Speaker 1: Ridiculous Crime is a production of I Heart Radio. It
Speaker 1: was a bit done, Zaren. Do you know what's ridiculous? Yeah,
Speaker 1: I'll tell you it's ridiculous. Hit me with it. Okay,
Speaker 1: when you don't want your car stolen, which is not
Speaker 1: that's not ridiculous. No one wants her car stolen unless
Speaker 1: you just need to get rid of it. Well, sure,
Speaker 1: evidence wise, but let's say you don't trust the club,
Speaker 1: you don't trust the locks or an alarm. Did you
Speaker 1: know I think this is ridiculous. You can buy a
Speaker 1: boot for your own car. I think I know you're
Speaker 1: going with this like it's not just a municipal thing.
Speaker 1: Did you get some reason to this one? Recently in
Speaker 1: my neighbor's driveway. What your neighbor boots his own car?
Speaker 1: Boots his own car? And I have decided that's ridiculous. Yes,
Speaker 1: I would agree, an idiotic. Why did he boot his
Speaker 1: own car? Because did you have the car stolen a
Speaker 1: couple of times? Now? Did he have his like something
Speaker 1: else stolen? He's just kind of like gunshie about this innocence.
Speaker 1: I don't know, just snatch from him and now he's like,
Speaker 1: not my truck. I think maybe he shouldn't be living
Speaker 1: in the city. Oh yeah, yeah, definitely. So wait is
Speaker 1: he like, uh, somebody from like rural small town America? Mhm,
Speaker 1: what's this deal? I don't know, but he's ridiculous. I'll
Speaker 1: completely concur with that. Now. I got one for you, Yes,
Speaker 1: you're ready. This is a story. It's about a middle
Speaker 1: aged woman. She's from rural, small town Illinois, and this
Speaker 1: particular Midwestern woman she uh, she had his taste for
Speaker 1: that sweet sweet horsey breeding life. Oh yeah. Now to
Speaker 1: pay for her horse jones, she decided to dip into
Speaker 1: the bank account, not of her wealthy husband, not of
Speaker 1: her family, but of her town, her hometown, and she
Speaker 1: used the money that she could on the horses, and
Speaker 1: she started diverting so much of the town's budget that
Speaker 1: the town was almost going bankrupt. The perfect criminals, since
Speaker 1: no one sees her coming. This is the story of
Speaker 1: Rita Crundwell, the woman who got hooked on horse. I'm
Speaker 1: sorry the horses. Woman had got hooked on horses, those
Speaker 1: sweet sweet ponies. This is Ridiculous Crime a podcast about
Speaker 1: absurd and outrageous capers, heists, and cons. It's always murder
Speaker 1: free and ridiculous today's bizarre tale, a small town crime
Speaker 1: takes place in the American heartland. One of your favorite places, Elizabeth,
Speaker 1: America's heartland is now this story of Rita Crundwell. It
Speaker 1: takes place in a very specific part of rural small
Speaker 1: town America, the Illinois town of Dixon. Now, this is
Speaker 1: also famous for a couple of things. Before Rita Krundwell
Speaker 1: was famous as the hometown of the star of the
Speaker 1: Bedtime for Bonzos series of movies would later became I
Speaker 1: Believe a politician Ronald Reagan that guy. Yeah h Then Dixon,
Speaker 1: Illinois is also the petunia capital of well, not the world,
Speaker 1: but of Illinois. It's the petunia capital of Illinois, which
Speaker 1: is you know, high praise for Illinois. Also the catfish
Speaker 1: capital of Illinois once again of Illinois fish not the
Speaker 1: practice of doing people not like really good at like
Speaker 1: cooking up with like like foreigners, getting them to come
Speaker 1: over here and like wait a minute, cat the bottom feeder. Yeah,
Speaker 1: this is not like Manteto's hometown. Now. Our second fun
Speaker 1: fact about Dixon is that Rita Crunwell lives there and
Speaker 1: she is the fifth most prolific embezzler of all time.
Speaker 1: Of all times of all time. Dang Elizabeth, has the
Speaker 1: FBI ever come to your home or place of work
Speaker 1: and asked to speak with you? Well, Elizabeth, Um, no
Speaker 1: they haven't. They haven't. They haven't asked to speak with me.
Speaker 1: But one time when I worked at a certain place,
Speaker 1: they came in, but not to talk to me. Did
Speaker 1: you get to watch them operate? Yeah? Well not really.
Speaker 1: They went into another office and then everyone was terrified
Speaker 1: in our office and scarrying around, and I was like, well,
Speaker 1: we haven't done anything, wait have we? And then okay,
Speaker 1: well I've got a little fun visualization for you. You're ready.
Speaker 1: This is the moment when the FBI comes to your
Speaker 1: work and what that is like? Ready, I want you
Speaker 1: to close your eyes, Yes, I want you to picture.
Speaker 1: It's a Tuesday morning in April. It's early in the day,
Speaker 1: a little after nine am. You're working at the Dixon
Speaker 1: City Hall. You're a part time secretary, just typing away,
Speaker 1: doing your thing. It's how Rita started at city Hall.
Speaker 1: And you spot these three FBI agents to say, push
Speaker 1: open the double doors. Streaming in sunlight behind them, the
Speaker 1: noises of the day on Main Street Dixon all come
Speaker 1: pouring in these FBI agents. They stride in with purpose
Speaker 1: and they're looking past you and you're like, no, I
Speaker 1: agree people, They're like, no, we know where we're going.
Speaker 1: They go marching up the stairs. You go to follow
Speaker 1: to see if they need help, trying to get to
Speaker 1: wherever it is that they're going. And as you're going
Speaker 1: up the horrible steps, you can see them make the
Speaker 1: turn and start heading towards the mayor's office. You're like, okay,
Speaker 1: I know where they're going. So you trail behind them.
Speaker 1: You follow them all the way down the hallway. They
Speaker 1: get to the mayor's office. Mayor Jim Burke is in
Speaker 1: his office that morning. This is a point of fact,
Speaker 1: because he's a part time mayor. He's not always in
Speaker 1: the office this morning. Common in small town he is,
Speaker 1: It is very common now. Full time real estate agent,
Speaker 1: part time mayor. Jim Burke is a good hearted guy,
Speaker 1: and so you know, kind self effacing, kind of Midwestern guy,
Speaker 1: Big Jim, Big Jim Burke, and the FBI agents come in.
Speaker 1: He's really friendly, nice to them, and you're right on
Speaker 1: the FBI S six right You're watching pass them into
Speaker 1: Mayor Jim Burke's office because you want to see what
Speaker 1: all this hullabaloo is about. Nose as hell. I figured you, yes,
Speaker 1: and in imagination. So as Mayor Jim Burke is greeting
Speaker 1: the FBI agents, you notice he doesn't look scared, frightened, intimidated, nothing.
Speaker 1: He's cool as a cucumber in a bowl of hot
Speaker 1: stung would say. Yeah. Big him is sitting there and
Speaker 1: he's like, you know, I basically called you into the office.
Speaker 1: It seems he's got that demeanor like he invited the FBI.
Speaker 1: Know why would he invite the FBI? You're wondering, Well,
Speaker 1: the FBI agents they don't say anything at first, they
Speaker 1: just keep doing their business. And uh, you don't know this,
Speaker 1: but you're about to find out that the FBI has
Speaker 1: been working with Mayor Jim Burke to bust one of
Speaker 1: the employees in city Hall and today is the day
Speaker 1: for the silver bracelets to be slapped on their wrist.
Speaker 1: Here Jim Burke's face starts to lighten a little bit.
Speaker 1: He looks at the FBI guys, and you're like, what's
Speaker 1: going on to you? The moment that the excitement is
Speaker 1: just rippling through you and all of a sudden, Mayor
Speaker 1: Burke says to the three FBI agents, are we ready?
Speaker 1: They're like, oh, it's going down the on The FBI
Speaker 1: guys replies, yes, let's bring her in. Mayor Burke picks
Speaker 1: up his telephone. He dials an extension in city Hall people,
Speaker 1: and then he waits, puts the phone on speaker mode.
Speaker 1: You can hear the phone down the hall ringing. You're like,
Speaker 1: do you call someone in the office. You hear a
Speaker 1: woman's voice at the other end. Hello, She's got a
Speaker 1: nice sunny, you know, springtime e voice. Air Burke, very serious,
Speaker 1: very solemn, says Rita, would you mind stepping into my
Speaker 1: office for a minute. Rita replies sure. Now a moment later,
Speaker 1: her office door opens. You hear it and also me.
