A SINGLE ACCOUNTANT STOLE $53 MILLION FROM A SMALL TOWN AND NOBODY NOTICED FOR 20 YEARS. Rita Crundwell was the comptroller of Dixon, Illinois. Population: 15,000. For two decades she transferred city funds into a secret account she named "Reserve Sewer Capital Development Account." While firefighters were being laid off. While roads went unrepaired. While residents paid taxes to a town that kept saying it had no money. She used the $53 million to become the most successful quarter horse breeder in America. 400 horses. Multiple farms. A $2.1 million motorhome. A custom tour bus. Four World Championships in quarter horse breeding. All while actively robbing a town of 15,000 people. She was never caught by an audit. Never caught by a supervisor. Never caught by a bank. She was caught because she went on vacation. A substitute accountant sat at her desk. Opened the wrong account. Saw a wire transfer that made no sense. One vacation. One substitute. Twenty years of theft over in a single afternoon. $53 million. One woman. 20 years. One vacation. The most expensive holiday in American municipal history.