The Scam Queen

[OverandOnward]

Just a personal opinion that I agree that her degree of evil is hard to even fathom in a human being. She just bashed through an entire community’s standard of living, negatively affected the lives of some of the most important service-givers especially police – so she could enjoy herself. To the max.

When you go through ALL of the things that she spent large amounts of money on, it is hard to believe the sheer quantity. The 400+ horses were a massive part. But they were only a part. Clothes. Food. Parties. Residences. Ultimate furniture and fixtures in her home. Ultimately styled-out RV for shows. Jewelry. She didn’t just have it, she had it at expensive levels.

And it had to keep coming out of the coffers of an entire town. Because that was the only source of so much money that she could access so reliably. Indefinitely.

There was no stop on what it took to satisfy her. None. There always had to be more. Bigger. Better. More more more.

A tiny handful of the non-horsey auction items …

• A chandelier made of guns and spurs from her home in Dixon.
• Tanning bed at her home.
• Heated & air conditioned dog kennel.
• Quantities of high-end turqouise jewelry.
• Upscale televisions and speaker systems.

And this below is the thing that, for me, symbolized the entire Rita Crundwell experience – This huge truck & horse trailer to take her horses to shows, and the RV for herself.

Mega trailer – with full portraits of each of her favorite horses. With plans to add more portraiture, more fancy stuff. And for her own show travel, the luxury RV, outfitted to the nines, which was also destined for more upgrades.

When is it enough? It was never, ever, enough.

I think the people of Dixon have every right to their feelings about Rita Crundwell. Thinking of all the things that they didn’t have, so that she could have more. And more and more and more.

Rita’s RV … These are not dealer marketing photos of an example RV, this is actually Rita’s personal RV. She is said to have bought it new for over $2 million, all in.

[NaturallyHappy]

Dear Heaven, how could she have gotten away w this to this extent???

[trubandloki]

@NaturallyHappy

Dear Heaven, how could she have gotten away w this to this extent???

She is an exceptionally good liar.

[Mosey_2003]

@NaturallyHappy

Dear Heaven, how could she have gotten away w this to this extent???

She was in control of the money AND the audits. And weaved believable tales.

[oldernewbie]

Besides her lying, there were also some very sloppy audits and some people in the local government who approved processes that enabled her embezzling. A stunning lack of critical thinking.

I’m not minimizing her guilt, but there was a lot of incompetence around her that she used to great advantage.

“All the Queen’s Horses” examines this aspect of the mess pretty well I thought.

[OverandOnward]

Every con artist has to have some help from a critical part of the con: The target. The victim.

Dixon city gov’t had so many warnings from the outside that something was not right with Dixon finances. The tax revenues vs city financial statements weren’t jiving.

Internally, there was too much responsibility and too few checks on one position in city gov’t: Rita. Accounting and payments are supposed to be organized so that more than one person has responsibility for review of ongoing transactions. But Dixon didn’t have that structure.

Rita was such a great employee, such an essential cog in the wheel. “Go ask Rita.” “Find out from Rita.” “Rita will handle it.”

Everyone believed in Rita.

Until they didn’t. A couple of key personnel thought something was NQR with the flow through Rita.

Rita found that out when she was invited into an office meeting with some gov’t visitors: the FBI.

The FBI had been investigating for months. And frankly, she wasn’t hard to spot. It was there to be seen all along. Had anyone known where to look, and how to look. Rita left that meeting under arrest and wearing handcuffs.

[OverandOnward]

Question for all:

Did Rita expect that she would be caught, eventually? Was she making the most of her time while she could, knowing that it would all end in a crash, sooner or later?

What she was doing to steal money wasn’t rocket science. The investigators caught it with basic robust audit methods. As well as her general behavior and personal financial stats.

[Night_Flight]

If I remember correctly, the company responsible for auditing (and chosen by Rita) was the same company paid to provide payroll services for the city and the same company that handled Rita’s own finances. It was held liable for some of the money that was lost.

I believe the bank was also held liable, but to a lesser extent, for not having questioned the large cheques.

[bugsynskeeter1]

I don’t believe so. There are several people I know in the industry who didn’t believe she did what they said she did. I think she got away with it for so long she didn’t think she’d ever get caught.

[oldernewbie]

If I’m not mistaken, she was found out when she was on vacation. She always got the mail and her sub got the mail and found something that just wasn’t right (sorry, I’m a little hazy on the details). When the sub brought the issue to the city’s attention, they didn’t believe her at first - if I remember correctly. But, a little sleuthing and it all came crashing down.

She got sloppy - otherwise who knows how long the con would have gone on.

One thing I always found hilarious - people around her thought she was making all that money from her horses. HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA! That’s probably the biggest lapse in critical thinking in the whole mess! Wasn’t there another horse person in the city government who could set them straight?