Speaker 1: Then you hear his footsteps clanking. She's going down the hallway,
Speaker 1: the marble steps her heels to get louder. She gets closer.
Speaker 1: You're so anticipatory, you just cannot wait for the moment
Speaker 1: what is going to be happening. Rita pokes her head
Speaker 1: in the doorway that you're standing there in the doorway
Speaker 1: with her. Now she squeezes and she says hi, and
Speaker 1: everyone turns. A three FBI engagent turn Mayor Jim Burke turns.
Speaker 1: You just kind of just glance over at it, because
Speaker 1: she's standing there right next to you. The FBI agents say, Rita,
Speaker 1: would you mind coming in? Mayor Burke reiterates, Rita, would
Speaker 1: would you please mind stepping into my office? The lead
Speaker 1: FBI says, Hi, I'm with the FBI. That moment has come.
Speaker 1: You're like, oh, it's going down now. He flashes his badge.
Speaker 1: Rita looks at it and her face starts to break
Speaker 1: a little. She knows it's over decades of flies, the fraud,
Speaker 1: the embezzlement, the scams, the cons all of it are
Speaker 1: coming crashing down. But yet her face doesn't fully show it.
Speaker 1: Just a hint of it is in her eyes. The
Speaker 1: lead FBI guy continues, Rita, we'd like to ask you
Speaker 1: some questions. Mayor Burke stares at Rita. Meanwhile, Rita's face
Speaker 1: still hasn't changed. It's just placid, and you're like, how
Speaker 1: is she doing this? She just keeps smiling. It just
Speaker 1: the small perch smile breaks on her face. It's almost
Speaker 1: midwestern and polite, super eerie. And then the FBI agents
Speaker 1: slapped the cuffs on her and they say she won't talk.
Speaker 1: They're taking into the office. They leave city Hall, they
Speaker 1: perp walker out. Everybody is a gas. They're all looking,
Speaker 1: Oh my goodness, it's Rita, Rita. I can't believe it's Rita.
Speaker 1: That moment was the moment when Mayor Jim Burke finally
Speaker 1: realized what we will call the dow of Rita Krundwell, Now,
Speaker 1: what is the doo of Rita Krundwell, Well, as it goes,
Speaker 1: he said, and I quote, it showed me she didn't
Speaker 1: give us about our town. Oh yeah, So how much
Speaker 1: do you, Rita exactly not give about the town of Dixon, Illinois?
Speaker 1: Can you guess? Try the tune of fifty three million dollars?
Speaker 1: Fifty three million dollars fifty three million. How did the
Speaker 1: town have that much money to begin with? Well that
Speaker 1: was over multiple years. She was just basically siphoning off
Speaker 1: cash to pay for her horses, year after year after
Speaker 1: year after year from the small little town until she
Speaker 1: had taken fifty three million dollars in the FPI. I
Speaker 1: showed up and said, we'd like to talk to you, Rita.
Speaker 1: Can I tell you how excited I am that they
Speaker 1: didn't kick me out when they started doing this whole
Speaker 1: rita we need to talk to They just let me
Speaker 1: stand in the doorway. I like that. I knew you'd
Speaker 1: like to kind of just watch that same play out. Yeah,
Speaker 1: the FBI is very generous, you know, in small town America,
Speaker 1: and they sent the FBI comes. It's not like state
Speaker 1: police or anything. So this is big time. Yeah, they
Speaker 1: didn't bring the U. S. Marshals to grab her. They
Speaker 1: wanted to talk with her and then to cover So. Coincidentally,
Speaker 1: that fifty three million I just told you, that's the
Speaker 1: exact same amount that Kanye West was in bankruptcy for.
Speaker 1: He's not almost a billionaire. If he's not already a billionaire,
Speaker 1: I don't know who cares. But the point is is
Speaker 1: that's a sizeable chunk of money. It's enough to turn
Speaker 1: you into a billionaire, and in this case, it was
Speaker 1: enough to pretty much bankrupt her hometown. Now, let's say
Speaker 1: you stole fifty three million dollars, Elizabeth, should we say
Speaker 1: it together? Elizabeth? Okay? I felt good. Now let's say
Speaker 1: he didn't donate any of it. You just had to
Speaker 1: spend all of it on yourself for stuff or whatever. Gifts.
Speaker 1: I don't care what would you spend fifty three million
Speaker 1: I'll limit it. What animal would you spend fifty three
Speaker 1: million dollars on? Oh? Dogs? Hello? Really you wouldn't go
Speaker 1: like big like peacocks or bears. I would have a
Speaker 1: standing dog army that would be completely pampered. Okay, yeah,
Speaker 1: it would be wild. What would you do with your
Speaker 1: dog army? I mean you've got enough money to pamper them, so, like,
Speaker 1: how are you going to pamper them various acts of vengeance? No?
Speaker 1: I would you have probably for them. Everyone gets their
Speaker 1: own bed so they don't all try and sleep on
Speaker 1: my bed. Okay, they get the list of foods and
Speaker 1: table scraps. Okay, I don't know, buy like a bunch
Speaker 1: of acres and build my own dog park. Like would
Speaker 1: you travel with them? Would you get like maybe like
Speaker 1: a very large trailer in a truck and you take
Speaker 1: them on a road trip around the country with all
Speaker 1: their heads outside of the sunglasses on all of them?
Speaker 1: Oh my god, I would get the nicest sunglasses for
Speaker 1: all the dogs. Everybody gets custom ray bands. Very nice,
Speaker 1: very nice. You're starting to now get what Rita Crundwell
Speaker 1: was about. Was she about that rude dude life. No,
Speaker 1: unfortunately she was just about that rude life. Now, after
Speaker 1: this short break, it's time to meet the star of
Speaker 1: our story, the embezzler extraordinaire, Rita Krundwell. Elizabeth M. You
Speaker 1: used to live in a small town. You you told me,
Speaker 1: yea the small town that we don't have to name it.
Speaker 1: But living in a small town, you know what it's like.
Speaker 1: Were there any any liars in your town? Anybody who
Speaker 1: got busted for a lie? Maybe it was like a
Speaker 1: divorce that all said came to light of scandal with money.
Speaker 1: Is there anything like that? Of course, human beings live there. Well, yes,
Speaker 1: I know I'm saying, but in small towns, it's it's
Speaker 1: less likely that a secret emerges because people know the secret.
Speaker 1: It kind of gets whispered about, you know what I mean,
Speaker 1: Like it doesn't just get broken in the news. It's
Speaker 1: more like people knew about it and then it's like
Speaker 1: the news confirmed. But that's accurate. I think, Yeah, there
Speaker 1: are secrets that that are sort of known secrets. Everyone's
Speaker 1: in on it. But then sometimes she gets surprised out
Speaker 1: of It's gonna be like the violent secrets. There's the
Speaker 1: marital secrets. The money secrets, but oftentimes there's the whisper
Speaker 1: networks that are very different than big cities. Right, you
Speaker 1: can't be anonymous, right, exactly. Keep that in mind as
Speaker 1: I tell you how Rita Krundwell pulled off for fifty
Speaker 1: three million dollars theft of her How many people lived
Speaker 1: in this Dixon, Illan About sixteen thousand people, right, Yeah,
Speaker 1: that's pretty small, Yeah, pretty pretty small. That's big compared
Speaker 1: to where I was living. People sixteen thousand would be
Speaker 1: asked the big city, going into the big city to
Speaker 1: like get your checks cash. Well, that's where like Starbucks
Speaker 1: is five minutes away. Yeah, anyway, so I think that's yeah,
Speaker 1: it's in the grand scheme of things. Pretty small town. Well,
Speaker 1: getting to Dixon, Illinois, Rida Crundwell's hometown. Rita was one
Speaker 1: of six Crundwell kids. She grew up on the family farm.
Speaker 1: She was the type of teen who were cowboy boots.
Speaker 1: She drove a beat up pickup trucks. She was in
Speaker 1: a four age. She raised livestock, She competed in livestock shows,
Speaker 1: and she showed up in the lyrics I think one
Speaker 1: or two John Cougar Mellancamp song that's gonna say. She
Speaker 1: sounds like a character in a New Country lyrics. Yeah,
Speaker 1: she's like Tracey Atkins, ideal girl, drinking from a red
Speaker 1: solo cup, sitting how much hey means to her? That
Speaker 1: reminds me a home out. Rita Cronwells. So she was
Speaker 1: also a smart girl. She was a National Honor Society member.
