Business Fraud

Business Fraud

Many residents of this small Illinois city, Dixon knew municipal-finance chief Rita A. Crundwell what in the business of raising horses. They did not suspect they might have been paying for it. Now the inhabitants of the town best known as Ronald Reagan's boyhood home are puzzling over how Ms. Crundwell might have, as federal authorities allege, made off with more than $ 30 million of the town's money-using part of it to pay for a lavish horse farm on the outskirts of town.

On Wednesday, stunned residents crowded City Hall looking for answers from officials, a day after federal ...