OOOPS! I didn’t realize this happened last August! Don’t think it ever got updated here though. If it did, I am sorry for being repetitious!
The infamous Rita Crundwell is out of prison after serving only part of her sentence. The town she defrauded was not notified of her release and they aren’t happy about it.
I know some people who were friends with her. They started receiving odd letters from her. I think her mental and physical health has declined based on the letters.
I have read that she’s actually living at her brother’s place, in Dixon, IL the town she stole millions from.
I’m working on feeling empathy or sorrow for her decline. I wouldn’t hold your breath awaiting progress.
This story strikes a very special nerve with all of us who budget and barter so we can find the best quality horse we can afford, and then fret over our finances when we have an opportunity to compete that horse.
She had an RV worth over a million bucks? Guess that makes me a Horse Show Hobo for looking for a cheap motel or worse, contemplating sleeping in the cab of my truck.
I’ll never understand how she existed for so long in such a state of denial, fulling embracing her ill-gotten fantasy world. Did she truly believe that this charade would never end?
They made a documentary about her “All the Queen’s Horses”. It was interesting but they didn’t talk to her so it’s hard to know exactly what she was thinking. However, I will have to say that after 20+ years of embezzling, she got too comfortable - she was found out while she was on vacation and another person handled the mail. The substitute starting asking questions and the whole thing came apart.
I think it’s pretty typical for people who get caught up in embezzling to create a whole world in their head where they are justified in doing what they are doing.
The other extremely humorous thing for any horse person was that all the townfolk thought she was making money with her horses and so never questioned her lifestyle. HAHAHAHAHAHAHA!
OK 10 years in prison for $53 million. That is 5.3 million a year. Maybe crime does pay.
I looked at the catalog of things being sold off after she was arrested. It was mind-boggling. Furs, jewels, multiple Harris and Blue Ribbon saddles, that unbelievable horse trailer ($2 million, if I remember correctly). It was nuts.
And now she’s out.
I hope she’s banned from owning/showing/attending and horse shows.
I venture a guess all she can afford now is a used Breyer.
Every penny she can expect to make will go toward retribution as far as I heard, even the few bucks she earned from prison work.
And if her mental and physical health declined she is to pity.
I did a search this evening on my Roku TV for the documentary and found it offered “on demand” through the Pluto TV channel. I had heard a lot about this at the time, but it was interesting to see and hear from the Mayor and the woman whistleblower (deputy finance person?) who initially found the suspicious transactions. It was so telling when the woman said that she had to act “normal” while being highly stressed during the time Rita was under active investigation by the FBI and was still embezzling from the City of Dixon.
Another interesting thing was that a nearby small city, with around the same population, had noticed the City of Dixon’s financial reports and contacted them one year. They said, ‘We have a surplus of $8 million dollars, and your City of Dixon has a deficit of $4 million dollars—what’s up with you guys?’ This was done before the woman whistleblower found the evidence of embezzlement. Nothing was done, no one admitted to having read the letter, but the program stated that Rita Crundwell picked up the City’s mail, so…
I would have liked to have seen some reactions from the AQHA and fellow competitors at the time of Rita’s arrest/conviction on the program. But really, it would have had little to do with the program and investigation. Still, you can imagine what people were saying at the big AQHA shows after Rita’s arrest.
It was interesting that the City of Dixon was able to get a financial judgment against the firm that audited the City’s accounts and the bank (5TH/3RD) that handled the not-quite-right checks that Rita wrote and the financial transfers into the secret account that Rita created.
I may watch it again.
*edited to say I am now googling and reading articles from 2012 when this happened, including a release from the AQHA.
I seem to remember that Ms Crundwell controlled all aspects of her domain.
Like the audits, the warnings etc…which made it easy for her to steal for years. Definitely a matter of broken checks and balances.
Be sure to check gohorseshow.com and equine chronicle.
And people were not sure what to think at first.
I was the advisor for a youth group at the time and for whatever reason I never felt right about asking her for funding even though I heard parents and trainers say “just ask Rita” multiple times. I guess I was too much of a Pony Clubber/4-Her at heart and thought the kids need to do their own fundraisers. Which in hindsight got me a bit of strife from parents who weren’t used to their kids having to fundraise actively. LOL
I’ve always been curious as to how AQHA bigwigs, the ones who were used to being Queen Bees and Alpha Trophy Winners, reacted when Rita just sort of arrives out of nowhere and starts winning, and buying up all the best up-and-coming horses.
I just wonder if Rita ever misses the horses? Or a few particular horses? Did she really love them? Or was it just all about the winning of trophies and titles, and an addiction to the fame and recognition within that AQHA bubble? 
she had be showing AQHA since 1978, five years before she became comptroller/treasurer of Dixon.
I can understand how she did what she did as no one in that city questioned anything.
Yeah, the city officials and the local auditors all come off pretty badly in the documentary. They struggled to explain how this all happened. Real life example of why “trust but verify” is a good operating principle!
Aha! Didn’t know that. I’m guessing she had been moderately successful and figured if she could only get her hands on more money, and buy herself something really fancy… ? 
I’ve seen the documentary about her. But I’d like to read about Rita’s involvement with horses from early on, and how she became so consumed with showing and winning that she crossed the line, willingly, into embezzling a fortune to make it happen. Maybe such a tale needs to be told from a horse person’s perspective.
Years ago, when I was writing full time for the equine industry, a journalist from mainstream media contacted me for some backstory. He asked me to explain to him the allure of show horses and competition. He just couldn’t wrap his head around why someone would risk so much to win some ribbons and trophies.
I watched the documentary awhile back and recall it was a matter of everyone making assumptions and believing tales:
As mentioned earlier, all the townfolk thought the horses were making her all that money (ha!).
All the people on the show circuit thought she fell into money somehow (inheritance? Rich relative? I forget exactly).
So while lots of people were curious, everyone was somehow able to rationalize it.
I have no strong opinions about her being released early. I mean, she deserved her punishment, but tax payers also don’t need to be footing the bill to keep an otherwise harmless crazy horse person in jail. It’s punishment enough to lose everything and have to pay retribution.
She was a heck of a hand.
Her winning was an issue for others as she bought up the competition and she even stopped showing them sometimes. Even if they were better because she had her favorite horses. On the other hand she rarely moved one she was going to show out of the barn it was in when sold so trainers loved selling to her.
I’d say her addiction was horses. Others were addicted to her because of her winning. Does that make sense?
as of 2014 the AQHA was still paying her for her horse’s offsprings winnings
According to Jason Wojdylo, the Marshals’ Chief Inspector of the Asset Forfeiture Division, Crundwell continues to earn “breeder royalties” on her former horses. He said the American Quarter Horse Association and the American Paint Horse Association have paid her between $13,000 and $15,000 annually since she was imprisoned.
“As long as those horses are alive and showing, she’ll be entitled to receive royalties,” Wojdylo said
According to APHA earnings statistics, Crundwell was a top-10 earner as a nominator every year after she started her prison sentence. Her APHA nominator earnings were $1,044.30 in 2012, $870.12 in 2013 and $1,147.71 in 2014. She also ranked sixth in subscriber earnings in 2014, taking in $2,764.10.
No one is saying horses don’t make money. They were saying horses aren’t going to earn you $54M in play money. She wasn’t paying for her $2M RV with her breeders incentives. And all of that money is going straight into retribution now.
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