"I didn’t know how they would feel about the way I felt like I might be calling them out or the way I portrayed Dixon. "Everyone played a role in this, and the citizens played a role, too," Pope said. The Chicago-based filmmaker says she was nervous watching the hometown crowd react as they saw her documentary for the first time because, “It’s not about ‘Rita’s a bad person, remove Rita, she’s in jail, and now everything is okay.’" Pope says Kathe Swanson is the film’s hero – she even got to present Swanson the ethical courage award from the National Association of State Boards of Accountancy during one screening at the Historic Dixon Theatre. Former Dixon City Clerk Kathe Swanson, right, discovered a secret checking account and blew the whistle. The crowd at All the Queen’s Horses public premiere in Dixon appreciated how Pope put the amount of restitution Crundwell owes into perspective: She said Crundwell owed more than $100 million and, based on her $65 monthly prison salary, it would take her more than 120,000 years to pay it back.Ĭredit Stills from "All The Queen's Horses" Former Dixon Comptroller Rita Crundwell, left, embezzles more than $53 million over two decades. In the end, Crundwell was arrested, pleaded guilty to embezzling $53.7 million, was sentenced to nearly 20 years in prison, and had all of her possessions auctioned off. The two had to continue to work with Crundwell as if nothing was wrong for another six months while the FBI built its case. Swanson went to Dixon Mayor Jim Burke with her discovery, and he contacted the FBI. Crundwell funneled tens of millions of Dixon’s dollars into that account over two decades, using it to establish herself as one of the world’s greatest – and most glamorous – quarterhorse breeders. Swanson was filling in for Crundwell in 2011 when she discovered a secret bank account. That conflict was between Dixon City Clerk Kathe Swanson and City Comptroller Rita Crundwell. She’s fascinated with why people become whistleblowers - especially how a person behaves in “a situation with conflict.” The director of “All the Queen’s Horses” is an accounting professor at DePaul and a behavioral accounting researcher. Pope didn’t take the usual path to becoming a filmmaker. But filmmaker Kelly Richmond Pope had another reason for being drawn to the story of Rita Crundwell, Dixon’s former comptroller who stole nearly $54 million from her hometown. The subject seemed irresistible for a filmmaker: a bottomless well of money, corruption at city hall, gold-plated extravagance - and horses.
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