Champagne for My Horses

boot for your own car. I think I know you're going with this like it's not just a municipal thing. Did you get some reason to this one? Recently in my neighbor's driveway. What your neighbor boots his own car? Boots his own car? And I have decided that's ridiculous. Yes, I would agree, an idiotic. Why did he boot his own car? Because did you have the car stolen a couple of times? Now? Did he have his like something else stolen? He's just kind of like gunshie about this innocence.

I don't know, just snatch from him and now he's like, not my truck. I think maybe he shouldn't be living in the city. Oh yeah, yeah, definitely. So wait is he like, uh, somebody from like rural small town America? Mhm, what's this deal? I don't know, but he's ridiculous. I'll completely concur with that. Now. I got one for you, Yes, you're ready. This is a story. It's about a middle

aged woman. She's from rural, small town Illinois, and this particular Midwestern woman she uh, she had his taste for that sweet sweet horsey breeding life. Oh yeah. Now to pay for her horse jones, she decided to dip into the bank account, not of her wealthy husband, not of her family, but of her town, her hometown, and she used the money that she could on the horses, and she started diverting so much of the town's budget that the town was almost going bankrupt. The perfect criminals, since

no one sees her coming. This is the story of Rita Crundwell, the woman who got hooked on horse. I'm sorry the horses. Woman had got hooked on horses, those sweet sweet ponies. This is Ridiculous Crime a podcast about absurd and outrageous capers, heists, and cons. It's always murder free and ridiculous today's bizarre tale, a small town crime takes place in the American heartland. One of your favorite places, Elizabeth,

America's heartland is now this story of Rita Crundwell. It takes place in a very specific part of rural small town America, the Illinois town of Dixon. Now, this is also famous for a couple of things. Before Rita Krundwell was famous as the hometown of the star of the Bedtime for Bonzos series of movies would later became I Believe a politician Ronald Reagan that guy. Yeah h Then Dixon, Illinois is also the petunia capital of well, not the world,

but of Illinois. It's the petunia capital of Illinois, which is you know, high praise for Illinois. Also the catfish capital of Illinois once again of Illinois fish not the practice of doing people not like really good at like cooking up with like like foreigners, getting them to come over here and like wait a minute, cat the bottom feeder. Yeah,

this is not like Manteto's hometown. Now. Our second fun fact about Dixon is that Rita Crunwell lives there and she is the fifth most prolific embezzler of all time. Of all times of all time. Dang Elizabeth, has the FBI ever come to your home or place of work and asked to speak with you? Well, Elizabeth, Um, no they haven't. They haven't. They haven't asked to speak with me. But one time when I worked at a certain place, they came in, but not to talk to me. Did

you get to watch them operate? Yeah? Well not really. They went into another office and then everyone was terrified in our office and scarrying around, and I was like, well, we haven't done anything, wait have we? And then okay, well I've got a little fun visualization for you. You're ready. This is the moment when the FBI comes to your work and what that is like? Ready, I want you to close your eyes, Yes, I want you to picture. It's a Tuesday morning in April. It's early in the day,

a little after nine am. You're working at the Dixon City Hall. You're a part time secretary, just typing away, doing your thing. It's how Rita started at city Hall. And you spot these three FBI agents to say, push open the double doors. Streaming in sunlight behind them, the noises of the day on Main Street Dixon all come pouring in these FBI agents. They stride in with purpose and they're looking past you and you're like, no, I agree people, They're like, no, we know where we're going.

They go marching up the stairs. You go to follow to see if they need help, trying to get to wherever it is that they're going. And as you're going up the horrible steps, you can see them make the turn and start heading towards the mayor's office. You're like, okay, I know where they're going. So you trail behind them. You follow them all the way down the hallway. They get to the mayor's office. Mayor Jim Burke is in his office that morning. This is a point of fact,

because he's a part time mayor. He's not always in the office this morning. Common in small town he is, It is very common now. Full time real estate agent, part time mayor. Jim Burke is a good hearted guy, and so you know, kind self effacing, kind of Midwestern guy, Big Jim, Big Jim Burke, and the FBI agents come in. He's really friendly, nice to them, and you're right on the FBI S six right You're watching pass them into Mayor Jim Burke's office because you want to see what

all this hullabaloo is about. Nose as hell. I figured you, yes, and in imagination. So as Mayor Jim Burke is greeting the FBI agents, you notice he doesn't look scared, frightened, intimidated, nothing. He's cool as a cucumber in a bowl of hot stung would say. Yeah. Big him is sitting there and he's like, you know, I basically called you into the office. It seems he's got that demeanor like he invited the FBI.

Know why would he invite the FBI? You're wondering, Well, the FBI agents they don't say anything at first, they just keep doing their business. And uh, you don't know this, but you're about to find out that the FBI has been working with Mayor Jim Burke to bust one of the employees in city Hall and today is the day for the silver bracelets to be slapped on their wrist. Here Jim Burke's face starts to lighten a little bit. He looks at the FBI guys, and you're like, what's

going on to you? The moment that the excitement is just rippling through you and all of a sudden, Mayor Burke says to the three FBI agents, are we ready? They're like, oh, it's going down the on The FBI guys replies, yes, let's bring her in. Mayor Burke picks up his telephone. He dials an extension in city Hall people, and then he waits, puts the phone on speaker mode. You can hear the phone down the hall ringing. You're like, do you call someone in the office. You hear a

woman's voice at the other end. Hello, She's got a nice sunny, you know, springtime e voice. Air Burke, very serious, very solemn, says Rita, would you mind stepping into my office for a minute. Rita replies sure. Now a moment later, her office door opens. You hear it and also me. Then you hear his footsteps clanking. She's going down the hallway, the marble steps her heels to get louder. She gets closer. You're so anticipatory, you just cannot wait for the moment

what is going to be happening. Rita pokes her head in the doorway that you're standing there in the doorway with her. Now she squeezes and she says hi, and everyone turns. A three FBI engagent turn Mayor Jim Burke turns. You just kind of just glance over at it, because she's standing there right next to you. The FBI agents say, Rita, would you mind coming in? Mayor Burke reiterates, Rita, would would you please mind stepping into my office? The lead

