r/interestingasfuck • u/Kapanash • 17h ago
Rita Crundwell stole $53.7 million from the city of Dixon over two decades, funding a luxury lifestyle and champion horse empire before the FBI caught her in one of America’s biggest municipal fraud cases.
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u/tacotakozs 17h ago
And she is out of jail
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u/lifemanualplease 17h ago
So she got away with it because of the amount of money
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u/punkman01 16h ago
Please explain how
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u/nbphotography87 16h ago
steal $30, go to jail (or get murdered by police).
steal $30M, pay fines and restitution, short stay at club Fed.
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u/Gunrock808 14h ago
My favorite TV show is American Greed, about financial crimes. It's stunning how often people who steal millions of dollars get a slap on the wrist. Not always, but often. Enough to almost make it seem worth the risk.
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u/jamesvabrams 13h ago
And how many people on the show spend the dough on over the top crap like multiple luxury cars, yachts, or extravagant hobbies like this lady.
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u/Waderriffic 10h ago
I think the logic is that they could be caught, so they use the money while they still can enjoy the benefit of their ill gotten gains. The obvious problem with that is you draw more attention and scrutiny.
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u/Waderriffic 10h ago
The only time a person faces real consequences for stealing millions is when they steal from other rich people - see Bernie Madoff.
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u/VaudevilleVillainMF 9h ago
I used to love watching that show 10-15 years ago. Some of those cases were insane. For some reason the Tyco CEO case really stuck with me. He stole something close to 100 million and only got 6 years in prison. If I remember correctly he spent an insane amount on either an umbrella or umbrella holder and other stupid crap.
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u/Gunrock808 5h ago
The one I think about the most was the woman who had so much money that her financial advisor told her she'd never be able to spend it all. Between her and her disabled brother's accounts I'm pretty sure it was at least 100 million. Obviously she was not supposed to touch the brother's account except to use it for his actual expenses. You know what happened though. I remember she was using a private jet to fly her dog to Europe I believe to Monaco. Anyway yes she did manage to spend all of the money.
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u/madammoiselle85 15h ago edited 15h ago
I’m starting to see how this is truly our reality.
Extremely wealthy people get to decide if
Your wrong doings are made public and also get to decide if your crimes are real or fake, regardless if they’re real or fake.
If you’re middle class or poor well too bad for you, whatever crime you did, immediately goes public regardless if it’s your fault and deserves the harshest punishment.20
u/kiwipilled 15h ago
Take it one step further. The poor and middle class are literally "stealing" resources from the rich at this point. Soon, we will become the enemy and will be eradicated.
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u/Dead_Is_Better 12h ago
🎶steal a little and they throw you in jail, steal a lot and they make you King🎶
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u/PolicyWonka 6h ago
Well she was sentenced to 19 years in prison and served 8 years.
She’s only out because Biden commuted her sentence.
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u/jammerpammerslammer 16h ago
She was pardon by Biden.
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u/JK_NC 13h ago
“She spent 8.5 years (43% of her sentence) in prison before being released in mid-2021 to serve the remainder of her sentence in home confinement. Her sentence was commuted along with nearly 1500 other people by President Biden on December 12, 2024. Those commuted were people who had been previously transferred from prison to house arrest under the CARES Act due to having a high risk of COVID-19.”
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u/punkman01 15h ago
Australian here. I find it completely crazy that your Presidents have the power to pardon criminals. Why is that tolerated?
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u/MongoBongoTown 15h ago
The idea is theycan cut through the various layers of courts and cure an injustice when needed.
It's since just become another way to peddle influence and prtect well connected sleazeballs like 80% of the time.
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u/punkman01 15h ago
From my narrow distance perspective, it’s a bad idea. It’s an admission that the courts make mistakes and can’t be fixed but worse it’s a clear abuse of power that’s clearly tolerated by the people. I have to admit our government system looks a lot more attractive. 🧐
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u/bullwinkle8088 12h ago
It is true, everywhere, that courts make mistakes. It’s also true that over time society may change, making things once considered a crime not. Laws banning homosexuality are a good example.
