All the Queen's Horses

I saw the movie and enjoyed it, but I have a few questions:

1. Did the City of Dixon have a certified audit of their city performed by a CPA firm? If yes...why wasn't the fraud discovered from the audit? If no...why didn't they have one?

2. Was Rita bonded? If yes...did the City recover any of the stolen funds from the bonding company? If not...WHY NOT? common sense to have people bonded who are entrusted with large amounts of money.

Oh Rita? Such an impressive woman In the show-horse arena. How is someone with so much to lose, able to continue in her nefarious behavior without pulling back on the reigns? Simply amazing! This has to be a kleptomaniac world record. And the lack of detection by the other authorities seems to be the height of dereliction. This story is quite interesting and kept my attention throughout. I only wish the producers could have gotten some interviews from the culprits who ended up paying in the end. It is deeply disturbing that something like this could actually happen. Don't people know that God sees all and has the power to cast them into hell? Good grief!!! Wake up folks.

I attended a fraud seminar a few years ago and the instructor said "Every fraud investigation begins in the parking lot. Look at the cars people are driving and you can see who is living beyond their means". This story had more red flags than a bullfight.

This woman owned hundreds of Quarter-horses at a cost of over $250,000 each, a million dollar trailer, a $1.8 million motor home and multiple real estate holdings across the country - all on a municipal clerk's salary while taking off for 4 weeks per year. A freshman accounting student could have figured this out.

The independent auditor dropped the ball by not requiring the city to institute internal controls so a single person did not have the ability to commit fraud and cover it up. Finally the suspect account was reported by the bank on the bank confirmation and no one bothered to follow up to see why millions of dollars was flowing through a single account with checks made out to personal expenses.

This was a failure on the part of everyone involved.

One of my friends is currently serving time in the same prison as Rita, so naturally I was interested in this documentary.

At just 70 minutes in length, it held my attention throughout - especially as the incredible details of Rita's fraud were revealed. Even though the details of white collar crimes can often be a little difficult to comprehend, this documentary explained the fraud in an easy-to-understand way. Don't worry, you don't need to be a CPA!

$53 million stolen over 20 years. That alone is quite a remarkable feat, and at first I couldn't help be impressed at the sheer magnitude of the crime - in a similar way in which I was impressed with the sheer brazenness of Frank Abagnale Jr in 'Catch Me If You Can'. Then the job-cuts, debt, and other cost-cutting impacts on the city of Dixon were revealed - and I fully understood how bad it all was, and the devastating ripple effect of this woman's actions.

I felt the film could've delved deeper into the impact on the every day Dixon resident, while also exploring what (from my perspective) seems like an almost compulsive addiction influencing Rita's behaviour. Her unwillingness to partake in the film no doubt impacted the latter.

It dragged slightly towards the end - but even so, I couldn't help but feel frustration at the massive number of people who failed to do their jobs properly, which would've uncovered Rita's simple frauds early-on. Had they done that, less money would have been embezzled, the city of Dixon would've suffered less and Rita would have already done her time and moved on in life.

We studied this story in a Corruption class of how Rita Crundwell stole over 50 million dollars from her tiny hometown over 20 years. This documentary laid it all out so well though. With the actual people who worked beside her (hat off to coworker Kathe Swanson who discovered the massive theft!) telling the story plain and simple. That is the importance of this documentary. It was so easy for Rita to do this. We all need to learn from this. I really appreciated how this story was told start to finish seamlessly. The selling of the quarter horses was heartbreaking. The actual footage really made this film.