FBI says, Hi, I'm with the FBI. That moment has come. You're like, oh, it's going down now. He flashes his badge. Rita looks at it and her face starts to break a little. She knows it's over decades of flies, the fraud, the embezzlement, the scams, the cons all of it are coming crashing down. But yet her face doesn't fully show it. Just a hint of it is in her eyes. The lead FBI guy continues, Rita, we'd like to ask you some questions. Mayor Burke stares at Rita. Meanwhile, Rita's face

still hasn't changed. It's just placid, and you're like, how is she doing this? She just keeps smiling. It just the small perch smile breaks on her face. It's almost midwestern and polite, super eerie. And then the FBI agents slapped the cuffs on her and they say she won't talk. They're taking into the office. They leave city Hall, they perp walker out. Everybody is a gas. They're all looking, Oh my goodness, it's Rita, Rita. I can't believe it's Rita.

That moment was the moment when Mayor Jim Burke finally realized what we will call the dow of Rita Krundwell, Now, what is the doo of Rita Krundwell, Well, as it goes, he said, and I quote, it showed me she didn't give us about our town. Oh yeah, So how much do you, Rita exactly not give about the town of Dixon, Illinois? Can you guess? Try the tune of fifty three million dollars? Fifty three million dollars fifty three million. How did the town have that much money to begin with? Well that

was over multiple years. She was just basically siphoning off cash to pay for her horses, year after year after year after year from the small little town until she had taken fifty three million dollars in the FPI. I showed up and said, we'd like to talk to you, Rita. Can I tell you how excited I am that they didn't kick me out when they started doing this whole rita we need to talk to They just let me stand in the doorway. I like that. I knew you'd

like to kind of just watch that same play out. Yeah, the FBI is very generous, you know, in small town America, and they sent the FBI comes. It's not like state police or anything. So this is big time. Yeah, they didn't bring the U. S. Marshals to grab her. They wanted to talk with her and then to cover So. Coincidentally, that fifty three million I just told you, that's the exact same amount that Kanye West was in bankruptcy for. He's not almost a billionaire. If he's not already a billionaire,

I don't know who cares. But the point is is that's a sizeable chunk of money. It's enough to turn you into a billionaire, and in this case, it was enough to pretty much bankrupt her hometown. Now, let's say you stole fifty three million dollars, Elizabeth, should we say it together? Elizabeth? Okay? I felt good. Now let's say he didn't donate any of it. You just had to spend all of it on yourself for stuff or whatever. Gifts. I don't care what would you spend fifty three million

I'll limit it. What animal would you spend fifty three million dollars on? Oh? Dogs? Hello? Really you wouldn't go like big like peacocks or bears. I would have a standing dog army that would be completely pampered. Okay, yeah, it would be wild. What would you do with your dog army? I mean you've got enough money to pamper them, so, like, how are you going to pamper them various acts of vengeance? No?

I would you have probably for them. Everyone gets their own bed so they don't all try and sleep on my bed. Okay, they get the list of foods and table scraps. Okay, I don't know, buy like a bunch of acres and build my own dog park. Like would you travel with them? Would you get like maybe like a very large trailer in a truck and you take them on a road trip around the country with all their heads outside of the sunglasses on all of them? Oh my god, I would get the nicest sunglasses for

all the dogs. Everybody gets custom ray bands. Very nice, very nice. You're starting to now get what Rita Crundwell was about. Was she about that rude dude life. No, unfortunately she was just about that rude life. Now, after this short break, it's time to meet the star of our story, the embezzler extraordinaire, Rita Krundwell. Elizabeth M. You used to live in a small town. You you told me, yea the small town that we don't have to name it. But living in a small town, you know what it's like.

Were there any any liars in your town? Anybody who got busted for a lie? Maybe it was like a divorce that all said came to light of scandal with money. Is there anything like that? Of course, human beings live there. Well, yes, I know I'm saying, but in small towns, it's it's less likely that a secret emerges because people know the secret. It kind of gets whispered about, you know what I mean, Like it doesn't just get broken in the news. It's more like people knew about it and then it's like

the news confirmed. But that's accurate. I think, Yeah, there are secrets that that are sort of known secrets. Everyone's in on it. But then sometimes she gets surprised out of It's gonna be like the violent secrets. There's the marital secrets. The money secrets, but oftentimes there's the whisper networks that are very different than big cities. Right, you

can't be anonymous, right, exactly. Keep that in mind as I tell you how Rita Krundwell pulled off for fifty three million dollars theft of her How many people lived in this Dixon, Illan About sixteen thousand people, right, Yeah, that's pretty small, Yeah, pretty pretty small. That's big compared to where I was living. People sixteen thousand would be asked the big city, going into the big city to like get your checks cash. Well, that's where like Starbucks

is five minutes away. Yeah, anyway, so I think that's yeah, it's in the grand scheme of things. Pretty small town. Well, getting to Dixon, Illinois, Rida Crundwell's hometown. Rita was one of six Crundwell kids. She grew up on the family farm. She was the type of teen who were cowboy boots. She drove a beat up pickup trucks. She was in a four age. She raised livestock, She competed in livestock shows, and she showed up in the lyrics I think one

or two John Cougar Mellancamp song that's gonna say. She sounds like a character in a New Country lyrics. Yeah, she's like Tracey Atkins, ideal girl, drinking from a red solo cup, sitting how much hey means to her? That reminds me a home out. Rita Cronwells. So she was also a smart girl. She was a National Honor Society member. She was a popular girl, the kind of kid who gets nominated or elected. I don't know how it goes, but to her high school's homecoming court. Yeah, I don't