[Mosey_2003]

Yes, on vacation and the lady filling in was the one whose family Campbell Soup shares fortune story she stole.

[Paint_Party]

What I never understood, from a horsewoman’s perspective, was how she more or less arrived on the show scene with some of the top horses and a whole lot of expensive tack and apparel and no one paused a beat to ask, “Where did she come from?”

I mean, let’s face it. The show world in every discipline is a gossip mill. This wasn’t a topic of conversation? A city employee having access to unlimited horse funds?

When I asked some of my QH pals they just sort of shrugged and said that there are people who just arrive on the scene with fancy horses and all the schizz and it’s just figured that it’s from marrying well or Texas oil money or a lottery win.

[Night_Flight]

The lady Rita worked with and who seemed to be covering during Rita’s vacation had instructions to ask for the records related to specific account numbers each week or whatever, rather than ask for the records related to all accounts. She was busy or had a headache and couldn’t be bothered to read out the account numbers over the phone, so she just asked for everything.

That’s when she discovered that there was an extra account that no one knew about, with huge transactions involved. She brought it to the attention of the mayor, who contacted the FBI, and the lady had to keep working with Rita for months while the investigation was ongoing, including sneaking out certain records when the FBI requested them and not letting on that there was a problem.

[OverandOnward]

@Paint_Party

When I asked some of my QH pals they just sort of shrugged and said that there are people who just arrive on the scene with fancy horses and all the schizz and it’s just figured that it’s from marrying well or Texas oil money or a lottery win.

Exactly. This is very common in the western show world. In the AQHA.

Someone makes their pile and remembers the riding lessons of their youth. And how they always wanted to ride a pretty horse in blinged-out tack and a sparkly outfit in a real horse show.

Couples and families also join like this. Some make their money in construction, or property investment, or financial trading, or whatever pulls in big scores.

And they want to win ribbons and championships. The AQHA breeders produce foals far in excess of need to find the winners and supply this need. Everybody with the wallet to buy a fancy horse can have a fancy horse. They aren’t as scarce as in some other disciplines.

While the AQHA show world structures their divisions and classes to maximize the number of winners and championships. I hate to put it this way, but the riding part is easy compared with h/j/e or eventing or dressage. Or reining or cutting.

There is room for everyone with deep pockets and the persistence to find the right path. This is how the AQHA became a money magnet. A magnet for Rita.

[ParadoxFarm]

@oldernewbie

“All the Queen’s Horses” examines this aspect of the mess pretty well I thought.

I just put this on my watch list. I am not familiar with this story.

[BrownMareDon_tCare]

This 100%. I work in criminal law and almost every victim of a business embezzlement will tell you how much they trusted the embezzler. And in this situation with Rita having worked in Dixon for so long and being such an integral part of the city office, no one could believe (wanted to believe?) that she was in any way involved. Sometimes it’s easier to accept whatever story is presented as an excuse rather than believe your co-worker/ employee/ friend could be stealing from you.

[OverandOnward]

Just after the Dixon story went national, suddenly many smaller businesses and local governments took a hard look at their accounting – and their accounting staff.

Small town, small time, embezzlers were being outed here, there, and everywhere. So many school districts had someone who paid out expense vouchers filching from loosely-defined accounts. Small businesses discovered their one bookkeeper was finagling extra funds to themselves. Etc. and so on. Total amounts in the tens of thousands, spread over years, so that it didn’t amount to that much per year, per embezzler.

Spawning little articles in local newspapers, and of course shock and outrage – but sometimes sympathy, too, for the hardships of the embezzler.

Always the nicest people. Someone everyone had liked. Couldn’t believe they would do this.

The embezzlers always said that they had pressing family needs and intended to pay it back – although they never had, over the years.

But somehow their mom’s cancer had been in remission for years before the embezzler bought themselves the new tricked-out Cadillac.

[bugsynskeeter1]

She was showing at QH Congress. I remember seeing her there that year and having a conversation with some fellow vendors about where her money came from.

[Mosey_2003]

@Paint_Party

When I asked some of my QH pals they just sort of shrugged and said that there are people who just arrive on the scene with fancy horses and all the schizz and it’s just figured that it’s from marrying well or Texas oil money or a lottery win.

Yep, people don’t really care where it came from as long as you have the money. If you’re throwing a party, they’re in.

[bugsynskeeter1]

@Paint_Party

When I asked some of my QH pals they just sort of shrugged and said that there are people who just arrive on the scene with fancy horses and all the schizz and it’s just figured that it’s from marrying well or Texas oil money or a lottery win.

One of the high sellers in the dispersal sale was purchased by someone who won the lottery - so that is a legit thing thats happened in the industry.