I listen to a podcast about scams called Scam Goddess, hosted by Laci Moseley, and this week’s episode is about Rita Crundwell. I haven’t listened to it yet, but looking forward to doing so. Fair warning, the show generally involves some NSFW language and banter. It’s extremely funny with great guests.
odd to call what she did a scam as she outright stole the money from the city, never even had any conversations with any one… she concealed the thief of at least $52,000,000 by routing the money paid to the city into her hidden bank accounts
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There was also an episode about her on the podcast Scamfluencers.
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I haven’t heard this podcast, but I’m sure it’s worth a listen. And I would certainly call Rita Crundwell a “scam artist” - scam does not just mean an email from a Nigerian prince. 
A few years back I was a town accountant. I had a series of interviews with a few different municipalities as I was looking for an org that provided better flexibility for my hobbies outside of work (riding). In one of the interviews, this came up – and I remember the Finance Director commenting that horse people make bad finance directors and accountants because of our track record of stealing money. 
She wasn’t wrong. In my professional experience, I’ve heard of several misappropriations and outright thefts from municipalities before and it’s uncanny how many of them were horse people.
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I listened to an e-book by Nick Pirog called Show Me, part of his Thomas Prescott Series (such fun listens, Thomas is awesome!). SPOILER ALERT - In the book there is a woman horse breeder who winds up being behind all the mayhem, of course it’s all about money, and she’s the town treasurer. In the epilogue he references the Rita Crundwell case as being the inspiration for that character - but as I was listening to the book, I knew immediately that was who she was based on, even before he said that!
Great book, great series, and great author, BTW - I love his stuff!
There is a documentary on YouTube called All the Queens Horses and it goes into her case and talks about how she committed the fraud.
If you are into accounting and horses it is a good watch. I make all of my audit staff watch it. 
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Update on Crundwell
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I just saw news about this as well.
CBS also did a very comprehensive report. And got a statement from Dixon’s city manager.
The scale of her embezzlement is still astonishing to me.
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from the above article
“She is not remorseful. She never has been. Her only regret has only ever been that she was caught.”
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