know how that works. Yeah, I think it's elected. I don't know anyway. Rita Kronwell all American upbringing. Just keep that in mind. Now, one of the facts I just told you above is not true. I'll let you guess which one. John Cougar mellencom Okay, So Rida our former honor student girl with the big glasses, brown hair for eight kid cowboy boots out in your mind. Okay. She goes to work at the city hall thanks to her high school's work study program. So she's like a junior

at the time. This is nineteen seventy Okay, So in nineteen seventy one, she graduates and then she takes a job, full time job at city hall. It's like, that's a good job all town. So she's like, I'm keeping it around. That same time, the mayor he creates this new position called the town's comptroller. And the comptrollers you were familiar is, handles the money. They're a little bit different than say the treasurer. They are in charge of like writing the checks,

making sure that the checkbook is balanced. So this person is important in the town at Dixon because, as I said earlier, Mayor Jim Burke part time mayor, city council and city council members rather there's four of them. They're also all part time, so the city relies on some full time employees to handle city business. So Rita Krundwell joins this full time cartier of city hall employees, and eventually she works her way up to treasure and then

from treasurer to comptroller. So it takes her about thirteen years. So now we're in ninete, we're into the Reagan years of America. There is a new feeling about rural America. There's a new optimism coming out of the seventies and inflation. So people are they're having a little bit of a not a go go American moment, but the rural America is feeling better about themselves, right. Rita takes that moment says,

I'm feeling better, but myself too right now. Quicker than you can say Kevin Bacon and footloose, Rita Krundwell starts angling for how she can make her new appointment work for her. Takes her a little bit of time, about seven years. About At that time, She's like, I think I gotta handle how I'm going to scam this town now. Rita, she's really good with numbers, like that's part of her bag is that she's exacting. She's detail oriented and everybody

knows this about her. It's it's her rep right. The mayor at the time of her arrest, to quote, Rita was very efficient, very pleasant, She got along with everyone, and she knew the job in and out. She seemed like a perfect fit. Yeah, right, so that's her general m oh everybody's reacting to now. Meanwhile, Rita is acting like a Banana Republic dictator. She decides to take total control of city Hall, which in this case means the

flow of information. She has all of the paperwork that she deals with routed to a p O box so nobody can see the mail that is coming to her. Nope, the address that you normally would think of the mail will go city hall. The whole reason why you have a city hall was a building for business of city hall to be done. She's like, no, send that to my pel box. I'll do it at home. I'm this is this is like way before are work at home? Yeah, She's like, I'm a workaholic and this way I can

work on the weekends. And I see rita, Yeah, you're onto right now. Yeah. Apparently in her small town everyone was like, no, she's just so good at her work. Well, and one of the things that I noticed living in a small town is that you are sort of um locked into your public persona when you're in high school, and so whoever you are in high school tends to

follow you through. And so if you were like the handsome quarterback and then you just kind of keep screwing up later, people are always you know, but he was the handsome quarterback, or you're the weird outsider, it's hard to then change. And so she's like she it's hard to reinvent yourself. Whereas like where I'm you know, born and raised California. That's like a pastime, right, constant reinvention, but you're not. Really it's hard. It's hard in a

small town. So I can see Rita. If she just locks herself in in high schools like National Honor Society, doing work study, riding around in a pickup truck, whatever, like doing all the right things for h everyone's going to see her like that, and they never they never took a second glance. You're so right about that. She apparently locked in then she used that. I think she was aware of it, like you are that, like this

is all they see. So the meanwhile, Rita is like basically doing exactly just saying, is creating this persona that is impeccable and implacable in terms of like everybody thinks they know Rita, they have no idea who Rida is. Right, So, like, for instance, to advance her idea of her being really frugal and meticulous about money, she always did ducts money from her own salary for any day of work that

she misses. Right now, what this means is if like she's out of office for like a week for to go to a horse show, will say she did ducts that from her pay and that balanced out that one year. She makes about three dollars a year, so she one year im only made sixty one dollars because she took twenty two dollars off of her salary. So that way it would look like, you know, did she not get vacation time beyond? I think she may have used up her page. So she's just above board, like yeah, look

I'm taking leave without pay. When she go to horse stuff, horse shows and like travel, people don't know. They just know she leaves. Wait a second, so she makes a d g year and she took off. That's like a quarter of the time. She's not even there. I do math, Yes, look at it took me a second smoke coming out of my ears. I was worried something caught fire. But like that's like half, it's half of her time. So

they weren't doing this math. The local townspeople, they're just so happy and they figured rid it was so good at a job. Meanwhile, that same time, when she's out sick, she's has like a family member go to her po box and pick up her work to make sure that nobody ever sees it. Maybe they're using. Like the metric that I wish all jobs would do is like forget the eight hours a day, forty hour week. However, if you get your work done, then fine, you get paid. Yeah,

I'm with you. That should be the stap So, and let's be honest, like a quarter of our time is you know, doing I don't know crypto quip for instance. For instance, I don't know just you know, spitball in here, but I think you know she's she's laying out something now, she's doing nefarious things. But if we're all honest with ourselves, yeah, we could get all of our work done in three quarters at the time she went way past I'm going to make the biggest ball of rubber bands I can.

But I see your point, which is basically, you know, people should be able to work as much as their work is required of and not try to fill in some arbitrary oh you gotta be here on the clock kind of stuff, exact completely, and Rita would agree with you, But I don't like that. I don't you don't want her in your side. Rita creates her fake dummy bank account and goes into business of Rita, Inc. She starts sidelining money and creating like, well, what will soon become

a vast empire in fortune in the horse world. And the way she did it is she started a city account but in her name, so that way she's the only signatory on the account. But as far as the bank is concerned, it's doing city business. So it's like City of Dixon exactly, and with signatory Rita. So that's how she starts to do being Bazzel funds. And she likes it. She's into it, right, she gets after it. She's like, I don't know a colonist in the new world.