Speaker 1: She was a popular girl, the kind of kid who
Speaker 1: gets nominated or elected. I don't know how it goes,
Speaker 1: but to her high school's homecoming court. Yeah, I don't
Speaker 1: know how that works. Yeah, I think it's elected. I
Speaker 1: don't know anyway. Rita Kronwell all American upbringing. Just keep
Speaker 1: that in mind. Now, one of the facts I just
Speaker 1: told you above is not true. I'll let you guess
Speaker 1: which one. John Cougar mellencom Okay, So Rida our former
Speaker 1: honor student girl with the big glasses, brown hair for
Speaker 1: eight kid cowboy boots out in your mind. Okay. She
Speaker 1: goes to work at the city hall thanks to her
Speaker 1: high school's work study program. So she's like a junior
Speaker 1: at the time. This is nineteen seventy Okay, So in
Speaker 1: nineteen seventy one, she graduates and then she takes a job,
Speaker 1: full time job at city hall. It's like, that's a
Speaker 1: good job all town. So she's like, I'm keeping it around.
Speaker 1: That same time, the mayor he creates this new position
Speaker 1: called the town's comptroller. And the comptrollers you were familiar is,
Speaker 1: handles the money. They're a little bit different than say
Speaker 1: the treasurer. They are in charge of like writing the checks,
Speaker 1: making sure that the checkbook is balanced. So this person
Speaker 1: is important in the town at Dixon because, as I
Speaker 1: said earlier, Mayor Jim Burke part time mayor, city council
Speaker 1: and city council members rather there's four of them. They're
Speaker 1: also all part time, so the city relies on some
Speaker 1: full time employees to handle city business. So Rita Krundwell
Speaker 1: joins this full time cartier of city hall employees, and
Speaker 1: eventually she works her way up to treasure and then
Speaker 1: from treasurer to comptroller. So it takes her about thirteen years.
Speaker 1: So now we're in ninete, we're into the Reagan years
Speaker 1: of America. There is a new feeling about rural America.
Speaker 1: There's a new optimism coming out of the seventies and inflation.
Speaker 1: So people are they're having a little bit of a
Speaker 1: not a go go American moment, but the rural America
Speaker 1: is feeling better about themselves, right. Rita takes that moment says,
Speaker 1: I'm feeling better, but myself too right now. Quicker than
Speaker 1: you can say Kevin Bacon and footloose, Rita Krundwell starts
Speaker 1: angling for how she can make her new appointment work
Speaker 1: for her. Takes her a little bit of time, about
Speaker 1: seven years. About At that time, She's like, I think
Speaker 1: I gotta handle how I'm going to scam this town now. Rita,
Speaker 1: she's really good with numbers, like that's part of her
Speaker 1: bag is that she's exacting. She's detail oriented and everybody
Speaker 1: knows this about her. It's it's her rep right. The
Speaker 1: mayor at the time of her arrest, to quote, Rita
Speaker 1: was very efficient, very pleasant, She got along with everyone,
Speaker 1: and she knew the job in and out. She seemed
Speaker 1: like a perfect fit. Yeah, right, so that's her general
Speaker 1: m oh everybody's reacting to now. Meanwhile, Rita is acting
Speaker 1: like a Banana Republic dictator. She decides to take total
Speaker 1: control of city Hall, which in this case means the
Speaker 1: flow of information. She has all of the paperwork that
Speaker 1: she deals with routed to a p O box so
Speaker 1: nobody can see the mail that is coming to her. Nope,
Speaker 1: the address that you normally would think of the mail
Speaker 1: will go city hall. The whole reason why you have
Speaker 1: a city hall was a building for business of city
Speaker 1: hall to be done. She's like, no, send that to
Speaker 1: my pel box. I'll do it at home. I'm this
Speaker 1: is this is like way before are work at home? Yeah,
Speaker 1: She's like, I'm a workaholic and this way I can
Speaker 1: work on the weekends. And I see rita, Yeah, you're
Speaker 1: onto right now. Yeah. Apparently in her small town everyone
Speaker 1: was like, no, she's just so good at her work. Well,
Speaker 1: and one of the things that I noticed living in
Speaker 1: a small town is that you are sort of um
Speaker 1: locked into your public persona when you're in high school,
Speaker 1: and so whoever you are in high school tends to
Speaker 1: follow you through. And so if you were like the
Speaker 1: handsome quarterback and then you just kind of keep screwing
Speaker 1: up later, people are always you know, but he was
Speaker 1: the handsome quarterback, or you're the weird outsider, it's hard
Speaker 1: to then change. And so she's like she it's hard
Speaker 1: to reinvent yourself. Whereas like where I'm you know, born
Speaker 1: and raised California. That's like a pastime, right, constant reinvention,
Speaker 1: but you're not. Really it's hard. It's hard in a
Speaker 1: small town. So I can see Rita. If she just
Speaker 1: locks herself in in high schools like National Honor Society,
Speaker 1: doing work study, riding around in a pickup truck, whatever,
Speaker 1: like doing all the right things for h everyone's going
Speaker 1: to see her like that, and they never they never
Speaker 1: took a second glance. You're so right about that. She
Speaker 1: apparently locked in then she used that. I think she
Speaker 1: was aware of it, like you are that, like this
Speaker 1: is all they see. So the meanwhile, Rita is like
Speaker 1: basically doing exactly just saying, is creating this persona that
Speaker 1: is impeccable and implacable in terms of like everybody thinks
Speaker 1: they know Rita, they have no idea who Rida is. Right, So, like,
Speaker 1: for instance, to advance her idea of her being really
Speaker 1: frugal and meticulous about money, she always did ducts money
Speaker 1: from her own salary for any day of work that
Speaker 1: she misses. Right now, what this means is if like
Speaker 1: she's out of office for like a week for to
Speaker 1: go to a horse show, will say she did ducts
Speaker 1: that from her pay and that balanced out that one year.
Speaker 1: She makes about three dollars a year, so she one
Speaker 1: year im only made sixty one dollars because she took
Speaker 1: twenty two dollars off of her salary. So that way
Speaker 1: it would look like, you know, did she not get
Speaker 1: vacation time beyond? I think she may have used up
Speaker 1: her page. So she's just above board, like yeah, look
Speaker 1: I'm taking leave without pay. When she go to horse stuff,
Speaker 1: horse shows and like travel, people don't know. They just
Speaker 1: know she leaves. Wait a second, so she makes a
Speaker 1: d g year and she took off. That's like a
Speaker 1: quarter of the time. She's not even there. I do math, Yes,
Speaker 1: look at it took me a second smoke coming out
Speaker 1: of my ears. I was worried something caught fire. But
Speaker 1: like that's like half, it's half of her time. So
Speaker 1: they weren't doing this math. The local townspeople, they're just
Speaker 1: so happy and they figured rid it was so good
Speaker 1: at a job. Meanwhile, that same time, when she's out sick,
Speaker 1: she's has like a family member go to her po
Speaker 1: box and pick up her work to make sure that
Speaker 1: nobody ever sees it. Maybe they're using. Like the metric
Speaker 1: that I wish all jobs would do is like forget
Speaker 1: the eight hours a day, forty hour week. However, if
Speaker 1: you get your work done, then fine, you get paid. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I'm with you. That should be the stap So, and
Speaker 1: let's be honest, like a quarter of our time is
Speaker 1: you know, doing I don't know crypto quip for instance.
Speaker 1: For instance, I don't know just you know, spitball in here,
Speaker 1: but I think you know she's she's laying out something now,
Speaker 1: she's doing nefarious things. But if we're all honest with ourselves, yeah,
Speaker 1: we could get all of our work done in three
Speaker 1: quarters at the time she went way past I'm going
Speaker 1: to make the biggest ball of rubber bands I can.
Speaker 1: But I see your point, which is basically, you know,
Speaker 1: people should be able to work as much as their
Speaker 1: work is required of and not try to fill in
Speaker 1: some arbitrary oh you gotta be here on the clock
Speaker 1: kind of stuff, exact completely, and Rita would agree with you,
Speaker 1: But I don't like that. I don't you don't want
Speaker 1: her in your side. Rita creates her fake dummy bank
Speaker 1: account and goes into business of Rita, Inc. She starts
Speaker 1: sidelining money and creating like, well, what will soon become
Speaker 1: a vast empire in fortune in the horse world. And
Speaker 1: the way she did it is she started a city
Speaker 1: account but in her name, so that way she's the
Speaker 1: only signatory on the account. But as far as the
Speaker 1: bank is concerned, it's doing city business. So it's like
Speaker 1: City of Dixon exactly, and with signatory Rita. So that's
Speaker 1: how she starts to do being Bazzel funds. And she
Speaker 1: likes it. She's into it, right, she gets after it.
