President Joe Biden commutes sentences of two of the Chicago area’s most notorious fraudsters, know who they are

President Joe Biden on Thursday commuted the sentences of two of the Chicago area’s most notorious fraudsters: former Dixon Controller Rita Crundwell, who embezzled nearly $54 million from the small town to fund a lavish lifestyle, and Eric Bloom, the one-time leader of a Northbrook management firm that defrauded investors of more than $665 million.

The decisions in clemency petitions for Crundwell and Bloom were announced by the White House as part of a massive list of about 39 pardons and 1,499 pardons. Biden’s orders do not eliminate their felony convictions but commute their sentences immediately.

The White House said these pardons were for people who were released from prison and placed under house arrest during the coronavirus pandemic.

Crundwell, 71, pleaded guilty in 2012 in what authorities called the largest municipal fraud in the nation’s history, admitting she stole $53.7 million from the city over more than a decade and used the money to fund her quarter horse business and lavish lifestyle.

She was sentenced in 2013 to nearly 20 years in federal prison. In April 2020, Crundwell petitioned a federal judge for early compassionate release based on her poor health and the COVID-19 pandemic.

“I have done everything in my power to be a ‘model prisoner,’ working as hard as I can and never complaining about my conditions here or the pay we receive,” Crundwell wrote. “Not a day goes by that I don’t regret my crime.”

U.S. Bureau of Prisons records show she spent nearly eight years behind bars before being released to a halfway house in Downers Grove in 2021. Crundwell’s sentence would have been completed in October 2028.

Darin LaHood, a Republican U.S. Rep. who represents Dixon, said the president showed “a disrespect for our justice system and the rule of law” by commuting Crundwell’s sentence.

“While many families in Dixon were living paycheck to paycheck, she took advantage of their trust in the government and used her access to live a life of luxury in what the FBI still believes is the largest theft of public money in U.S. history,” LaHood said in a statement Thursday. “Commuting her 20-year sentence is a slap in the face to all the hard-working police officers, firefighters, city employees and residents of Dixon.”

Meanwhile, Bloom, the one-time head of Sentinel Management Group, was convicted by a jury in 2012 of what prosecutors at the time called the largest single financial fraud in the history of Chicago’s federal court.

Prosecutors alleged that as head of Sentinel, Bloom in 2003 began secretly exposing his wealthy clients to an increasingly risky mix of leveraged deals, leading to the company’s collapse four years later.

“Tell (my assistant) to look for extra currency in my couch,” Bloom told a colleague in court documents during a call days before Sentinel’s collapse.

Bloom, 59, was sentenced in 2015 to 14 years in prison. Prison records show he is serving his sentence at a residential reentry facility in Florida. His sentence was set to expire in May 2026.