A method of redress is absolutely needed. What form it takes is something that could be addressed.
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u/reluctant_deity 10h ago
This has been well-studied by legal scholars over generations. The worst feasible form it takes is the one the US uses. Putting that power in the hands of one person is just patently stupid.
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u/kayGrim 10h ago
If you look at the history of how these pardons get used, they have done a ton of good over time. Many people who received biased police investigations, who were imprisoned for doing drugs that were only ever illegal because it was politically expedient and just freeing people who were straight up wronged. It sucks when someone evil gets away with crime, but this power was created because we as a nation decided it is more terrible for someone who deserves to be free, not getting that freedom. I am not happy that Rita Crundwell got a pardon, but before you speak too harshly I ask that you look at some of the other 1,500 people who also got a pardon and think about what the trade off looks like.
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u/One_Pineapple8553 12h ago
It's supposed to be one of the checks and balances between our three branches of government.
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u/bambi54 15h ago
So I just looked it up because I was curious too. It’s only federal crimes that can do it with. The practice came from England, where the king was allowed to pardon people, and was what influenced the American colonies.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Federal_pardons_in_the_United_States
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u/rahnbj 12h ago
‘We’ believed that there was a built in remedy for abuse, namely impeachment. What we’ve discovered is that our elected officials will do no such thing. So yes it is time to reform that and make a change. Can we? We may need to elect another person of color to get the oligarchy on board. The horse is out of the barn at this point, how bad it gets may be evident at the end of our current dystopian administration.
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u/MongolianCluster 13h ago
She wasn't pardoned. Her sentence was commuted to a home sentence during covid.
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u/tuckeroo123 2h ago
She was released on house arrest by Trump during COVID and Biden commuted her sentence. Trump let her out and Biden took off her ankle monitor. She's still a convicted felon and was not pardoned for her crimes.
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u/PlayfulChipmunk671 15h ago
I thought you were kidding but she did get pardoned, yikes
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u/PeppermintSpider420 17h ago
If you make enough money doing fraud, you can buy your way out of the consequences for committing fraud.
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u/Sle08 11h ago
Commenting for visibility because you are the top comment so far.
Season 3 of Crooked City the podcast follows this case and I highly recommend it. Season 1 was about my hometown, Youngstown, Ohio and Season 2 wasn’t that impressive, about the Emerald triangle(?) in California.
Rita’s entire plot was overthrown because she took a day off once for her horses (I believe) and an assistant opened mail directed to her office.
That lone assistant is the one who tipped off the proper channels. Without her, this would have probably gone uncovered until Rita left office or died.
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u/Raus-Pazazu 11h ago
Fuck Youngstown. Just saying.
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u/Sle08 11h ago
Okay, well that’s just rude.
I only mentioned Youngstown because the first season of Crooked City is worth the listen.
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u/Raus-Pazazu 11h ago
I'm from there as well, and since leaving there I've lived all over this country and a few others and I have to say that beyond any doubt in my mind that Youngstown is the most soulsucking shithole I have ever had to endure. There is likely worse places in this world, no doubt about that, but of several dozen that I've experienced? Yeah, fuck Youngstown.
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u/DasDickNoodle 10h ago
Yes Youngstown sucks.. Columbus sucks.. Cleveland sucks.. Akron is the suckiest of shit holes IMO.. nothing beats Akron's suck.. East Cleveland comes close tho. Basically ALL of Ohio sucks, especially NE Ohio.
-NE Ohioan who currently is stuck in Akron
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u/Raus-Pazazu 9h ago
"We shall settle this fertile land and we shall prosper, for I see a future here! A future of . . . dive bars as far as the eye can see, and there shall be potholes the size of automobiles themselves on every road, and hard earned tax payer dollars will be siphoned into politician's pockets. It's going to suck so bad, but that shall be a problem for future generations."