She's like, oh, look at all this value just lying around here. So her plan works because one there's this constant influx of new city leaders. Right the city council member of new mayor comes in. She teaches them the books, this is how the city works, this is what I do. So she teaches them her cooked books method. When the city auditors come in, because she was smart about this. Starting about the somewhere in the mid eighties, she started

basically faking the records. And so when she creates her false account and starts diverting funds, by that point she has all these records that are fake. So the auditors looking back seven years they have a false record, they don't, so they can't see it either. The local town is uh, you know, they're the banks that are supposed to be in charge of the account that they keep getting bought up by national banks, so that no longer is that nosy bank manager who's paying attention to how often Rida

is coming in and diverting funds. She's just sitting at home clicking buttons now and done. So there's no oversight either officially by the like money cops, there's no oversight by the bank managers, and there's no oversight by her bosses. Right, yes, exactly. So at this point, the only thing that's holding it together is that everybody has, I keep pointing out, is so convinced that Rita it's just so darn good at her job. Rights And I'll quote Mayor Jim Burke again,

he was just like enamored as mayor. He didn't have to work very hard because if he needed anything done, he just went to Rita. She knew right where it was, so quote I could go into her office and say, Rita, do you have a copy of the cable TV contract from and she'd go right to a drawer and pull it out. How can you argue I trust her with the nuclear codes exactly? So just you know, imagine poor Jim Burke's surprise when the FBI showed up a city hall for Rita. But of course he did know at

that point. Well wait a second, so what if everything is getting not everything, but if she's diverting significant funds, is the town up and running? Well? I mean, oh no, not at all. Like that's the thing is though, so like they couldn't afford to repair the cemetery, like they had problems with their cemetery. Their streets were going bad, the street lights weren't working. They couldn't get uniforms and radar guns for the cops. They had basketball courts at

all broken up. The kids can't play on them. They had to go without city jobs or pay increases for years. It was bad. But Rita knows where the cable contract is exactly that? What is Mayor Jim Burke's really care about the rest of goodness? No, but I just like to focus on Rita for a second. Can you imagine

being her? Like lying to everyone you know, everyone you grew up with everyone you worked with every day of your life for decades and just creating this larger and larger divide between you and what who people think you are and who they're giving you credit for when you're not Rida Crundwell anymore now. And she must have the lowest opinion of every other human being to know she's so seopathic or is she just something else like? And I don't mean to get a diagnosis. I'm just saying,

I don't know. I don't know. I'm sure she's got a whole host of issues. I'm wondering just about what happened to her, Rita, who hurt you? I know? Right? So the thing that we do know is that Rita did it for one for the glamour. We know what her motivation was other than the horses. It wasn't just the horses. It was also Rida lets, the diamonds, the fur, the bright lights of the big city and in this case,

the big cities. Oklahoma City. Well it's a big city, sure, okay, yeah, I mean like, yeah, it's a big city from Dixon, Illinois. I'm just saying it's not like, oh, she's out in Manhattan. I mean, I'm not trying to say, and every city has been measured again New York. But there are a lot of big cities in this world. I will put Oklahoma City defend Oklahoma. I like that about you. My apologies, Oklahoma City District. Oh no, I like the city. I'm

not like saying anything bad. I just wouldn't say that it's a big city in America like Houston. Houston is a big city in America. Oklahoma City, I mean, yes, it is a beautiful city with a big heart. The American quarter Horse Association's World Championship Show, it happens to be in Oklahoma City every year. Yeah, and uh, that place is. I don't know if you've ever been to the American quarter Horse Association World Championship Show but missed it.

Oh that I don't need to tell you. But just from my own edification, I'll remind you that it is possibly one of the largest collections of humans you know that takes place in the North American continent. Is bigger than Democratic National Convention, better than the Republican National Convention. It's bigger than the Super Bowl. It's hundreds of thousands of people coming into Oklahoma City. Just talking horse is walking horses, looking at horses, just being all about horse

life for days. Yeah whatever, Yeah, that horsey life. Horse life. So like the type of people that you would see in town, Oklahoma City during the quarter Horse Association World Championship Show. People like Harrison Ford, Kevin Costner, Robert Redford, Lyle love it. So all those celebrities that you can think of is like, I can imagine him with a horse on the horse set. The horse set. People are

down for that horse life. So Rita krunwell, she would like to go and to Oklahoma City and whenever she would go, she would show out for a bikini's not that kind of show out, but but she would put a show on a show. I'll just leave it at that. So the floor of the arena, because just imagine like a giant like a basketball stadium or football indoors football stadium, right, So on the floor of that stadium you would have convention stalls and booze, and Rita would down be down

there with everybody else. But instead of having like a table on the stall, she would have, for instance, a log cabin recreated for the event, an entire log an entire log cabin. And it's like, hey, Look, dude, was Abraham Lincoln barn there? What's going on here? Now? That was just the entrance to her section. Once you stepped inside the recreation log cabin, you be greeted by the side of the glitter in the shine of her trophy room she had. You had to walk past all of

her trophies like a pageant kid. Yeah, exactly, like total pageant kid. And she had like that love of like I don't know, ribbons, that whatever it is that motivates the passion for ribbons. You wanted everyone to see her ribbon collection, old plastic exactly what she's like, Look at this,

this is etched, has my name on it. Magical. So after the gleam of her trophy room wears off and you wander further into the recreated log cabin, then you meet the full open bar that she has arrayed for her guests, and you could grab a cocktail, all courtesy of Rita Crundwell. And now I like to imagine, you know, one of this Horsey set sitting in that recreated log cabin with her, let's say Harrison Ford, right, He's like raising a glass talking horses to Rita, and Rita's telling

