Scamfluencers - The Quarter Horse Queen

Episode Date: May 15, 2023

Rita Crundwell dreams of raising championship horses, but her day job is much less glamorous: She works in finance for her small city in Illinois. She saves up her paychecks to compete in horse shows, but she still needs more money to get ahead. That’s when she decides to pull off a colossal fraud that will fund her extravagant lifestyle – and completely bankrupt the city that employs her. When it all unravels, it’ll turn out to be the biggest case of municipal embezzlement in U.S. history.Please support us by supporting our sponsors.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Hey, prime members, you can listen to scam influencers add free on Amazon music. Download the app today. Sachee, when you hear the term horse girl, what comes to mind? Rich 20 year old girls in Bushwick doing ketamine. Okay, well, I picture something a bit more wholesome. I just honestly picture a girl with a long 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. 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 Horseshoe 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 2.1 million dollar RV. Her name's Rita Crandwell 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 at cost around $1800. And it's not just a giant RV and bougie fits that make Rita V1 to watch here. She's also got a caravan of trailers with her initials emblazoned on the side and the 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 they 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. I love my kid, but is a new comedy parenting podcast from Wendry that shares a refreshingly honest and insightful take on parenting. Each week the host will share a parenting story that will have you laughing and thinking, yes, I have absolutely been there.

Listen to, I love my kid, but on Amazon Music or wherever you get your podcasts. Many involved in crypto saw Sandbankman Freed as a breath of fresh air from the usual Wall Street buffs, but in just one month, his crypto exchange would collapse. From Bloomberg in Wonder Recomes, Spellcaster, a new six-part docu-series about the wild rise and fall of FTX and its founder, Sam Bankman Freed, listen to Spellcaster on Amazon Music or wherever you get your podcasts. From Wondery, I'm Sarah Haggi, and I'm Satchiko, and this is Scamful Inswers. 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 Cundwell 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. It's claimed to fame is that Ronald Reagan grew up there. Rita's 18 with mousey 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 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 in turning at City Hall. Now, her mentor, the city's com-troller, wants her to stay on full-time. She even hints that maybe one day, Rita can take over the com-troller job, which is basically a more powerful treasure-position. We don't know what Rita dreamt of doing as a kid, but I'm going to 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 Aquestion 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 the 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 expense of hobby,

but if she starts working now, she could save up to buy her own horse 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. Sasha, could you please describe it? It's very 80s. 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 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 going to 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 Rita has taken over as comptroller, which means she controls the purse drinks

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. He had a question, go to Rita. If you need something, go to Rita.

Anytime you have an expenditure of any significance, you need, go to Rita. If you need something, go to Rita. Anytime 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 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. And listen Sachi, 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-study earrings. Then she buys a pontoon boat with a wet bar and a barbecue on board, with a wet bar and a barbecue on board, followed by more earrings. Once Serita 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 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 and 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 Full 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 big brass stars that you always see on people's houses and small towns? Yes, it's very yellow stone. Yeah, it's very yellow stone. 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 why it 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 motor home worth nearly two million dollars. 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 Saty, it is good to be queen. Just take a look at this picture of her.

Oh, I love photography of like Zany drunk white women, and this is like 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, 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 wanna 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 stolen almost 26 million dollars. 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 gone 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. I feel like a... Like a... An April 2009, the Dickson City Council is getting together for a budget meeting.

Dickson's mayor sits at the head of an elevated semi-circle desk. 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, within 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 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 he'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. 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 Pizzazzy Lady?

I feel like if the horse knew its name was Pizzazzy Lady and how much it was worth, it would probably have a mental breakdown. Yeah, exactly. Like just shoot me at the first 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 winds, 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 and 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 Crandwell. Rita's turning 57, and she's throwing a party at a restaurant called Shark Use. 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.

Sasha, you gotta describe this photo. Rita's in a, in quite the fur coat, I have to say, with several large diamond rings on our 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. 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 multimillion 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,

bankers 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 by docking her own pay for the missed days. She leaves detailed instructions for Kathy every time she goes to a horse show, so it's easy for Kathy to cover for her. According to Rita's notes, when Kathy 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 pouring over the records and I imagine her eyes becoming saucers.

