Where Is Rita Crundwell Now? Conviction, Commutation, Reaction

Rita Crundwell, the former Dixon, Illinois comptroller who stole more than $53 million from the small city over 22 years, is now a free woman living outside federal custody. President Joe Biden commuted her sentence on December 12, 2024, as part of a mass clemency action covering nearly 1,500 people who had been placed on home confinement during the COVID-19 pandemic. Bureau of Prisons records confirmed she was released from custody entirely on December 20, 2024, ending all remaining legal restrictions on her freedom.¹

She had roughly four years left on her original prison term when the commutation took effect. Under the standard 85 percent rule that applied to her federal sentence, she would otherwise have remained in custody until at least 2028.²

What She Went to Prison For

Crundwell was comptroller and treasurer of Dixon, a city of about 16,000 people in northern Illinois. Starting in December 1990, she funneled money from the city’s legitimate accounts into a secret bank account she alone controlled, covering the transfers with fictitious invoices designed to look like routine state business.³ The theft ran for 22 years and totaled $53,740,394. She used the money to build one of the country’s premier quarter horse breeding operations, along with a luxury motor home, trucks, trailers, and more than $339,000 in jewelry.⁴ Dixon, meanwhile, could not afford enough police officers and drove an aging ambulance that badly needed replacing.⁵

The scheme surfaced in the fall of 2011 while Crundwell was away at a horse show. City clerk Kathe Swanson pulled all of the city’s bank statements to prepare a treasurer’s report and found records for an account no one else at City Hall knew existed. She shared the finding with Mayor Jim Burke, who called the FBI. Crundwell was arrested on April 17, 2012.³

She pleaded guilty to one count of wire fraud on November 14, 2012, and admitted to illegal money laundering. On February 14, 2013, Senior U.S. District Judge Philip G. Reinhard sentenced her to 19 years and seven months in federal prison, just under the 20-year statutory maximum. She was also ordered to pay $107 million in combined restitution and monetary judgments.⁶

How She Got Out

Crundwell’s release came in two stages. In August 2021, she left the Federal Correctional Institution in Pekin, Illinois, eight years ahead of her scheduled release, and was transferred to community confinement under the CARES Act. That law let the Bureau of Prisons move inmates with underlying health conditions out of federal facilities during the pandemic. The Bureau declined to disclose details about her specific medical conditions, citing privacy and security.²⁷

For the next three years she lived in a halfway house supervised by the Bureau of Prisons’ Chicago Residential Reentry Management field office in Downers Grove, a Chicago suburb.⁵

The second stage came on December 12, 2024, when President Biden commuted the sentences of 1,499 people who had been placed on home confinement during the pandemic. Crundwell was among them. The White House said the commutations went to individuals who had “demonstrated a clear commitment to rehabilitation and reintegration into their communities.”⁸ By December 20, 2024, Bureau of Prisons records showed she was out of custody entirely.¹ The public record does not include her current residence.

How Dixon Responded

The reaction from Dixon was immediate and overwhelmingly negative. City Manager Danny Langloss called the commutation a “complete travesty of justice” and “a slap in the face for our entire community.” Mayor Glen Hughes described residents as “stunned, and maybe even angry,” and called it a “dark moment” in the city’s history.⁹

Former Dixon Mayor Li Arellano, who oversaw much of the city’s recovery, said: “The message seems to be crime pays.” Illinois State Representative Bradley Fritts called himself “outraged,” saying Crundwell “violated the public’s trust and used the stolen money to live a lavish lifestyle.”¹⁰⁹ U.S. Representative Darin LaHood, whose district includes Dixon, issued a formal statement condemning the commutation.¹¹

Jason Wojdylo, the former U.S. Marshals chief inspector who had spent years liquidating Crundwell’s assets, said the clemency “undid decades of work.” He added: “Now, today I anticipate she’s dancing in the streets of Dixon with her commutation, because she just also conned the President of the United States.”¹⁰

Where Dixon Stands Today

The city has recovered roughly $40 million, mostly through civil litigation against the auditing firms and bank that failed to catch the fraud, and it has used that money to pay off debt and fund projects that had been deferred for years. Dixon has invested in street resurfacing, economic development, and the transformation of its riverfront into a public gathering space. In 2015, residents voted to remove the sitting mayor and the entire city council, and the city transitioned to a professionalized form of management. Langloss has described Dixon as a “thriving rural community.” Former Mayor Arellano, whose second term ends in May 2026, has since been elected to the Illinois State Senate.⁵ City officials have noted that the true loss exceeds the gap between what was stolen and what was recovered, once inflation and lost opportunity costs are factored in.¹²

The $107 million restitution and forfeiture judgments entered against Crundwell at sentencing remain on the books regardless of the commutation, which addressed her prison sentence rather than her civil financial obligations.

1
CBS News Chicago. Disgraced Former Dixon, Ill., Comptroller Rita Crundwell Released From Custody After Getting Clemency From President Biden
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KWQC. Former Dixon Comptroller Rita Crundwell Released From Prison Early
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FBI. Former Dixon Comptroller Rita Crundwell Pleads Guilty to Federal Fraud Charge
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ABC News. Illinois Auction of Horses of Indicted Dixon Comptroller Earns Millions
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WTTW News. Former Dixon Comptroller Rita Crundwell Has Sentence Commuted
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Los Angeles Times. Horse Swindler Crundwell
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Forbes. High-Profile Inmates Transfer to Home Confinement Confuses Public on Directive of CARES Act
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ABC 7 Chicago. Former Dixon Comptroller Rita Crundwell Has Sentence Commuted by President Joe Biden
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NBC Chicago. Rita Crundwell Commutation Draws Angry Reactions From Dixon Officials
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CBS News Chicago. President Biden Commutes Sentence of Dixon Comptroller Rita Crundwell
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Congressman Darin LaHood. LaHood Statement on President Biden’s Commutation of Former Dixon, IL Comptroller Rita Crundwell
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City of Dixon. City of Dixon Formally Objects to Early Release of Rita Crundwell