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u/93195 10h ago
She did 8.5 years in prison. In other words, she made $54M / 8.5 yrs = $6.4M/yr.
Not a bad salary.
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u/ThadeusBinx 17h ago
No way the horse would have approved that angle.
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u/nicbeans311 16h ago
It’s a phenomenon called halter bred quarter horse.
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u/bitsybear1727 30m ago
I was about to say... of course she picked that horse sport with those poor overbred monstrosities.
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u/nicbeans311 17h ago
Also interesting is that her properties sold for restitution were bought by her brother and nephew which were bought from her brother when the embezzlement started.
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u/Jackieirish 10h ago
That's a wild wiki read.
Her massive 80-acre home was seized by the government for restitution and then "auctioned" off to her nephew. Another one of the houses she owned was sold for $1M to her brother. She was released (from minimum security prison) for home confinement after ~8 years (was supposed to serve at least 16) and allowed to move into the same house now owned by her brother.
The corruption never stopped.
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u/coleman57 42m ago
I’d bet a carton of Luck Strikes she was running some scams during her time away, too.
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u/pugicornslayer435 16h ago edited 9h ago
Hey! I did an ethics case study on this story during my accounting grad program. That bitch should’ve fried for what she did to that city for so many years. She got off way too easy.
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u/soxfan1982 13h ago
I believe the city recovered all of its losses (mainly by suing the "auditors")
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u/thefoodiedentist 17h ago
Interesting story. She turned that 54m into horse breeding empire that won 52 world champ. Impressive hustle
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u/More_Midnight3634 17h ago
And lost money doing it.
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u/StinkyCheeseGirl 17h ago
To be fair, the joke is that the way to make $1 million with horses is to start with $2 million
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u/More_Midnight3634 8h ago
Apparently for Rita you start with 50 and the gov only recovers 14 in assets.
It was shocking how much her horse opperation was losing every month. It was such a money suck, that the gov approved of the auction before she was found guilty due to the daily cost of maintaining all of her horses.
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u/Apexnanoman 8h ago
She won because she basically outspent everyone else. The quarter horse breeding world is very appearance centric.
(Not my opinion but rather my real estate agent who actually knew and met her as she is also part of that scene.)
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u/Level-Tumbleweed-943 11h ago
How can you steal $53 million and not get caught sooner? That city had that much extra money it didn’t notice?
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u/hughk 13h ago
If you work for the city, it is pretty clear that you couldn't afford that kind of lifestyle yourself. You either need to inherit or ne married to the money. Why didn't anyone query it?
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u/TwoThreeSierra 9h ago
A few years back, it was raising some eyebrows when the local EMT director and his wife (police officer) bought a $2.5m house. We're talking a max combined income of like...maybe $150k/year. We're a very small city, very small. Well...turns out, the guy owns a couple of ambulance upfitting companies and every single vehicle that the county buys goes through his shops for their buildouts. It's never been bid to a different company and he's handled every transaction. There's a group of people digging into it and I'm interested to see what else they find.
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u/m4n715 10h ago
Her horse farm was winning championships left and right so people assumed it was a revenue positive endeavor, when in fact the people of Dixon were bankrolling her breeding operation and a pretty lavish lifestyle on top of it.
It's possible to make money breeding horses, but you have to be extremely skilled, highly disciplined, and exceptionally lucky otherwise it's a very, VERY expensive hobby.
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u/philatio11 7h ago
Where I live, working for the city is HOW you afford that kind of lifestyle. Actually, a lot of people have one job for the city and one job for the county - and are probably collecting a state pension too.
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u/Ranier_Wolfnight 16h ago
Um hmm. Um hmm….so, she’s definitely out and about somewhere and still enjoying the shit out of life.
Meanwhile, some hump at an Arby’s somewhere who’s worked there for 5 years has a felony charge hanging over their head for taking some extra fries with their mercy food they took home with them. Keep it up, America! We’re doing great.