Speaker 1: She's like, I don't know a colonist in the new world.
Speaker 1: She's like, oh, look at all this value just lying
Speaker 1: around here. So her plan works because one there's this
Speaker 1: constant influx of new city leaders. Right the city council
Speaker 1: member of new mayor comes in. She teaches them the books,
Speaker 1: this is how the city works, this is what I do.
Speaker 1: So she teaches them her cooked books method. When the
Speaker 1: city auditors come in, because she was smart about this.
Speaker 1: Starting about the somewhere in the mid eighties, she started
Speaker 1: basically faking the records. And so when she creates her
Speaker 1: false account and starts diverting funds, by that point she
Speaker 1: has all these records that are fake. So the auditors
Speaker 1: looking back seven years they have a false record, they don't,
Speaker 1: so they can't see it either. The local town is uh,
Speaker 1: you know, they're the banks that are supposed to be
Speaker 1: in charge of the account that they keep getting bought
Speaker 1: up by national banks, so that no longer is that
Speaker 1: nosy bank manager who's paying attention to how often Rida
Speaker 1: is coming in and diverting funds. She's just sitting at
Speaker 1: home clicking buttons now and done. So there's no oversight
Speaker 1: either officially by the like money cops, there's no oversight
Speaker 1: by the bank managers, and there's no oversight by her bosses. Right, yes, exactly.
Speaker 1: So at this point, the only thing that's holding it
Speaker 1: together is that everybody has, I keep pointing out, is
Speaker 1: so convinced that Rita it's just so darn good at
Speaker 1: her job. Rights And I'll quote Mayor Jim Burke again,
Speaker 1: he was just like enamored as mayor. He didn't have
Speaker 1: to work very hard because if he needed anything done,
Speaker 1: he just went to Rita. She knew right where it was,
Speaker 1: so quote I could go into her office and say, Rita,
Speaker 1: do you have a copy of the cable TV contract
Speaker 1: from and she'd go right to a drawer and pull
Speaker 1: it out. How can you argue I trust her with
Speaker 1: the nuclear codes exactly? So just you know, imagine poor
Speaker 1: Jim Burke's surprise when the FBI showed up a city
Speaker 1: hall for Rita. But of course he did know at
Speaker 1: that point. Well wait a second, so what if everything
Speaker 1: is getting not everything, but if she's diverting significant funds,
Speaker 1: is the town up and running? Well? I mean, oh no,
Speaker 1: not at all. Like that's the thing is though, so
Speaker 1: like they couldn't afford to repair the cemetery, like they
Speaker 1: had problems with their cemetery. Their streets were going bad,
Speaker 1: the street lights weren't working. They couldn't get uniforms and
Speaker 1: radar guns for the cops. They had basketball courts at
Speaker 1: all broken up. The kids can't play on them. They
Speaker 1: had to go without city jobs or pay increases for years.
Speaker 1: It was bad. But Rita knows where the cable contract
Speaker 1: is exactly that? What is Mayor Jim Burke's really care
Speaker 1: about the rest of goodness? No, but I just like
Speaker 1: to focus on Rita for a second. Can you imagine
Speaker 1: being her? Like lying to everyone you know, everyone you
Speaker 1: grew up with everyone you worked with every day of
Speaker 1: your life for decades and just creating this larger and
Speaker 1: larger divide between you and what who people think you
Speaker 1: are and who they're giving you credit for when you're
Speaker 1: not Rida Crundwell anymore now. And she must have the
Speaker 1: lowest opinion of every other human being to know she's
Speaker 1: so seopathic or is she just something else like? And
Speaker 1: I don't mean to get a diagnosis. I'm just saying,
Speaker 1: I don't know. I don't know. I'm sure she's got
Speaker 1: a whole host of issues. I'm wondering just about what
Speaker 1: happened to her, Rita, who hurt you? I know? Right?
Speaker 1: So the thing that we do know is that Rita
Speaker 1: did it for one for the glamour. We know what
Speaker 1: her motivation was other than the horses. It wasn't just
Speaker 1: the horses. It was also Rida lets, the diamonds, the fur,
Speaker 1: the bright lights of the big city and in this case,
Speaker 1: the big cities. Oklahoma City. Well it's a big city, sure, okay, yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean like, yeah, it's a big city from Dixon, Illinois.
Speaker 1: I'm just saying it's not like, oh, she's out in Manhattan.
Speaker 1: I mean, I'm not trying to say, and every city
Speaker 1: has been measured again New York. But there are a
Speaker 1: lot of big cities in this world. I will put
Speaker 1: Oklahoma City defend Oklahoma. I like that about you. My apologies,
Speaker 1: Oklahoma City District. Oh no, I like the city. I'm
Speaker 1: not like saying anything bad. I just wouldn't say that
Speaker 1: it's a big city in America like Houston. Houston is
Speaker 1: a big city in America. Oklahoma City, I mean, yes,
Speaker 1: it is a beautiful city with a big heart. The
Speaker 1: American quarter Horse Association's World Championship Show, it happens to
Speaker 1: be in Oklahoma City every year. Yeah, and uh, that
Speaker 1: place is. I don't know if you've ever been to
Speaker 1: the American quarter Horse Association World Championship Show but missed it.
Speaker 1: Oh that I don't need to tell you. But just
Speaker 1: from my own edification, I'll remind you that it is
Speaker 1: possibly one of the largest collections of humans you know
Speaker 1: that takes place in the North American continent. Is bigger
Speaker 1: than Democratic National Convention, better than the Republican National Convention.
Speaker 1: It's bigger than the Super Bowl. It's hundreds of thousands
Speaker 1: of people coming into Oklahoma City. Just talking horse is
Speaker 1: walking horses, looking at horses, just being all about horse
Speaker 1: life for days. Yeah whatever, Yeah, that horsey life. Horse life.
Speaker 1: So like the type of people that you would see
Speaker 1: in town, Oklahoma City during the quarter Horse Association World
Speaker 1: Championship Show. People like Harrison Ford, Kevin Costner, Robert Redford,
Speaker 1: Lyle love it. So all those celebrities that you can
Speaker 1: think of is like, I can imagine him with a
Speaker 1: horse on the horse set. The horse set. People are
Speaker 1: down for that horse life. So Rita krunwell, she would
Speaker 1: like to go and to Oklahoma City and whenever she
Speaker 1: would go, she would show out for a bikini's not
Speaker 1: that kind of show out, but but she would put
Speaker 1: a show on a show. I'll just leave it at that.
Speaker 1: So the floor of the arena, because just imagine like
Speaker 1: a giant like a basketball stadium or football indoors football stadium, right,
Speaker 1: So on the floor of that stadium you would have
Speaker 1: convention stalls and booze, and Rita would down be down
Speaker 1: there with everybody else. But instead of having like a
Speaker 1: table on the stall, she would have, for instance, a
Speaker 1: log cabin recreated for the event, an entire log an
Speaker 1: entire log cabin. And it's like, hey, Look, dude, was
Speaker 1: Abraham Lincoln barn there? What's going on here? Now? That
Speaker 1: was just the entrance to her section. Once you stepped
Speaker 1: inside the recreation log cabin, you be greeted by the
Speaker 1: side of the glitter in the shine of her trophy
Speaker 1: room she had. You had to walk past all of
Speaker 1: her trophies like a pageant kid. Yeah, exactly, like total
Speaker 1: pageant kid. And she had like that love of like
Speaker 1: I don't know, ribbons, that whatever it is that motivates
Speaker 1: the passion for ribbons. You wanted everyone to see her
Speaker 1: ribbon collection, old plastic exactly what she's like, Look at this,
Speaker 1: this is etched, has my name on it. Magical. So
Speaker 1: after the gleam of her trophy room wears off and
Speaker 1: you wander further into the recreated log cabin, then you
Speaker 1: meet the full open bar that she has arrayed for
Speaker 1: her guests, and you could grab a cocktail, all courtesy
Speaker 1: of Rita Crundwell. And now I like to imagine, you know,
Speaker 1: one of this Horsey set sitting in that recreated log
Speaker 1: cabin with her, let's say Harrison Ford, right, He's like
Speaker 1: raising a glass talking horses to Rita, and Rita's telling
Speaker 1: them how good it was this year. And he's telling
Speaker 1: her how good the whiskey is. And she's like, oh
Speaker 1: you like the whiskey And he's like, yep, what am
Speaker 1: I doing it? You're the celebrity, I professional, the professional. Okay,
Speaker 1: would you mind being Harrison Ford for a second. I'm
Speaker 1: happy to Okay, So I'm Rita. So she's like, imagine
Speaker 1: the scene. She's like, oh yeah, sitting there surrounded by
Speaker 1: log cabins, people elbow hob nobbing, talking horses and horse
Speaker 1: trailers or whatever they talk about. She's like, more champagne,
Speaker 1: Harrison Ford, Hey have a bad is me Harrison Ford?