them how good it was this year. And he's telling her how good the whiskey is. And she's like, oh you like the whiskey And he's like, yep, what am I doing it? You're the celebrity, I professional, the professional. Okay, would you mind being Harrison Ford for a second. I'm happy to Okay, So I'm Rita. So she's like, imagine the scene. She's like, oh yeah, sitting there surrounded by log cabins, people elbow hob nobbing, talking horses and horse

trailers or whatever they talk about. She's like, more champagne, Harrison Ford, Hey have a bad is me Harrison Ford? A flan airplane and I eat play though flawless. I mean, it's like you're in the log cabin with Rita and Harrison or as I call him, Harry. Now, oh my god, I'm sorry, I have to apologize with I totally forgot to tell you how she's dressed at these events for

practically though practically real close. So just put a little bit more fur on it and make it like a full white fur coat, like you know, like white, I don't know, snow leopard for something exotic, something endangered, and then diamonds and like, I don't know, Tiara, it's going hard. It's kind of more than I anticipated. I thought she'd be like in TJ Max's Finest. Oh yeah, know, she's got like the beaded tops or whatever those things are, like the sequence and beads. I don't know what the

lame bryant of it all. I'm just imagining with the beated tops that instead it's like those beaded seat covers for cab drivers, not quite those big like a like a wooden backroomate top. She's very experimental. She's very fashion forward, like so fashion forward you can't even see her. She's just down the line. She doesn't have that she's out there still. She's just in like a milar suit. Yeah, it was real. I thought you would appreciate her, Like, see if I can find some pictures and we put

them on Instagram. She has a real best in show vibe to her outfits. And I know how you love that movie go for that. Yeah, so we just kind of imagine that, but less fun, more crime. I don't know. Also, what is your favorite like middle aged woman's fashion tendency? Like I did, I was trying to think of like what stores that is that she's probably shopping at. That's what I was. That's the only when I could go with. And I was like, I don't mean to just pick

on the Chicos woman. Is there like another brand that is J J Jill? Okay, I don't know. I'd have to know her full aesthetic to give it a good assessment. Does she like a she a department store goal? No? No, are you kidding me? No? She is definitely boutique as much as possible. Now. I mean, occasionally, if she can't get out of Dixon, she may have to, like, you know,

get her jeans at the local store. But other than that. Interesting, Well, there was a woman in the horse scene who knew her very well, and she was talking in a newspaper article and I found this and I thought, this answer Elizabeth question. So she clocked read his style to time and I quote, this is about her beated gowns that she would wear to these events, like at the nighttime formal event at the American quarter Horse Association's World Championship Show,

and I quote, they're beautiful. I went to look at a couple of the blouses she wore. The used ones were dollars a pop and Rita didn't wear used. I thought gad Zouks the Midwest jumped out. So she's like wearing designer Dud's. Yeah, exactly. Do you think she wore Carl Loggerfeld because didn't he eat horsemeat? Oh god, I don't know anything about that. That up, that's true. I make up most of what I say, But I do believe that it's true that Carl Loggerfeld was on like

a horse meat diet. It's a lot of French people eat horse meat. I'm aware of that. They do eat horse meat over there, and I just tried to forgere just like the synergy of her wearing Laggerfeld carlat well, I don't know about the horse meat part. Well, I have a headline Carl Lagerfeld lost ninety pounds on a diet of tuna and BlackBerry moose. I'm not hearing horsemeat.

Oh yeah, No. It was rumored that Carl Lagerfeld's famous diet involved eating horse meat, tomatoes, and diet coke together like a vogue, a slurry of horsemeat, tomatoes and diet slurry of horse meat. Thank you for something I'll never forget. Then, thank you, Elizabeth for yet another grosser stopping a gross out. Oh, Calf's liver too and wild strong. Well, I'm glad you asked about Rita and what people thought about her and money.

So speaking of Rita, speaking of Rita cryned well and uh, whether or not she came from money or not, people used to wonder if she had inherited land from her family, and uh, you know, it's true she actually had inherited a horse farm from her mother. The details may have varied, but the general story was the same. Someone died, she got wealthy, right, And it's like the story around the horse world. Now that was pretty true. A whole last

town was literally dying and she got wealthy. So there was the death man Welsh sharp are there everything else? The details a little wrong now, when Aita would arrive at a horse show before she would you know, set up her bass pro shop Lincoln log cabin, before he drinks got poured for a horse loving stars like Lyle love it. Oh, I gotta do one more? Would you like some more Champagne Lyle loving? Hey have about it? It's me Lyle, I love it. I just stole Temple

Grandon's shirt. It's amazing. It's like he's just here for a moment then he disappears. Yeah, I get I transform. No, thank you for gracing us with that one. I always like this. That one's on the house. Before Rita would pull on her white fur coat or for you, her white fur bikini and some hot little sequin number to dazzle the horsey crowd. Rita also liked to make a

big splash in the parking lot. She would like, I don't mean like jumping from a height, and I mean like she didn't do it that way, I like pushing a watermelon off the top of a building splash. I mean like she wanted people to be like, oh, it's a Rita walk on music pretty much. It was just like the sound of pain and suffering in her hometown. But Drumpy was amazing. Before she get there, she would like have like her fleet arrived right, and her fleet

consisted of forty five ft Liberty Coach RV. And in case you're not in the market for r vs, that's one of the nicest ones you can get. Yeah, so that one is the luxury liner forty five ft long Liberty Coach RV's way bigger than like your normal like a tour bus. Now this boasted a king size bed, five satellite TVs, marble countertops, leather wrapped railings, multiple tile floors, multiple tile floors, also a washer and dryer. I don't even have one of those in my apartment. Now, this

whole thing costs two million dollars. Two million dollars for an RV. Do you know how much of Dixon, Illinois you could fix with that RV? Now, of course she didn't handle her horses herself. Now, Rita had professional cowboys. For all that she didn't like brush down the mane and tail. She just would boys. There's the stall, set up the horses, right, So she'd have them mucking out the trailers and all that stuff that she didn't want

to do. But those cowboys they weren't cheap either, so she had to have a trailer for them, and then have you know, lodging for them and so forth. She had a mighty convoy. Oh yeah, but she was really successful with this because how much money she was diverting into her horsey funds. In two thousand eleven, just before this is right before ready gets busted. She gets busted in two thousand twelve, the year before she gets busted when she went to the American quarter Horse Association World

Championship Show in Oklahoma City, a mouthful. Quite. She was the bell of the ball that year. She won fifty four prizes at the Oklahoma And any of those money or is it just a bunch of Yeah, she's wanting some ribbons, some proven some prize money. Yeah, like quarter million dollars kind of prize money. She was named the leading owner of the American quarter Horse Association that year. Yeah, she's pouring a bunch of money into the whole thing completely.

