptional amount of money for what sounds like a pretty small town. It's so much money that it's like, it's insane to think this all started because of horses. yeah. The feds want their case against Rita to be airtight. So they tell Jim and Kathy to stay quiet. The pair have to sit with what they know for five whole months while the FBI investigates. It must have been excruciating,

because by the time the FBI investigation is wrapping up, Dixon is on the brink of collapse. In a letter to department heads, one of the city's commissioners writes, it's borderline catastrophic. We have absolutely no money, so budget numbers don't really matter at this time. Unless something is absolutely essential to today or tomorrow's operation, we need to hold off on any and all purchases. But this isn't just some small town fraud. It is the biggest case of municipal embezzlement in US history. And the FBI will be damned if they let Rita slip through their fingers.

slip through their fingers. Rita thinks April 17, 2012 is just another morning at City Hall. But when she gets called into the mayor's wood-paneled office, she comes face-to-face with three suited FBI agents. Inside, Rita's got to be freaking out. But on the outside, she's cool as a cucumber. She keeps her cheery smile plastered across her face and asks how she can help. She's probably thinking she can talk her way out of this. But then, the lead FBI agent lays the cards on the table.

He knows about the fake account Rita set up. And his question isn't if she stole money from Dixon, it's why. And just like that, she crumbles. She admits to using Citi funds for her own personal gain. The FBI agents interview her for more than an hour. Then they slap a pair of handcuffs on her and march her out the back of the building. Rita's arrest? It's big news.

A long-time trusted city employee is accused of diverting more than $30 million from city coffers. Rita Cronwell, busted by the fans, now charged with wire fraud. But Rita's not done yet. Sure, she confessed in the mayor's office, but after she's brought down to police headquarters, Rita changes her story and pleads not guilty.

She's ready for one last rodeo. It's September of 2012, five months after Rita's arrest. The government is holding an auction at her ranch in Dixon, and nearly 2,000 people show up. Some are there to spend serious money. Others just want to see what all the fuss is about. It smells like hay and horse shit, mixed with the sweet scent of funnel cakes

wafting over from the stands. Normally, the government has to wait for someone to be convicted before they can sell their stuff. But the feds are dealing with 400 living, breathing quarter horses. It costs $200,000 a month just to take care of them. Rita must be devastated. But she has to know she doesn't have a choice.

If Rita's found guilty, the money will go back to the city of Dixon. If she's innocent, well, then she'll get her money back. The bidding opens with her prized horse, Good I Will Be, an eight-year-old base stallion who's won three championships. He's expected to sell for anywhere between half a million and a million dollars. The auctioneer pumps up the crowd as they bring him out. Absolutely gorgeous, and I've been doing this for 30 years, and I can tell you, I've never started a horse sale

with one as good as this one. Good I Will Be sells for three quarters of a million dollars. After that, guess what they auction off next. I'm afraid to guess. I would like you to just tell me. Okay, well, you are never gonna guess this. It's 95 tubes of this horse's semen. Oh, he's a proven champion with quality genes, so other breeders are dying to get a piece of him.

The tubes sell for over $12,000. I have questions about the person whose job it was to jerk this horse off. Let's not Google that. The auctioneer rattles off bids for the remaining horses, but none reach good-I-will-be prices. Remember Pizzazzi Lady, who Rita bought for a quarter of a million dollars? She sells for only $128,000. Another horse named She Scores only brings in $71,000 even though Rita spent $200,000 to buy her. And it's not just horses the feds are auctioning off. They put everything

up for sale at a discount. A saddle for $1850, a horse trailer for $69,000, fake tails for $300, even Rita's jewelry collection is up for sale, including this diamond encrusted SpongeBob SquarePants pendant. You know, Rita obviously deserves some sort of punishment for her crimes here. The person who purchases a secondhand diamond encrusted SpongeBob SquarePants pendant

should have to live under the jail. Well, in total, the two-day auction brings in nearly $5 million. But that's just a fraction of what Rita stole from Dixon. The feds are going to have to sell a lot more to make up for everything she embezzled. And in the meantime, they've still got to prove that she's guilty. Luckily for them, Rita's always kept meticulous records. After searching her house, Marshalls find boxes of paperwork in her basement crawl space, detailing every single illegal transaction she made.

She literally has the receipts to incriminate herself. The walls are closing in around Rita. It's time for her to decide if she's going to fight till the bitter end or if it's time to fess up. Everybody, we have some exciting news that we want to share. If you want to go on an adventure with Generation Y, we'd love for you to join us. January 26th through the 30th, 2026, we'll be sailing from Miami to the Bahamas on Wondry's first ever True Crime Cruise aboard the Norwegian Joy. Aaron and I will be there to chat, hang out, dive into all things true crime, and we're thrilled to be joined by some familiar voices in the true crime podcasting world.