Speaker 1: A flan airplane and I eat play though flawless. I mean,
Speaker 1: it's like you're in the log cabin with Rita and
Speaker 1: Harrison or as I call him, Harry. Now, oh my god,
Speaker 1: I'm sorry, I have to apologize with I totally forgot
Speaker 1: to tell you how she's dressed at these events for
Speaker 1: practically though practically real close. So just put a little
Speaker 1: bit more fur on it and make it like a
Speaker 1: full white fur coat, like you know, like white, I
Speaker 1: don't know, snow leopard for something exotic, something endangered, and
Speaker 1: then diamonds and like, I don't know, Tiara, it's going hard.
Speaker 1: It's kind of more than I anticipated. I thought she'd
Speaker 1: be like in TJ Max's Finest. Oh yeah, know, she's
Speaker 1: got like the beaded tops or whatever those things are,
Speaker 1: like the sequence and beads. I don't know what the
Speaker 1: lame bryant of it all. I'm just imagining with the
Speaker 1: beated tops that instead it's like those beaded seat covers
Speaker 1: for cab drivers, not quite those big like a like
Speaker 1: a wooden backroomate top. She's very experimental. She's very fashion forward,
Speaker 1: like so fashion forward you can't even see her. She's
Speaker 1: just down the line. She doesn't have that she's out
Speaker 1: there still. She's just in like a milar suit. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it was real. I thought you would appreciate her, Like,
Speaker 1: see if I can find some pictures and we put
Speaker 1: them on Instagram. She has a real best in show
Speaker 1: vibe to her outfits. And I know how you love
Speaker 1: that movie go for that. Yeah, so we just kind
Speaker 1: of imagine that, but less fun, more crime. I don't know. Also,
Speaker 1: what is your favorite like middle aged woman's fashion tendency?
Speaker 1: Like I did, I was trying to think of like
Speaker 1: what stores that is that she's probably shopping at. That's
Speaker 1: what I was. That's the only when I could go with.
Speaker 1: And I was like, I don't mean to just pick
Speaker 1: on the Chicos woman. Is there like another brand that
Speaker 1: is J J Jill? Okay, I don't know. I'd have
Speaker 1: to know her full aesthetic to give it a good assessment.
Speaker 1: Does she like a she a department store goal? No? No,
Speaker 1: are you kidding me? No? She is definitely boutique as
Speaker 1: much as possible. Now. I mean, occasionally, if she can't
Speaker 1: get out of Dixon, she may have to, like, you know,
Speaker 1: get her jeans at the local store. But other than that. Interesting, Well,
Speaker 1: there was a woman in the horse scene who knew
Speaker 1: her very well, and she was talking in a newspaper
Speaker 1: article and I found this and I thought, this answer
Speaker 1: Elizabeth question. So she clocked read his style to time
Speaker 1: and I quote, this is about her beated gowns that
Speaker 1: she would wear to these events, like at the nighttime
Speaker 1: formal event at the American quarter Horse Association's World Championship Show,
Speaker 1: and I quote, they're beautiful. I went to look at
Speaker 1: a couple of the blouses she wore. The used ones
Speaker 1: were dollars a pop and Rita didn't wear used. I
Speaker 1: thought gad Zouks the Midwest jumped out. So she's like
Speaker 1: wearing designer Dud's. Yeah, exactly. Do you think she wore
Speaker 1: Carl Loggerfeld because didn't he eat horsemeat? Oh god, I
Speaker 1: don't know anything about that. That up, that's true. I
Speaker 1: make up most of what I say, But I do
Speaker 1: believe that it's true that Carl Loggerfeld was on like
Speaker 1: a horse meat diet. It's a lot of French people
Speaker 1: eat horse meat. I'm aware of that. They do eat
Speaker 1: horse meat over there, and I just tried to forgere
Speaker 1: just like the synergy of her wearing Laggerfeld carlat well,
Speaker 1: I don't know about the horse meat part. Well, I
Speaker 1: have a headline Carl Lagerfeld lost ninety pounds on a
Speaker 1: diet of tuna and BlackBerry moose. I'm not hearing horsemeat.
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, No. It was rumored that Carl Lagerfeld's famous
Speaker 1: diet involved eating horse meat, tomatoes, and diet coke together
Speaker 1: like a vogue, a slurry of horsemeat, tomatoes and diet
Speaker 1: slurry of horse meat. Thank you for something I'll never forget. Then,
Speaker 1: thank you, Elizabeth for yet another grosser stopping a gross out. Oh,
Speaker 1: Calf's liver too and wild strong. Well, I'm glad you
Speaker 1: asked about Rita and what people thought about her and money.
Speaker 1: So speaking of Rita, speaking of Rita cryned well and uh,
Speaker 1: whether or not she came from money or not, people
Speaker 1: used to wonder if she had inherited land from her family,
Speaker 1: and uh, you know, it's true she actually had inherited
Speaker 1: a horse farm from her mother. The details may have varied,
Speaker 1: but the general story was the same. Someone died, she
Speaker 1: got wealthy, right, And it's like the story around the
Speaker 1: horse world. Now that was pretty true. A whole last
Speaker 1: town was literally dying and she got wealthy. So there
Speaker 1: was the death man Welsh sharp are there everything else?
Speaker 1: The details a little wrong now, when Aita would arrive
Speaker 1: at a horse show before she would you know, set
Speaker 1: up her bass pro shop Lincoln log cabin, before he
Speaker 1: drinks got poured for a horse loving stars like Lyle
Speaker 1: love it. Oh, I gotta do one more? Would you
Speaker 1: like some more Champagne Lyle loving? Hey have about it?
Speaker 1: It's me Lyle, I love it. I just stole Temple
Speaker 1: Grandon's shirt. It's amazing. It's like he's just here for
Speaker 1: a moment then he disappears. Yeah, I get I transform. No,
Speaker 1: thank you for gracing us with that one. I always
Speaker 1: like this. That one's on the house. Before Rita would
Speaker 1: pull on her white fur coat or for you, her
Speaker 1: white fur bikini and some hot little sequin number to
Speaker 1: dazzle the horsey crowd. Rita also liked to make a
Speaker 1: big splash in the parking lot. She would like, I
Speaker 1: don't mean like jumping from a height, and I mean
Speaker 1: like she didn't do it that way, I like pushing
Speaker 1: a watermelon off the top of a building splash. I
Speaker 1: mean like she wanted people to be like, oh, it's
Speaker 1: a Rita walk on music pretty much. It was just
Speaker 1: like the sound of pain and suffering in her hometown.
Speaker 1: But Drumpy was amazing. Before she get there, she would
Speaker 1: like have like her fleet arrived right, and her fleet
Speaker 1: consisted of forty five ft Liberty Coach RV. And in
Speaker 1: case you're not in the market for r vs, that's
Speaker 1: one of the nicest ones you can get. Yeah, so
Speaker 1: that one is the luxury liner forty five ft long
Speaker 1: Liberty Coach RV's way bigger than like your normal like
Speaker 1: a tour bus. Now this boasted a king size bed,
Speaker 1: five satellite TVs, marble countertops, leather wrapped railings, multiple tile floors,
Speaker 1: multiple tile floors, also a washer and dryer. I don't
Speaker 1: even have one of those in my apartment. Now, this
Speaker 1: whole thing costs two million dollars. Two million dollars for
Speaker 1: an RV. Do you know how much of Dixon, Illinois
Speaker 1: you could fix with that RV? Now, of course she
Speaker 1: didn't handle her horses herself. Now, Rita had professional cowboys.