Eight year in a row, she was named Owner of the Year employee. I'll tell you your hometown is harder and money goes far if you directed in one tight funnel. Now, the only thing that her friends and neighbors knew about what Rita was doing down in Oklahoma City came to them from the newspaper articles because they would, like, you know, see like a headline, Oh Rita won again down in

Oklahoma City. We're so proud of her. So going back to my man Mayor, Big Jim Burke, he was quoted talking about how all this prize money Rita was winning chunky the newspapers, he said, and I quote, we all knew that she had these horses, but you know, there were big write ups about her in the papers, and she's winning all these national championships, and there were stories flying around town that she was selling horses for two

hundred and fifty thou dollars three hundred thousand dollars. So we thought this was what that was, what was providing her this nice income, a successful horse business. Now, when she was caught by the FBI, Rita, as I told you, was the officially the fifth greatest embezzler of all time. That's how successful her horse business was. Now, she's like the Larry Bird of embezzlement, just this hard worker from

the heartland. You know. Now, personally, if I was someone asked me, like, what do you do for a living, I'm not gonna say anything about my real life anymore. I'm going to use the Rida Krundwell method. I'm gonna start telling people, oh, all my money it's in a walrus is. I'm in the walrus business. See if people go for it. I really like this. We'll take a quick break and after this I'll tell you how Rita got busted. Elizabeth, Yes, our girl readA Krundwell, I've been

telling you about her. I've been telling you about Harrison Ford like I'll love it, all the fun stuff she's been doing. But what else was she spending her stolen ludon besides impressing Harrison Ford with expensive whiskeys and Champagne's scented candles. Good call, good call. No, she was actually buying land. Well that's smart. Yeah, that's what you. You know,

they aren't making it anymore, it's mark Twain would say. Well, starting in two thousand six, Rita she made some real estate purchases and she bought an eight acre spread that cost her about half million dollars of her hometown's money. She dubbed her new spread Rita's Ranch. Now, personally I would have gone with Cossa de Rita, but that's just me. I don't know. You know, you had a name like Rita. You can really run with Rita, Bill, Yeah, exactly. See

already two better names right there. We're not even trying. So it was a complete horse breeding complex, training exercise compound. She even had a whole arena built for her to practice in. Just imagine you're riding around on horses with an empty arena, her imagining the crowds cheering her. She had a button she pushed in the sound of crowds. Confetti cannons all shaped like butterflies. Yes, Cary, I know I threw that one in there. From Mariah carries a

tour rider. She requests that there'll be confetti in her dressing room that must be the shape of butterflies. No moth confetti for missing Amy. Now, as I told you, rita Cronwell salary from the city of Dixon eighty three thousand dollars. So people are willing to believe that the eighty three thousand dollars salaries being very well invested. Apparently so, while she was a hobnobbing with the rich and famous in her Whiteford and her diamonds and tr whatever she

was doing, that was her one persona. Back home, she's still like all of her neighbors. She's wearing the you know, the boots, the cow the cowboy you know, flannels like she looks like everybody else, And that is pretty much how she manages her whole criminal enterprise. Nobody looks past the surface of what she looks like. A middle aged woman man that's at the time, and in a small town, it's a lot of money. Today, in a small town, making eighty three thousand dollars, there's a lot of money.

It's not enough for a two million dollar RV. No do they know? What does the town know about the two million? She comes back to town with cars under cover darkness. She had like full on eighteen wheelers pulling horse trailers. Multiple she had multiple eighteen wheelers in her company envoy. She's probably just telling you know what, I got a great deal. If you go to the back of t J Max, they have all the cars and trucks,

ask for Sheryl, people don't know. And then if you kind of bump it a little scratch at you get another Where do you think I got this bracelet? Yeah? Everything is she got a deal. The US district court that filed the indictment against her, they would not agree that she got great deals because they have to actually the itemized list of all of her stuff. And I'll just read you a couple of the highlights. Um, between nineteen nine and two thousand and six, she stole about

twenty three million dollars. Oh, so that's that's when she got started. Se million dollars over that sixteen year period. That gives you an average of about one point four million dollars a year. After she got going in two thousand six, she starts ramping it up, and she starts trying to win some of them championships, and world championships are not cheap. So she sat there and wrapped it back up to taking it about five million dollars year

in embezzled money. What is the town's budget. The town's budget, I'm glad you asked, is nine million dollars roughly, So she's taking more than half of the town's budget. When she got really going and those engines were running red hot goods and they still weren't noticing it, and you know how she was getting away with it, but she was blaming the state of Illinois. She said that, like, oh, they're supposed to pay for this stuff that I charged and I put the money out, but they haven't, so

next year we should get the money. And people believe it because they're like, oh, you know, the state lawmakers are always stealing our money. Yeah, no one really to local they'll pay attention when the basketball courts are all checked up, but then they don't know the minutia of no, and also he's counting on it. They like big mayor, Big Jim Burke, right, he's a local guy. But they don't seem to like the state lawmakers and the governor,

like those people are not trustworthy. Read Crundwell. Here they don't understand small town values. Yeah so, reader Crundwell, she uh meets fate one day when and unbeknownst to her, while she was away on one of her vacations or in this case, attending a horse show, a piece of mail arrives and it's a bank statement and it's been basically sent to the wrong place, and it's on her desk and this replacement for her. This the city clerk is in her office trying to go through all the paperwork.

