Small-Town Comptroller Accused Of Stealing $53 Million
By Samantha Abernethy in News on May 2, 2012 8:30PM
The former comptroller for a small Illinois town is accused of stealing as much as $53 million from the city since 1990 and dumping it into a secret personal account to help maintain her "lavish" lifestyle. Prosecutors say Rita Crundwell falsified invoices to take money from the small 16,000-person town of Dixon, Ill., the boyhood home of Ronald Reagan.
Feds seek to seize her belongings including 311 registered quarter horses, plus their unborn foals expected in the coming months, to be sold, applying the proceeds "toward restitution to the city of Dixon." The AP writes:
Federal prosecutors allege Crundwell created phony invoices that she characterized as being from the state of Illinois. She then allegedly put that money from a city account into another account, which she repeatedly used for personal use.According to the news release, she said she used the state's much-publicized dire financial straits to her advantage, telling city officials that the state was late in payments as a way to conceal her transfers of funds and her spending.
Prosecutors would also seize her Dixon horse farm, a home in Florida, a $2.1 million motorhome, and more than a dozen trucks, cars, boats and farm equipment, including a 1967 Chevrolet Corvette roadster.