Speaker 1: For all that she didn't like brush down the mane
Speaker 1: and tail. She just would boys. There's the stall, set
Speaker 1: up the horses, right, So she'd have them mucking out
Speaker 1: the trailers and all that stuff that she didn't want
Speaker 1: to do. But those cowboys they weren't cheap either, so
Speaker 1: she had to have a trailer for them, and then
Speaker 1: have you know, lodging for them and so forth. She
Speaker 1: had a mighty convoy. Oh yeah, but she was really
Speaker 1: successful with this because how much money she was diverting
Speaker 1: into her horsey funds. In two thousand eleven, just before
Speaker 1: this is right before ready gets busted. She gets busted
Speaker 1: in two thousand twelve, the year before she gets busted
Speaker 1: when she went to the American quarter Horse Association World
Speaker 1: Championship Show in Oklahoma City, a mouthful. Quite. She was
Speaker 1: the bell of the ball that year. She won fifty
Speaker 1: four prizes at the Oklahoma And any of those money
Speaker 1: or is it just a bunch of Yeah, she's wanting
Speaker 1: some ribbons, some proven some prize money. Yeah, like quarter
Speaker 1: million dollars kind of prize money. She was named the
Speaker 1: leading owner of the American quarter Horse Association that year. Yeah,
Speaker 1: she's pouring a bunch of money into the whole thing completely.
Speaker 1: Eight year in a row, she was named Owner of
Speaker 1: the Year employee. I'll tell you your hometown is harder
Speaker 1: and money goes far if you directed in one tight funnel. Now,
Speaker 1: the only thing that her friends and neighbors knew about
Speaker 1: what Rita was doing down in Oklahoma City came to
Speaker 1: them from the newspaper articles because they would, like, you know,
Speaker 1: see like a headline, Oh Rita won again down in
Speaker 1: Oklahoma City. We're so proud of her. So going back
Speaker 1: to my man Mayor, Big Jim Burke, he was quoted
Speaker 1: talking about how all this prize money Rita was winning
Speaker 1: chunky the newspapers, he said, and I quote, we all
Speaker 1: knew that she had these horses, but you know, there
Speaker 1: were big write ups about her in the papers, and
Speaker 1: she's winning all these national championships, and there were stories
Speaker 1: flying around town that she was selling horses for two
Speaker 1: hundred and fifty thou dollars three hundred thousand dollars. So
Speaker 1: we thought this was what that was, what was providing
Speaker 1: her this nice income, a successful horse business. Now, when
Speaker 1: she was caught by the FBI, Rita, as I told you,
Speaker 1: was the officially the fifth greatest embezzler of all time.
Speaker 1: That's how successful her horse business was. Now, she's like
Speaker 1: the Larry Bird of embezzlement, just this hard worker from
Speaker 1: the heartland. You know. Now, personally, if I was someone
Speaker 1: asked me, like, what do you do for a living,
Speaker 1: I'm not gonna say anything about my real life anymore.
Speaker 1: I'm going to use the Rida Krundwell method. I'm gonna
Speaker 1: start telling people, oh, all my money it's in a
Speaker 1: walrus is. I'm in the walrus business. See if people
Speaker 1: go for it. I really like this. We'll take a
Speaker 1: quick break and after this I'll tell you how Rita
Speaker 1: got busted. Elizabeth, Yes, our girl readA Krundwell, I've been
Speaker 1: telling you about her. I've been telling you about Harrison
Speaker 1: Ford like I'll love it, all the fun stuff she's
Speaker 1: been doing. But what else was she spending her stolen
Speaker 1: ludon besides impressing Harrison Ford with expensive whiskeys and Champagne's
Speaker 1: scented candles. Good call, good call. No, she was actually
Speaker 1: buying land. Well that's smart. Yeah, that's what you. You know,
Speaker 1: they aren't making it anymore, it's mark Twain would say. Well,
Speaker 1: starting in two thousand six, Rita she made some real
Speaker 1: estate purchases and she bought an eight acre spread that
Speaker 1: cost her about half million dollars of her hometown's money.
Speaker 1: She dubbed her new spread Rita's Ranch. Now, personally I
Speaker 1: would have gone with Cossa de Rita, but that's just me.
Speaker 1: I don't know. You know, you had a name like Rita.
Speaker 1: You can really run with Rita, Bill, Yeah, exactly. See
Speaker 1: already two better names right there. We're not even trying.
Speaker 1: So it was a complete horse breeding complex, training exercise compound.
Speaker 1: She even had a whole arena built for her to
Speaker 1: practice in. Just imagine you're riding around on horses with
Speaker 1: an empty arena, her imagining the crowds cheering her. She
Speaker 1: had a button she pushed in the sound of crowds.
Speaker 1: Confetti cannons all shaped like butterflies. Yes, Cary, I know
Speaker 1: I threw that one in there. From Mariah carries a
Speaker 1: tour rider. She requests that there'll be confetti in her
Speaker 1: dressing room that must be the shape of butterflies. No
Speaker 1: moth confetti for missing Amy. Now, as I told you,
Speaker 1: rita Cronwell salary from the city of Dixon eighty three
Speaker 1: thousand dollars. So people are willing to believe that the
Speaker 1: eighty three thousand dollars salaries being very well invested. Apparently so,
Speaker 1: while she was a hobnobbing with the rich and famous
Speaker 1: in her Whiteford and her diamonds and tr whatever she
Speaker 1: was doing, that was her one persona. Back home, she's
Speaker 1: still like all of her neighbors. She's wearing the you know,
Speaker 1: the boots, the cow the cowboy you know, flannels like
Speaker 1: she looks like everybody else, And that is pretty much
Speaker 1: how she manages her whole criminal enterprise. Nobody looks past
Speaker 1: the surface of what she looks like. A middle aged
Speaker 1: woman man that's at the time, and in a small town,
Speaker 1: it's a lot of money. Today, in a small town,
Speaker 1: making eighty three thousand dollars, there's a lot of money.
Speaker 1: It's not enough for a two million dollar RV. No
Speaker 1: do they know? What does the town know about the
Speaker 1: two million? She comes back to town with cars under
Speaker 1: cover darkness. She had like full on eighteen wheelers pulling
Speaker 1: horse trailers. Multiple she had multiple eighteen wheelers in her
Speaker 1: company envoy. She's probably just telling you know what, I
Speaker 1: got a great deal. If you go to the back
Speaker 1: of t J Max, they have all the cars and trucks,
Speaker 1: ask for Sheryl, people don't know. And then if you
Speaker 1: kind of bump it a little scratch at you get
Speaker 1: another Where do you think I got this bracelet? Yeah?
Speaker 1: Everything is she got a deal. The US district court
Speaker 1: that filed the indictment against her, they would not agree
Speaker 1: that she got great deals because they have to actually
Speaker 1: the itemized list of all of her stuff. And I'll
Speaker 1: just read you a couple of the highlights. Um, between
Speaker 1: nineteen nine and two thousand and six, she stole about
Speaker 1: twenty three million dollars. Oh, so that's that's when she
Speaker 1: got started. Se million dollars over that sixteen year period.
Speaker 1: That gives you an average of about one point four
Speaker 1: million dollars a year. After she got going in two
Speaker 1: thousand six, she starts ramping it up, and she starts
Speaker 1: trying to win some of them championships, and world championships
Speaker 1: are not cheap. So she sat there and wrapped it
Speaker 1: back up to taking it about five million dollars year
Speaker 1: in embezzled money. What is the town's budget. The town's budget,
Speaker 1: I'm glad you asked, is nine million dollars roughly, So
Speaker 1: she's taking more than half of the town's budget. When
Speaker 1: she got really going and those engines were running red
Speaker 1: hot goods and they still weren't noticing it, and you
Speaker 1: know how she was getting away with it, but she
Speaker 1: was blaming the state of Illinois. She said that, like, oh,
Speaker 1: they're supposed to pay for this stuff that I charged
Speaker 1: and I put the money out, but they haven't, so
Speaker 1: next year we should get the money. And people believe
Speaker 1: it because they're like, oh, you know, the state lawmakers
Speaker 1: are always stealing our money. Yeah, no one really to
Speaker 1: local they'll pay attention when the basketball courts are all
Speaker 1: checked up, but then they don't know the minutia of no,
Speaker 1: and also he's counting on it. They like big mayor,
Speaker 1: Big Jim Burke, right, he's a local guy. But they
Speaker 1: don't seem to like the state lawmakers and the governor,
Speaker 1: like those people are not trustworthy. Read Crundwell. Here they
Speaker 1: don't understand small town values. Yeah so, reader Crundwell, she
Speaker 1: uh meets fate one day when and unbeknownst to her,
Speaker 1: while she was away on one of her vacations or
Speaker 1: in this case, attending a horse show, a piece of
Speaker 1: mail arrives and it's a bank statement and it's been
Speaker 1: basically sent to the wrong place, and it's on her
Speaker 1: desk and this replacement for her. This the city clerk
Speaker 1: is in her office trying to go through all the paperwork.