She sees this one thing she looks like from a bank reads it. It's a bank statement. She doesn't recognize the account, so she takes the account to the mayor. Mayor Jim Burks like, I don't recognize this, asked Rita what it is. She's like, no, I think that's the problem. It looks like this is Rita's account. They's like, I can't be uh. She's like, no, I think it is. They look at He's like, oh my goodness, I love this nosy hero. But yes, I thought you would like her.

So her name is Katha Swanson. By the way, well miss Swanson. First of all, I believe there was a whisper network in town. Everybody knew about this. It wasn't a secret. And she didn't just see something on the desk. She went and dig in. I think she took her moment when Rita was out of the office. He's like, what's this, what's that? And went through it all well done investigatory special investor gator. So Katha and Mayor Jim Burke have their moment together in his office. He's convinced

by her to go take this to the FBI. He takes to the FBI. FBI was like, oh, yeah, this is not good. This is not good, Mayor said they there, Hey, Mayor, we want you don't blow the investigation we're about to start. Don't let anybody know. We need you to keep this under your hat. And he's like, I think I can do that. Like, no, we're serious. This may take some time. It's a small town. Don't tell anybody, not even like

your closest friends. He's like, I tell my wife. They're like, okay, if you tell your wife, mayor just nobody else, don't take it to the rotary club. Nobody in American legion needs to know this one. He's like, okay, Like when can I tell them when we bust start? He's like, okay, how long will that be? And then they're like, just let us do our work. Six months later, they come into his office. They're like, we're gonna need to talk to Rita. And that's why he's like, oh man, he's

all excited. And that was the day that you were standing in the doorway. I remember it well, yes. So what did the FBI found was that Rita basically taken, as I told you, a dummy bank account, but not only that, she'd created multiple bank accounts for the city

that were legitimate. She would bounce the money through those different accounts, then she would create a fake invoice, send the money into that fake invoice account, use the fake invoice account, then to dummy back out to her account, and then she was hiding both the writing of the checks, the bouncing of the books, and where the money was going.

So people were thinking it all looks fine. The amounts seemed to balance out because they didn't notice that she was the one who was, you know, saying you owe me money. You owe me six million dollars or whatever she was saying. So that's how you get a payday for Rita is you know, classic money laundering. You know, jay Z would be proud of her, so after she would withdraw her laundered funds and she'd go and buy

all her expensive stuff. The thing that was like kind of working to her benefit, as I've pointed out a couple of times, is people didn't look past her appearance, and yet she was very aware of this. She would put on an appearance for the Oklahoma people, she would come home and take off that and she knew that people wouldn't do anything except for your girl, Kata Swanson.

You know now, that is the advantage that con artists have over the average people is that they know that a person is usually persuaded more by a good story than by facts. Your Kaifa and you, you guys are rare who actually want to see the numbers on paper, want to investigate, you want to get confirmation. Most people are like I heard read of her mother died left her a farm that's good enough for them. That's that's what they have. And so if you can tell a

good story, you can be a good con artist. Do you think, as a former school teacher and a storyteller, that you could be a good con artist? Why not? I I'd feel really bad my my mark, my my victim would have to be a horrible person, and then I would to feel bad about it. That's totally that's the way within the balance. You don't have to only go after the innocent gobl. But I also have too many tells. I'm not good at at at lying. It becomes really obvious. Here's how you can get good at lying.

This is true for anything. I don't think you're lying if you believe your story. No, I mean, I know this sounds ridiculous, but you'd have to believe it that this momentarily is the truth. And if you do that, your body will behave as if it's the truth. If you can just tell yourself, I will momentarily live under these imaginary circumstances. That's how you become a good liar. That's also how you become a good actor. Same things, the exact same deect. You have to emotionally convince yourself.

You convince yourself. You can convince anything that's true. I could see that, So I think you could be should I practice start culling people to talk about this. We can develop a whole routine for you. I'll sign up for your classes. But in all honesty, as a teacher, do you would you agree that a story is more persuasive than facts? I think so, well, I don't know, not in my time as a as an instructor, but I would say that as a writer, you know you can.

You can get people to believe all sorts of things. You can get them to change what's true to them. So not necessarily facts, but everyone has their own truth, their interpretation. But yeah, whatever is true to someone, and you can, if you tell a good enough story, you can rearrange the value of facts totally. Well, that's exactly what readA did. Now, getting to a couple of the facts that people overlooked that I think would have been so much suspicious to me if I were living in Dixon, Illinois.

Here's an example of some of the horses that she named. People would see these names in print, like so and so one like Rita Cronwell, one with and that these are the horses names, right, Okay, we'll play a little game four horses. I'm going to name three or real number one. I'm money too, Number two. I found a penny. Number three good, I will be number four. Dixon, Illinois can suck it. Oh, I don't know which. What do you think is not the real horse name? The penny

now Dixon? No, it's good, I will be. No, I'm kidding Illinois. But all of her horse names are about money or be like trickery, and people's just that's your interests. No, good old Rita well right under their noses. Yeah. Well, in the US Marshalls showed up. They had to collect all the ill gotten games Rita had gotten over the decades She've been fleecing everyone town. They showed up and they find four hundred horses that they now have to move.