She recalls this moment later at Brace herself Sachi, a fraud conference. My first initial instinct was that she was selling some of her price 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 hit it my car for three days

It is honestly such a comfort to know that this woman who I 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 wants through 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 funnelled 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 and 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. And the 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. 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

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 city funds for her own personal game. 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 employees accused of diverting more than $30 million from city coffers. Rita Cronwell, fostered 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 horseshit, mixed with a 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 based Dallian 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. 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 going to guess this.

It's 95 tubes of this horse's semen. Oh, he's a proven champion with quality jeans, so other breeders are dying to get a piece of him. The tube cell 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-eye-will-be prices.

Remember a Pizzazzi lady who read a bot 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 tales 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 second hand diamond and crusted SpongeBob Squarespace pendant should have to live under the jail. While 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 a bitter end, or if it's time to fess up. And I feel like a... Like a, like a, like a, like a, like a, like a, like a, like a, like a, like a, like a, like a, like a, like a, like a, like a, like a, like a, like a, like a, like a, like a, like a, like a, like a, like a, like a, like a, like a, like a, like a, like a, like a, like a, like a, like a, like a, like a, like a, like a, like a, like a, like a, like a, like a, like a, like a, like a, like a, like a, like a, like a, like a, like a, like a, like a, like a, like a, like a, like a, like a, like a, like a, like a, like a, like a, like a, like a, like a, like a, like a, like a, like a, like a, like a, like a, like a, like a, like a, like a, like a, like a, like a, like a, like a, like a, like a, like a, like a, like a, like a, like a, like a, like a, like a, like a, like a, like a, like a, like a, like a, like a, like a, like a, like a, like a, like a, like a, like a, like a, like a, like a, like a, like a, like a, like a, like a, like a, like a, like a, like a, like a, like a, like a, like a, like a, like a, like a, like a, like a, like a, like a, like a, like a, like a, like a, like a, like a, like a, like a 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. Sasha, can you read a part of his statement?

He says, Rita Crendwell saw firsthand 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. Right. And Kathy'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 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 into 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. It 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.

This is a slap in the face. 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 8 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 silenced since her release. Just another small town girl living in a lonely world. Just another small town girl living in a lonely world.

Sasha, 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 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 the instructions is asking for trouble because you're saying to that person, I'm going to put you in the position of being able to find out what I've been doing this whole time. She let 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 towns people worked. Like, she knew exactly how she was doing in the sense that she knew this town so well. She knew how the town's people worked. 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 her former high school teacher is like, hey, these balances don't make sense. Can you help me? And he's not gonna 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? 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's 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 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 dollars 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 and that it is so stupid. And I will never sleep again thinking about who purchased a second hand SpongeBob SquarePants necklace.

Hey, Prime members, you can listen to scam influencers ad-free on Amazon Music. Download the Amazon Music app today. Or you can listen add-free with Wondery Plus and Apple podcasts. Before you go, tell us about yourself by completing a short survey at Wondery.com slash survey. [♪ Music playing, footsteps on the door, This is The Quarter Horse Queen. I'm Sarah Haggy, and I'm Sachi Cole. If you have a tip for us on a story that you think we should cover, please email us at scamfulensersatwondry.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 where Chicago magazines read a crundwell in the Dixon embezzlement by Brian Smith and Gravitas Ventures documentary All the Queen's Horses. Alex Burns wrote this episode, additional writing by us, Sachy Cole and Sarah Haggy. Our senior producer is Jen Swan. Our producer is John Reed. Our associate producers are Charlotte Miller and Lexi Peary. Our story editor and producer is Sarah Enne. Our story editors are Allison Wyntrop and Eric Thurm. Sound design is by Sam Ada. Back checking by Gabrielle Drolley. Additional audio assistance provided by Agent Tapia. Our music supervisor is Scott Velasquez for Freeson Sink.

Our managing producer is Matt Gantt, and our senior managing producer is Tanya Bigpen. 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 Blume. Our executive producers are Ginny and Cornelow, Stephanie Gens, Jenny Lauer Beckman, and Marshal Louis for Wundery. you