written, produced, and directed by Kelly Richmond Pope
70 minutes
This is a documentary about a massive case of embezzlement that was committed by one city employee, Rita Crundwell, against the City of Dixon, IL. Dixon, IL is best known as the hometown of Ronald Reagan. Rita Crundwell was the city's Treasurer and comptroller. She handled all of the city's financial transactions. She stole more than $53 million from the city over the course of 20 years. A large chunk of that money went into funding her horse breeding operation.
The fraud was only discovered by chance when another city employee got a hold of a bank statement for a bank account that on paper belonged to the city but was used by Rita Crundwell as a conduit for her embezzlement activities.
There are interviews with some city employees and residents of Dixon but Rita Crundwell, declined to participate. Similarly there are no interviews with her family. There isn't much in the documentary in the way of speculation or verification as to why she first started to embezzle money or why she continued to so for as long as she did.
Rita Crundwell spent 8.5 years in prison before being released in 2021 to serve the remainder of her 19 years, 7 months sentence in home confinement. Her sentence was commuted in 2024 by President Joe Biden.
Kelly Richmond Pope was, at the time this documentary was made and still is, a professor of accounting at DePaul University. This is the only documentary or movie she has written, produced, or directed.
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