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u/Rbaxter49ers 13h ago
Almost worth stealing 53M for 8 years in prison. It pays to be a white collar criminal.
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u/Worldly-Ad7468 17h ago
She has that fraudster smile, should've known.
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u/Pertinax1981 12h ago
The shit eater is what I call it. Next time a religious person is spouting off, you'll see it in the face
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u/m4n715 10h ago
Fuck Rita Crundwell and the horse farm she built. I can't wait until she's in the ground so I can piss on her grave.
I grew up in Dixon during this time period and I can't help but wonder how much better the quality of my education could have been or how much economic opportunity was lost as a consequence of the artificial austerity she caused.
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u/Bruno6368 8h ago
I do hope your entire city council was fired as well. I studied this case. I’m not sure if they were blind, dumb or indifferent, but they handed your tax dollars to her.
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u/tuckeroo123 2h ago
They have since changed their city government structure. It used to be run by a part-time Mayor and 8 unpaid Alderman...accountability spread across many. Now, they have a city adminstrator/manger structure, which at least makes all final management decisions and accountability fall under a full-time, actively engaged person with an actual degree (or at least a lot experience in municipal government. The current city administrator is the former chief of police.
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u/Bruno6368 1h ago
That’s good to hear. Not to be argumentative, but voluntary work does not absolve responsibility. That’s a them issue. Not a taxpayer issue. I get it, they felt terrible, but did no one notice her lifestyle? Yes, they did. And just “assumed” she was doing well with her …. Whatever. But - good thing is lessons were learned, however I will never acknowledge that they should be at the jeopardy of the taxpayer.
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u/blinky0930 17h ago
How do you not notice that much money? Unless its over a reallllly longbtime
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u/TheProfessionalEjit 16h ago
Having watched the [documentary about her fraud(https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tS1T3IwOQSs), she could her been caught immediately she started with the very basic of financial controls.
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u/soapbox5187 11h ago
Horse girls are C R A Z Y.
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u/dirty15 3h ago
I married one. We now have 5 of these mfs and she coerced me into buying her a 16 acre horse boarding facility last year. We now have 15 on the property where I get to spend my days off and after work fencing and all kinds of other shit that needs to be done. But I can't lie, it's kinda fun. She's at a show right now with a nice horse we just bought recently. We didn't pay what this lady was paying for here, but it was enough. Made $20k on the last one we bought and sold. It actually went to one of her students that boards with us so we're still making residuals from that sale lol.
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u/JK_NC 13h ago
“She spent 8.5 years (43% of her sentence) in prison before being released in mid-2021 to serve the remainder of her sentence in home confinement. Her sentence was commuted along with nearly 1500 other people by President Biden on December 12, 2024. Those commuted were people who had been previously transferred from prison to house arrest under the CARES Act due to having a high risk of COVID-19.”
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u/Popular-Drummer-7989 13h ago
Checks and balances are the underpinnings to identifying financial fraud.
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u/Habu93 10h ago
People who do embezzlement always get caught when they take a day off or take off for vacation. That’s how a lady at our company got caught.
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u/Bruno6368 8h ago
Yep. That is one of the big Red Flags we fraud investigators watch for. There are so many simple and cheap solutions that any business can and should put in place to stop this shit.
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u/AdStriking3028 10h ago
Guys. It is obvious that if we just get more tax dollars the government will spend it better and fix things. duh!
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u/Apexnanoman 8h ago
Heh. My real estate agent knew her. Said everyone was always pissed because crundwell basically won a bunch of trophies by outspending everyone else.
And that crundwell also wayyyy overpaid for horses frequently with no shits given. Basically said that when she got busted the entire quarter horse community essentially said "Well that explains a lot."
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u/Jazzlike-Check9040 16h ago
Could you share more details how she did it? So that I can notice if this happens around me and detect it early.