Surti and Hannah from Red Handed, Sashi and Sarah from Scam Fluencers, and Carl Miller from Kill List. Super excited to hang out with them too. We've got some cool activities, interactive mysteries we can solve, testing our forensic skills with a blood spatter expert, and so much more. So for some sun, fun, and just the right amount of mystery solving, come join us. Ready to jump on this seriously epic adventure? Book your cabin right now at exhibitseacruise.com. Hey, it's Amartinez.

I work on a news show, and yeah, the news can feel like a lot on any given day, but you just can't ignore las noticias when important world-changing events are happening. So that is where the Up First podcast comes in. Every single morning in under 15 minutes, we take the news and boil it down to three essential stories. Listen to the Up First podcast from NPR.

I feel like I like you. Two months after the auction, in November of 2012, Rita pleads guilty to stealing $53 million from the city of Dixon. At her sentencing hearing, the lead FBI agent walks a judge through Rita's scam. Various city employees explain how she pushed for cuts during budget meetings, all while she stole right from under their noses. Mayor Jim Burke is furious. Sachi, can you read a part of his statement? He says, Rita Crundwell saw first-hand the penalty the city was paying for financing her high-flying, 20-plus years, super-ego

lifestyle. She was motivated by trophies and horses, or, in the words of Shakespeare's tragedy of King Richard III, a horse, a horse, a kingdom for a horse. Dang, Jim. Jim fucked her up. Jim's right. Pfft, right? And Cathy's in the courtroom too. She waits through the whole hearing until the judge gives Rita an opportunity to speak.

Kathy is hoping she'll finally get some closure and that Rita will apologize to the city of Dixon. But instead, this is what Kathy later recalls at a fraud conference. She stood up and before they put the handcuffs on her, she turned around and she was crying and she said, I just want to say to my friends and family, I'm sorry, I'm sorry. at a fraud conference. She stood up and before they put the handcuffs on her, she turned around and she was crying and she said, I just want to say to my friends and family how sorry I am.

And that was it. Well, ultimately, Rita's hopes for a lenient punishment are dashed. The judge sentences her to 19 years and seven months in federal prison, which is just short of the maximum. Meanwhile, the accounting firm that did the city of Dixon's audits also gets dragged into court. Turns out, they not only did annual audits on the town, they also did Rita's personal

taxes. Rita even used to play on the firm's softball team. The company ends up settling with the city for $35 million. And when COVID hits in 2020, Rita sees a chance to get out early. She writes a nine-page handwritten letter applying for compassionate release on the grounds that she's been a model prisoner and has health issues that put her in danger. She doesn't get it, but then a year later, she files a separate appeal and gets released at the age of 68. She ends up only serving eight years, less than half of her sentence.

Dang, being a nice white woman in a SpongeBob SquarePants necklace really pays. You get away with anything. Yeah. And as you can imagine, Dixonites are pissed. She fucked over the town and they're still recovering. Doesn't matter that Rita lost everything. Even after all the auctions, she owes the city millions of dollars. Dixon's current mayor spoke to eyewitness news about her early release from prison. That's the way a lot of people in the community are taking it.

It's a slap in the face. If I can steal over $50 million and all I do is trade a little over half a dozen years in jail, why is that a bad trade? He is right. I mean, she got away with so much. She got so much money. She had such an incredible lifestyle.

And she also punished all these people who lived in Dixon because she was taking money away from them. He's right, it's not a bad trade. It's not a bad trade. She lived it up for 20 plus years and then went to jail for eight years and now she's free. Also, Rita told a judge years ago that she'd had several offers for books and movies, but she said she wouldn't speak to anyone until she was out of prison.

But she's been silent since her release. Just another small town girl living in a lonely world. Sachi, now that we've discussed the final boss of Horse Girls, I just, I need to know how you feel about all this. What a weird, weird way to scam your way into like the prestigious world of horsies. And also the biggest scam of its kind in US history. That's insane.

