Illinois community outraged after Biden commutes sentence of fraudster behind $53M embezzlement scandal
Leniency for Rita Crundwell, 71, leaves rural town in 'disbelief'
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}President Biden added the woman behind the largest municipal embezzlement scandal in U.S. history to his list of clemency controversies, outraging a small Illinois community in the process.
The former Dixon, Illinois comptroller Rita Crundwell, 71, who stole nearly $54 million from the town over 22 years and pled guilty to the crime in 2012, had her sentence commuted as a part of a broader commutation last Thursday, making her one of 1,500 – the most ever granted by a president in a single day.
Local officials – and some state lawmakers – aren't happy to see her getting off "scot-free."
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}BIDEN COMMUTES SENTENCE OF OFFICIAL WHO STOLE $53M FROM SMALL ILLINOIS TOWN, SPARKING OUTRAGE
President Joe Biden speaks about an executive order in the East Room at the White House in Washington, Tuesday, June 4, 2024.
"Rita's crime absolutely shocks the conscience…. at her sentencing on February 14th, 2013, [the judge] said that a significant prison sentence was essential to reestablish public trust and confidence, so what we've seen here over the last week is just unbelievable and really a complete betrayal by the federal criminal justice system," Dixon city manager Danny Langloss told "Fox & Friends First" on Tuesday.
Langloss, who was the police chief at the time of Crundwell's arrest, went on to say the rural Illinois community is "shocked," "outraged," and in "disbelief" over the news, calling her commutation "a complete disservice to all the victims of her crime" and to the "sanctity and the trust of the criminal justice system."
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}Biden's blanket move also commuted the prison sentence for a corrupt judge involved in the "cash-for-kids" scheme, who imposed sentences on juveniles in exchange for millions of dollars in return.
"This is lazy governance, and it's really abuse of authority and power," Langloss continued on Tuesday.
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}Rita Crundwell, former comptroller for the City of Dixon, Ill., turns away as her attorney briefly speaks with the media after Crundwell plead guilty in federal court in Rockford, Ill., on Wednesday, Nov. 14, 2012. (Stacey Wescott/Chicago Tribune/MCT)
"We're outraged that Rita's been released, but all the work I've done as a police officer around protecting children, alternatives to detention, the impact of detention on children, to have this judge walk free, to have a day taken off his sentence while they just really got this so wrong."
A White House statement issued last week said the 1,500 commutations extend to people who were placed on "home confinement during the COVID-19 pandemic and who have successfully reintegrated into their families and communities."
"These actions build on the President’s record of criminal justice reform to help reunite families, strengthen communities, and reintegrate individuals back into society. The President has issued more sentence commutations at this point in his presidency than any of his recent predecessors at the same point in their first terms," the statement continued in part.
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre, speaking on the commutation last week, suggested the move focuses on the importance of "second chances."
BIDEN'S FULL LIST OF CLEMENCY AND COMMUTATION RECIPIENTS REVEALED
Illinois Republican Rep. Darren LaHood also criticized the "sweeping" commutation in a statement.
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}"While many families in Dixon were living paycheck to paycheck, she took advantage of their trust in government and used her access to live an unearned life of luxury, in what the FBI still believes to be the largest theft of public funds in U.S. history," he said. "Commuting her 20-year sentence is a slap in the face to all the hardworking police officers, firefighters, city workers, and residents of Dixon."
Democratic Rep. Eric Sorensen was also critical.
"She pleaded guilty, got the max sentence, but then only served eight years," he said in a Facebook post.
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}"Getting off scot-free today is such a load of BS."
Biden has faced a steady stream of criticism in recent weeks over the pardon for his son, Hunter, and other prison commutations, including for a corrupt Pennsylvania judge convicted of accepting kickbacks in exchange for sentencing minors to juvenile detention.
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{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}Fox News' Bailee Hill contributed to this report.