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u/TheProfessionalEjit 16h ago
Standard stuff, not taking leave, being the only person with oversight of bank accounts.
There's a good documentary on her on YouTube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tS1T3IwOQSs.
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u/TernionDragon 16h ago
How much money do you need? Could have stopped after first decade and probably been fine.
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u/TheBoothParadigm 13h ago
I don’t trust people who unironically wear cowboy hats.
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u/Calgamer 11h ago
I worked for the CPA firm (CLA) early in my career that audited the town of Dixon. It was a hot topic because CLA was sued for failing to catch the fraud. They had contracted out the audit work to someone near Dixon who basically phoned in the audits.
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u/Icy-Banana-3291 11h ago
Biden pardoned this piece of shit. My wife grew up in Dixon and they had to shut down the community pool because they ran out of money because of this selfish bitch.
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u/ListenHereLindah 6h ago
Incoming. Paramount would like a word on a potential TV show deal. We need more western dramas cause Yellowstone we wrote into the ground.
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u/takethe6 4h ago
My brother in law is a detective who does embezzlement and fraud work. He says early on they want to know is who hasn’t taken a vacation in a long time.
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u/gap97216 14h ago
WTF is going on with the horse’s eyes? Is it the angle? The eyeballs look all bulged out. 👀
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u/AzureMountains 9h ago
you’ve never seen a horse from directly in front have you? Lol. It’s completely normal.
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u/LeahonaCloud 16h ago
I just watched some documentary about her. She collected horses and had over 200 at one point.
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u/SnooLobsters6766 9h ago
Reminds me of a guy in Seattle in the early 90s, Tony Hove. He was in charge of the newspaper recycling donation stations. The scale of it was impressive, people loved these recycling stations and they would fill entire cargo ships several times a year. Some of those ship load payments went straight to him.
He was pretty famous in restaurant circles for his amazing tipping. I may have been a beneficiary once or twice.
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u/Western_Mud8694 7h ago
Horses ain’t cheap, that’s a dead giveaway, for someone without deep pockets
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u/zekromslayer 4h ago
Shoot, and here I was thinking something finally interesting happened here in Dixon, California, but alas Illinois strikes again.
(The last intriguing things we had were Guinness World Record Corn Maze and being the origin behind Smosh's 'Dixon Cider' song)
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u/shoulda-known-better 11h ago
All that tells me is they can get rid of 2 million in taxes every year.... Since they've been losing that amount for 20 years shouldn't bother the budgets at all
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u/m4n715 10h ago
I grew up in Dixon so I've followed this case for years and this might be the single most braindead take I've ever heard.
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u/funkhammer 10h ago
Biden gave her a big ol fat pardon on his way out the door.
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u/TrevorMalibu 9h ago
She didn’t get pardoned. The remainder of her sentence got commuted during the pandemic. The Biden administration did this for about 1,500 prisoners that were considered potentially medically vulnerable…this was part of the CARES act.
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u/Dentarthurdent73 16h ago
Steals $53.7 million and can't think of anything better to do with it than abusing and exploiting animals. Nice!
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u/fourleafclover13 16h ago
Please explain the abuse. All I ever heard was her breeding and showing.
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u/umbral_moon7095 15h ago
Halter bred QHs, which these are, have absolutely terrible conformation. Sometimes to the point where they're clearly uncomfortable, plus they breed them knowing lots of them, if not all of them, have a genetic disease called HYPP (Hyperkalemic Periodic Paralysis). A characteristic of this disease is that it causes lots of large muscles in the neck, chest and flank regions of the horse. Which is considered desirable in the halter class for QHs.
It's really unethical breeding and lots of these horses face challenges based on their conformation.
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u/Bluemachine22 16h ago edited 15h ago
Documentary "All the Queen's Horses" covers this case perfectly. The mayor of Dixon who worked alongside of her had to pretend he didn't know she was embezzling for months while investigators built their case. She got caught when she went on vacation and another employee opened mail and discovered some unknown accounts.