Speaker 1: She sees this one thing she looks like from a
Speaker 1: bank reads it. It's a bank statement. She doesn't recognize
Speaker 1: the account, so she takes the account to the mayor.
Speaker 1: Mayor Jim Burks like, I don't recognize this, asked Rita
Speaker 1: what it is. She's like, no, I think that's the problem.
Speaker 1: It looks like this is Rita's account. They's like, I
Speaker 1: can't be uh. She's like, no, I think it is.
Speaker 1: They look at He's like, oh my goodness, I love
Speaker 1: this nosy hero. But yes, I thought you would like her.
Speaker 1: So her name is Katha Swanson. By the way, well
Speaker 1: miss Swanson. First of all, I believe there was a
Speaker 1: whisper network in town. Everybody knew about this. It wasn't
Speaker 1: a secret. And she didn't just see something on the desk.
Speaker 1: She went and dig in. I think she took her
Speaker 1: moment when Rita was out of the office. He's like,
Speaker 1: what's this, what's that? And went through it all well
Speaker 1: done investigatory special investor gator. So Katha and Mayor Jim
Speaker 1: Burke have their moment together in his office. He's convinced
Speaker 1: by her to go take this to the FBI. He
Speaker 1: takes to the FBI. FBI was like, oh, yeah, this
Speaker 1: is not good. This is not good, Mayor said they there, Hey, Mayor,
Speaker 1: we want you don't blow the investigation we're about to start.
Speaker 1: Don't let anybody know. We need you to keep this
Speaker 1: under your hat. And he's like, I think I can
Speaker 1: do that. Like, no, we're serious. This may take some time.
Speaker 1: It's a small town. Don't tell anybody, not even like
Speaker 1: your closest friends. He's like, I tell my wife. They're like, okay,
Speaker 1: if you tell your wife, mayor just nobody else, don't
Speaker 1: take it to the rotary club. Nobody in American legion
Speaker 1: needs to know this one. He's like, okay, Like when
Speaker 1: can I tell them when we bust start? He's like, okay,
Speaker 1: how long will that be? And then they're like, just
Speaker 1: let us do our work. Six months later, they come
Speaker 1: into his office. They're like, we're gonna need to talk
Speaker 1: to Rita. And that's why he's like, oh man, he's
Speaker 1: all excited. And that was the day that you were
Speaker 1: standing in the doorway. I remember it well, yes. So
Speaker 1: what did the FBI found was that Rita basically taken,
Speaker 1: as I told you, a dummy bank account, but not
Speaker 1: only that, she'd created multiple bank accounts for the city
Speaker 1: that were legitimate. She would bounce the money through those
Speaker 1: different accounts, then she would create a fake invoice, send
Speaker 1: the money into that fake invoice account, use the fake
Speaker 1: invoice account, then to dummy back out to her account,
Speaker 1: and then she was hiding both the writing of the checks,
Speaker 1: the bouncing of the books, and where the money was going.
Speaker 1: So people were thinking it all looks fine. The amounts
Speaker 1: seemed to balance out because they didn't notice that she
Speaker 1: was the one who was, you know, saying you owe
Speaker 1: me money. You owe me six million dollars or whatever
Speaker 1: she was saying. So that's how you get a payday
Speaker 1: for Rita is you know, classic money laundering. You know,
Speaker 1: jay Z would be proud of her, so after she
Speaker 1: would withdraw her laundered funds and she'd go and buy
Speaker 1: all her expensive stuff. The thing that was like kind
Speaker 1: of working to her benefit, as I've pointed out a
Speaker 1: couple of times, is people didn't look past her appearance,
Speaker 1: and yet she was very aware of this. She would
Speaker 1: put on an appearance for the Oklahoma people, she would
Speaker 1: come home and take off that and she knew that
Speaker 1: people wouldn't do anything except for your girl, Kata Swanson.
Speaker 1: You know now, that is the advantage that con artists
Speaker 1: have over the average people is that they know that
Speaker 1: a person is usually persuaded more by a good story
Speaker 1: than by facts. Your Kaifa and you, you guys are
Speaker 1: rare who actually want to see the numbers on paper,
Speaker 1: want to investigate, you want to get confirmation. Most people
Speaker 1: are like I heard read of her mother died left
Speaker 1: her a farm that's good enough for them. That's that's
Speaker 1: what they have. And so if you can tell a
Speaker 1: good story, you can be a good con artist. Do
Speaker 1: you think, as a former school teacher and a storyteller,
Speaker 1: that you could be a good con artist? Why not?
Speaker 1: I I'd feel really bad my my mark, my my
Speaker 1: victim would have to be a horrible person, and then
Speaker 1: I would to feel bad about it. That's totally that's
Speaker 1: the way within the balance. You don't have to only
Speaker 1: go after the innocent gobl. But I also have too
Speaker 1: many tells. I'm not good at at at lying. It
Speaker 1: becomes really obvious. Here's how you can get good at lying.
Speaker 1: This is true for anything. I don't think you're lying
Speaker 1: if you believe your story. No, I mean, I know
Speaker 1: this sounds ridiculous, but you'd have to believe it that
Speaker 1: this momentarily is the truth. And if you do that,
Speaker 1: your body will behave as if it's the truth. If
Speaker 1: you can just tell yourself, I will momentarily live under
Speaker 1: these imaginary circumstances. That's how you become a good liar.
Speaker 1: That's also how you become a good actor. Same things,
Speaker 1: the exact same deect. You have to emotionally convince yourself.
Speaker 1: You convince yourself. You can convince anything that's true. I
Speaker 1: could see that, So I think you could be should
Speaker 1: I practice start culling people to talk about this. We
Speaker 1: can develop a whole routine for you. I'll sign up
Speaker 1: for your classes. But in all honesty, as a teacher,
Speaker 1: do you would you agree that a story is more
Speaker 1: persuasive than facts? I think so, well, I don't know,
Speaker 1: not in my time as a as an instructor, but
Speaker 1: I would say that as a writer, you know you can.
Speaker 1: You can get people to believe all sorts of things.
Speaker 1: You can get them to change what's true to them.
Speaker 1: So not necessarily facts, but everyone has their own truth,
Speaker 1: their interpretation. But yeah, whatever is true to someone, and
Speaker 1: you can, if you tell a good enough story, you
Speaker 1: can rearrange the value of facts totally. Well, that's exactly
Speaker 1: what readA did. Now, getting to a couple of the
Speaker 1: facts that people overlooked that I think would have been
Speaker 1: so much suspicious to me if I were living in Dixon, Illinois.
Speaker 1: Here's an example of some of the horses that she named.
Speaker 1: People would see these names in print, like so and
Speaker 1: so one like Rita Cronwell, one with and that these
Speaker 1: are the horses names, right, Okay, we'll play a little
Speaker 1: game four horses. I'm going to name three or real
Speaker 1: number one. I'm money too, Number two. I found a penny.
Speaker 1: Number three good, I will be number four. Dixon, Illinois
Speaker 1: can suck it. Oh, I don't know which. What do
Speaker 1: you think is not the real horse name? The penny
Speaker 1: now Dixon? No, it's good, I will be. No, I'm
Speaker 1: kidding Illinois. But all of her horse names are about
Speaker 1: money or be like trickery, and people's just that's your interests. No,
Speaker 1: good old Rita well right under their noses. Yeah. Well,
Speaker 1: in the US Marshalls showed up. They had to collect
Speaker 1: all the ill gotten games Rita had gotten over the
Speaker 1: decades She've been fleecing everyone town. They showed up and
Speaker 1: they find four hundred horses that they now have to move.
