President Joe Biden is commuting the sentences of two of the Chicago area’s most notorious fraudsters

President Joe Biden on Thursday commuted the sentences of two of the Chicago area’s most notorious fraudsters: former Dixon Comptroller Rita Crundwell, who embezzled nearly $54 million from the tiny city to fund a lavish lifestyle, and Eric Bloom , the former head of a Northbrook management company that defrauded investors of more than $665 million.

The decisions in the clemency requests for Crundwell and Bloom were announced by the White House as part of an extensive list of approximately 39 pardons and 1,499 commutations. Biden’s orders do not expunge their felony convictions but end their sentences immediately.

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

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

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

She had served about eight years behind bars before being released to a halfway house in Downers Grove in 2021, U.S. Bureau of Prisons records show. Crundwell would have completed her sentence in October 2028.

Bloom, the former head of Sentinel Management Group, was convicted by a jury in Chicago federal court in 2012 of what prosecutors at the time described as the largest single financial fraud in Chicago history.

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

“Ask (my assistant) to look for change on my couch,” Bloom was quoted in court documents as telling an employee during a call days before Sentinel collapsed.

Bloom, 59, was sentenced to 14 years in prison in 2015. Jail records show he is currently serving his sentence at a rehabilitation facility in Florida. His sentence was due to end in May 2026.

[email protected]