Four four hundred horses. Remember, some of these horses are worth two apiece exactly. So the d J is like, oh man, what are we gonna do? They called up I don't know, like the cowboy US Marshals and they started like putting them in trailers and wrangling them up and going up to infestation. Dude. They had to have a whole auction for all of her stuff, and then a large part of the stuff was hers her family

bought back for her with what money? Yeah, exactly. So here's the list of some of the stuff that the d o J took from her two single family homes in Dixon. A single family home in Inglewood, Florida. A horse farm in Dixon. The custom Liberty Coach motor home. They're worth two million dollars. The Featherlight trailer also worth about a quarter million dollars. That's for pulling horses and so forth. A bunch of Chevy Silverado trucks because at

least she knew good value. Some GMC trucks but really there should have been dodges because they were cowboys, because that's what cowboys and cow girls drive, but whatever. A ken Worth tractor truck, which was worth about two grand. A freight liner truck these are the eighteen wheelers that are pulling the trailers, also worth two hundred grand. A Ford Thunderbird, a classic sixty seven Chevy Corvette once again nose class. And lastly, a bunch of John Deer utility vehicles,

tractors and riding boat. Nothing rides like a deer nothing at all. Then that's just the homes in vehicles, So imagine everything else. You got all the horse stuff for a bikinis and the various sentence candles find Corinthian leather bound books. Exactly. So on April seventeen twelve, at the time of her arrest, in her bank account, she had a hundred and ninety one thousand, three hundred and seventy

five dollars and seventy five cents. Because you know, it's also good at math, the d O J and they made sure to get every penny. So when did she start? Eight three? She starts scamming in you guess the job in eight three takes about seven years to cook the books she gets going and then for six long run. So the city of Dixon meanwhile left holding an empty bag. Yes exactly, they're like, what are we gonna do? Now? I told you they had like basically lost all this stuff.

The cops couldn't get radar guns, the kids couldn't have basketball uniforms. Were out there with hair dryers. Yeah, just pretending that they have. Like don't look too closely, you were going forty eight and thirty five. Now they did all that obviously, so Rita can have her little, my Little Pony collection as show horses and like, you gotta love at least I don't know. I don't love is the wrong word. But there was a Netflix documentary on

her story that was made. If you'd like to see more about the Rita Cronwell story, check out the documentary. But the director, Kelly Richmond Pope, who is a DePaul University accounting professor by day and a documentary filmmaker by night, said, and I quote, I feel like she had the last laugh. She won. She lived like a queen for twenty plus years and only served eight years. You do the math, she's sort of won. So what he put in the quote is that she after she's convicted, she does eight

years in prison, federal prison. Her family buys up most of the property when he goes to auctions, so she spends eight years. That's her price for all that she got away with. So this guy is saying, oh, eight years will be worth all of that, and she's the winner. What's your thought, No, she's not because of the fact that even if she was never caught, she didn't win. Because that's the grossest behavior to take from the people

around you who have supported you. Gave her a job at a time, like you know, at that time to be in a small town, to be the treasurer at the city of the town as a woman. Yeah, and she obviously everyone supported her growing up. And then she turns around and gives them the big two fingers to this guy, and it's like, I'm taking all your stuff? Is this not winning? I'm with you. I do the

methold differently than old Kelly Richmond Pope. I just see her, as I said before, she's basically a one woman version of colonization. She's just like I can if I can lift it, I'm taking it. It's just it's so gross. It is absolutely gross what she did. I mean seeing half of more than half of your towns annual budget. Okay,

let's just put this in perspective. Let's say I stole half of the money from your family's budget, and I did that every year year after here for six years, and I did this to fund my sea horse habit right, and eventually I get busted by the FBI. Do you think if someone came along and said that man, he's winning, would you be like, yeah, that's right. Brother that brothers

look at that old folk hero there. No, they wouldn't because I don't look like reader Krandwell at my point, so the only reason you are right now, well, yeah, and we have sequence, but that's not read is that's

that's where Read and I overlap. Okay, but the basically this the idea is that here you have this middle aged white woman in rural America, and everybody would assume that she could be a criminal on the level of like some Walter White breaking bad level of like you know, that's why we have to assume that everyone is a criminal problem. I mean, that's essentially My point is. Look, look, you need to be both skeptical and optimistic and do both at the same time. It's hard, it's exhausting. The

answer is always the same, don't believe the hype. That's true. So what's our ridiculous takeaway, Elizabeth ridiculous takeaway is that I really wish that they would have caught onto her earlier, because now I'm just like dwelling on the fact that the roads were all messed up and kids had didn't have like parks to play in because she wanted to go ride a horse somewhere now. She wasn't even riding these horses. No, she's winning, She's just parading them around.

She's disgusting. I also noticed she didn't need a weapon to rob anyone. She just needed a pen. And we always tend to forget that these white colored crimes do far more damage to a community than someone sticking up the corner store. But they don't get punished. And I'm not suggesting that we need to punish people, but we need to consider the actual effect and impact of crimes as opposed to how they make us feel. You know what the heroic quality was here? Yes, I thought you'd

like that. I knew Wanson was like your people. I'd yeah, Well, you know, as you know about me, Elizabeth, I would love to own a horse ranch. I love horses as I would just pretty much do anything to have a horse ranch of my own, except for stealing all of the money I can from my hometown. That is the Zaron Burnett guarantee. That so thanks for joining us. I'm Zarn Burnette, and over there in the white fur and

diamonds is Elizabeth Dutton. You can find us online. A ridiculous crime about Twitter and Instagram got a tip for us about a ridiculous crime you look to hear about. You want to confess to a ridiculous crime, email us at ridiculous Crime at gmail dot com. Ridiculous Crime is hosted by Elizabeth Dutton and Zaron Burnett, produced and edited

by Harrison Ford's horse trainer Dave Houston. Researches by the President of the three quarter and seven Eights Horse Association, Marissa brownn our theme song is by part time mayor Thomas Lee and our resident Lyle Lovett look alike Travis Dutton. Executive producers are Ben the Horse Breeder to the Stars Bolan and Noel Don't you Dare Call me a Controller Brown.

Ridiculous Crime is a production of I Heart Radio. For more podcasts to my heart Radio, visit the iHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.