Speaker 1: Four four hundred horses. Remember, some of these horses are
Speaker 1: worth two apiece exactly. So the d J is like,
Speaker 1: oh man, what are we gonna do? They called up
Speaker 1: I don't know, like the cowboy US Marshals and they
Speaker 1: started like putting them in trailers and wrangling them up
Speaker 1: and going up to infestation. Dude. They had to have
Speaker 1: a whole auction for all of her stuff, and then
Speaker 1: a large part of the stuff was hers her family
Speaker 1: bought back for her with what money? Yeah, exactly. So
Speaker 1: here's the list of some of the stuff that the
Speaker 1: d o J took from her two single family homes
Speaker 1: in Dixon. A single family home in Inglewood, Florida. A
Speaker 1: horse farm in Dixon. The custom Liberty Coach motor home.
Speaker 1: They're worth two million dollars. The Featherlight trailer also worth
Speaker 1: about a quarter million dollars. That's for pulling horses and
Speaker 1: so forth. A bunch of Chevy Silverado trucks because at
Speaker 1: least she knew good value. Some GMC trucks but really
Speaker 1: there should have been dodges because they were cowboys, because
Speaker 1: that's what cowboys and cow girls drive, but whatever. A
Speaker 1: ken Worth tractor truck, which was worth about two grand.
Speaker 1: A freight liner truck these are the eighteen wheelers that
Speaker 1: are pulling the trailers, also worth two hundred grand. A
Speaker 1: Ford Thunderbird, a classic sixty seven Chevy Corvette once again
Speaker 1: nose class. And lastly, a bunch of John Deer utility vehicles,
Speaker 1: tractors and riding boat. Nothing rides like a deer nothing
Speaker 1: at all. Then that's just the homes in vehicles, So
Speaker 1: imagine everything else. You got all the horse stuff for
Speaker 1: a bikinis and the various sentence candles find Corinthian leather
Speaker 1: bound books. Exactly. So on April seventeen twelve, at the
Speaker 1: time of her arrest, in her bank account, she had
Speaker 1: a hundred and ninety one thousand, three hundred and seventy
Speaker 1: five dollars and seventy five cents. Because you know, it's
Speaker 1: also good at math, the d O J and they
Speaker 1: made sure to get every penny. So when did she start?
Speaker 1: Eight three? She starts scamming in you guess the job
Speaker 1: in eight three takes about seven years to cook the
Speaker 1: books she gets going and then for six long run.
Speaker 1: So the city of Dixon meanwhile left holding an empty bag.
Speaker 1: Yes exactly, they're like, what are we gonna do? Now?
Speaker 1: I told you they had like basically lost all this stuff.
Speaker 1: The cops couldn't get radar guns, the kids couldn't have
Speaker 1: basketball uniforms. Were out there with hair dryers. Yeah, just
Speaker 1: pretending that they have. Like don't look too closely, you
Speaker 1: were going forty eight and thirty five. Now they did
Speaker 1: all that obviously, so Rita can have her little, my
Speaker 1: Little Pony collection as show horses and like, you gotta
Speaker 1: love at least I don't know. I don't love is
Speaker 1: the wrong word. But there was a Netflix documentary on
Speaker 1: her story that was made. If you'd like to see
Speaker 1: more about the Rita Cronwell story, check out the documentary.
Speaker 1: But the director, Kelly Richmond Pope, who is a DePaul
Speaker 1: University accounting professor by day and a documentary filmmaker by night, said,
Speaker 1: and I quote, I feel like she had the last laugh.
Speaker 1: She won. She lived like a queen for twenty plus
Speaker 1: years and only served eight years. You do the math,
Speaker 1: she's sort of won. So what he put in the
Speaker 1: quote is that she after she's convicted, she does eight
Speaker 1: years in prison, federal prison. Her family buys up most
Speaker 1: of the property when he goes to auctions, so she
Speaker 1: spends eight years. That's her price for all that she
Speaker 1: got away with. So this guy is saying, oh, eight
Speaker 1: years will be worth all of that, and she's the winner.
Speaker 1: What's your thought, No, she's not because of the fact
Speaker 1: that even if she was never caught, she didn't win.
Speaker 1: Because that's the grossest behavior to take from the people
Speaker 1: around you who have supported you. Gave her a job
Speaker 1: at a time, like you know, at that time to
Speaker 1: be in a small town, to be the treasurer at
Speaker 1: the city of the town as a woman. Yeah, and
Speaker 1: she obviously everyone supported her growing up. And then she
Speaker 1: turns around and gives them the big two fingers to
Speaker 1: this guy, and it's like, I'm taking all your stuff?
Speaker 1: Is this not winning? I'm with you. I do the
Speaker 1: methold differently than old Kelly Richmond Pope. I just see her,
Speaker 1: as I said before, she's basically a one woman version
Speaker 1: of colonization. She's just like I can if I can
Speaker 1: lift it, I'm taking it. It's just it's so gross.
Speaker 1: It is absolutely gross what she did. I mean seeing
Speaker 1: half of more than half of your towns annual budget. Okay,
Speaker 1: let's just put this in perspective. Let's say I stole
Speaker 1: half of the money from your family's budget, and I
Speaker 1: did that every year year after here for six years,
Speaker 1: and I did this to fund my sea horse habit right,
Speaker 1: and eventually I get busted by the FBI. Do you
Speaker 1: think if someone came along and said that man, he's winning,
Speaker 1: would you be like, yeah, that's right. Brother that brothers
Speaker 1: look at that old folk hero there. No, they wouldn't
Speaker 1: because I don't look like reader Krandwell at my point,
Speaker 1: so the only reason you are right now, well, yeah,
Speaker 1: and we have sequence, but that's not read is that's
Speaker 1: that's where Read and I overlap. Okay, but the basically
Speaker 1: this the idea is that here you have this middle
Speaker 1: aged white woman in rural America, and everybody would assume
Speaker 1: that she could be a criminal on the level of
Speaker 1: like some Walter White breaking bad level of like you know,
Speaker 1: that's why we have to assume that everyone is a
Speaker 1: criminal problem. I mean, that's essentially My point is. Look, look,
Speaker 1: you need to be both skeptical and optimistic and do
Speaker 1: both at the same time. It's hard, it's exhausting. The
Speaker 1: answer is always the same, don't believe the hype. That's true.
Speaker 1: So what's our ridiculous takeaway, Elizabeth ridiculous takeaway is that
Speaker 1: I really wish that they would have caught onto her earlier,
Speaker 1: because now I'm just like dwelling on the fact that
Speaker 1: the roads were all messed up and kids had didn't
Speaker 1: have like parks to play in because she wanted to
Speaker 1: go ride a horse somewhere now. She wasn't even riding
Speaker 1: these horses. No, she's winning, She's just parading them around.
Speaker 1: She's disgusting. I also noticed she didn't need a weapon
Speaker 1: to rob anyone. She just needed a pen. And we
Speaker 1: always tend to forget that these white colored crimes do
Speaker 1: far more damage to a community than someone sticking up
Speaker 1: the corner store. But they don't get punished. And I'm
Speaker 1: not suggesting that we need to punish people, but we
Speaker 1: need to consider the actual effect and impact of crimes
Speaker 1: as opposed to how they make us feel. You know
Speaker 1: what the heroic quality was here? Yes, I thought you'd
Speaker 1: like that. I knew Wanson was like your people. I'd yeah, Well,
Speaker 1: you know, as you know about me, Elizabeth, I would
Speaker 1: love to own a horse ranch. I love horses as
Speaker 1: I would just pretty much do anything to have a
Speaker 1: horse ranch of my own, except for stealing all of
Speaker 1: the money I can from my hometown. That is the
Speaker 1: Zaron Burnett guarantee. That so thanks for joining us. I'm
Speaker 1: Zarn Burnette, and over there in the white fur and
Speaker 1: diamonds is Elizabeth Dutton. You can find us online. A
Speaker 1: ridiculous crime about Twitter and Instagram got a tip for
Speaker 1: us about a ridiculous crime you look to hear about.
Speaker 1: You want to confess to a ridiculous crime, email us
Speaker 1: at ridiculous Crime at gmail dot com. Ridiculous Crime is
Speaker 1: hosted by Elizabeth Dutton and Zaron Burnett, produced and edited
Speaker 1: by Harrison Ford's horse trainer Dave Houston. Researches by the
Speaker 1: President of the three quarter and seven Eights Horse Association,
Speaker 1: Marissa brownn our theme song is by part time mayor
Speaker 1: Thomas Lee and our resident Lyle Lovett look alike Travis Dutton.
Speaker 1: Executive producers are Ben the Horse Breeder to the Stars
Speaker 1: Bolan and Noel Don't you Dare Call me a Controller Brown.
Speaker 1: Ridiculous Crime is a production of I Heart Radio. For
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