An appeals court on Friday affirmed the nearly 20-year sentenced handed down to a former northern Illinois bookkeeper who embezzled nearly $54 million from the city to support her lavish lifestyle that included quarter horses.
Judges Frank Easterbrook, Michael Kanne and John Daniel Tinder with the 7th Circuit Court of Appeals agreed that U.S. District Judge Philip Reinhard's sentence against Rita Crundwell was appropriate.
"Judges must consider a defendant's principal arguments but need not agree with them," the judges wrote in their opinion.
During her sentencing on Feb. 14, Crundwell tearfully apologized and her attorneys asked for a sentence of about 13 years. But Reinhard instead sentenced her to 19 years and 7 months in federal prison, just shy of the maximum 20 years.
The penalty was severe, the judges said, because of Crundwell's perceived lack of cooperation with the prosecution.
For nearly 20 years, Crundwell siphoned funds from the city of Dixon to pay for properties, personal luxuries and a nationally known horse-breeding operation in one of the worst abuses of public trust in the state's corruption-plagued history.
The judge's said Crundwell's actions caused "psychological harm" for the citizens of Dixon who went without valuable municipal services during her scheme.
The government liquidated millions of dollars of Crundwell's property by auctioning off cars, boats and other equipment from her horse farm. U.S. marshals sold the ranch, farmland and house for $3 million. The home sale along with the earlier sale of her belongings has brought in about $11 million.
All of the proceeds went to Dixon.
