“All the Queen’s Horses”

The Fraud Triangle in Action

All the Queen’s Horses is a 2017 documentary, directed by DePaul University Accounting Professor - Kelly Richmond Pope. It chronicles the story of Rita Crundwell, who served as Comptroller and Treasurer of Dixon, Illinois (birthplace of Ronald Reagan). Over the course of 22 years Crundwell embezzled over $53 million from the city coffers in order to support her prize winning American Quarter horse breeding side hustle.

Like many fraudsters, her scheme was discovered while she was on vacation. Numbers weren’t adding up and city clerk Kathe Swanson dug deeper into the ledgers than the city’s accounting firm. Swanson alerted the FBI who built their case and arrested Crundwell in 2012. She pleaded guilty of fraud in November of 2012 and was sentenced to 19 years, 7 months in prison. Crundwell was released after 8.5 years in 2021 for medical reasons, and ordered to serve the remainder of her time in home incarceration.

Her sentence was ultimately commuted by President Biden in the final months of his administration.

For more information about Rita Crundwell, click here for a wikipedia article about her.