I believe it. She stole so much money and she bought such ugly things with it. It's clear she probably didn't feel that bad, but do you think there was any part of her that was like, oh, I'm going to get caught eventually. May as well just live it up as much as I can. Yeah, I think she was so arrogant about it. I mean, I think like, you know, to leave for 12 weeks and to leave somebody else in charge and to leave them instructions is asking for trouble

because you're saying to that person, I'm gonna put you in the position of being able to find out what I've been doing this whole time. She left that woman in her office, she gave her access to all the files, she told her how to get those documents. There is an arrogance tied in a lot of scams, broadly speaking. And I don't think a lot of people do bad things with the belief that,

I'm going to get in trouble anyway, so I should just have a good time. I think maybe what she thought was she could do this until she was 70, you know, and then could sort of retire from the active participation of it and just enjoy the wealth that she did not earn. Yeah, I mean, she knew exactly what she was doing in the sense that she knew this town so well. She knew how the townspeople worked. Like, she knew exactly how to manipulate everyone. She was also trading off of the fact that all of the people who would have been or should have been suspicious knew her since she was a little kid.

So you know her former high school teacher is like, hey, these balances don't make sense. Can you help me? And he's not going to treat her with suspicion. He's known her since she was 15. The mayor has known her since she was a little kid as well. So all of the people who would sort of be tasked with looking at the office and saying, like, who here might be making some huge mistakes at best

and at worst is ripping us off, no one's looking at her for that. And, you know, she used the money to buy success. So from the outside, she looks like a successful, well-dressed, respectful member of the community who works in government. Why would they look to her? COLLEEN O'BRIEN I will say the one part that doesn't quite

make sense is that, like, even though she was mostly flashy when she went off for these events and competitions, like, in her hometown, she still, still like remodeled her whole home. Like they still saw her with all these cars and boats. So I just wonder how good she was, I guess, at hiding it from everyone else. Like sure. She wasn't wearing fur to the office, but also I kind of think she was probably wearing fur to the office because also I think the other thing is people fill in the blanks

when they meet someone like Rita. Like if you meet someone who's that rich and you don't really understand why, your logical brain will say, oh, well, she had a wealthy ex-husband who died or she comes from some sort of money or all this money is from the horses. You're not gonna think like this person's defrauding

$53 million over the course of 20 years in order to wear a fur coat to work. Normal people who don't commit these kinds of crimes don't think this way, so they fill in those gaps of information. Yeah, that's very fair. I mean, it is just so crazy that her job was just being like, I'm an accountant basically, and there's this sewer account that I'm putting money in. Honestly, it is a very good scam. It's a good scam in that it is so stupid. And I will never sleep again thinking about

who purchased a secondhand SpongeBob SquarePants necklace. on Amazon Music. Before you go, tell us about yourself by filling out a short survey at Wondry.com slash survey. This is the Quarter Horse Queen. I'm Sarah Haggie. And I'm Saatchi Cole. If you have a tip for us on a story that you think we should cover, please email us at scamfluencers at Wondry.com. The idea for this story actually came to us from a listener of the show who grew up

in the quarter horse world. Thanks, Jessica. We use many sources in our research. A few that were particularly helpful were Chicago Magazine's Rita Cronwell and the Dixon Embezzlement by Brian Smith and Gravitas Ventures documentary, All the Queen's Horses. Alex Burns wrote this episode.

Additional writing by us, Sachi Cole and Sarah Hagge. Our senior producer is Jen Swan. Our producer is John Reed. Our associate producers are Charlotte Miller and Lexi Peery. Our story editor and producer is Sarah Enni. Our story editors are Alison Weintraub and Eric Thurm. Sound design is by Sam Ada. Fact-checking by Gabrielle Jollet. Additional audio

assistance provided by Adrian Tapia. Our music supervisor is Scott Velasquez for Freesan Sync. Our managing producer is Matt Gant and our senior managing producer is Tanja Thigpen. Our coordinating producer is Desi Blaylock. Kate Young and Olivia Rashard are our series producers. Our senior story editor is Rachel B. Doyle. Our senior producer is Ginny Bloom. Our executive producers are Janine Cornelow, Stephanie Jens, Jenny Lauer Beckman, and Marshall Louie for Wondery.

At 24, I lost my narrative, or rather it was stolen from me. And the Monica Lewinsky that my friends and family knew was usurped by false narratives, callous jokes, and politics. I would define reclaiming as to take back what was yours. Something you possess is lost or stolen, and ultimately you triumph in finding it again. So I think listeners can expect me to be chatting with folks, both recognizable and unrecognizable

names about the way that people have navigated roads to triumph. My hope is that people will finish an episode of Reclaiming and feel like they filled their tank up. They connected with the people that I'm talking to and leave with maybe some nuggets that help them feel a little more hopeful. Follow Reclaiming with Monica Lewinsky on the Wondery app or wherever you get your podcasts. You can listen to Reclaiming early and ad-free right now by joining Wondery Plus in the Wondery app or on Apple podcasts.