CHICAGO – An attorney for a former small-town Illinois bookkeeper who stole a staggering $53 million in public funds is arguing for a lenient prison sentence, saying the woman has cooperated with investigators since her arrest and must endure “disrepute and shame” for the rest of her life.

For more than two decades, Rita Crundwell, the former comptroller in the northern Illinois city of Dixon, used the stolen money to fund her nationally renowned horse-breeding operation and luxurious tastes.

She’s scheduled to be sentenced Feb. 14 for what federal prosecutors have called one of the most significant abuses of public trust ever in corruption-plagued Illinois.