CHICAGO — A small Illinois town stunned by accusations that its longtime bookkeeper embezzled more than $50 million to live lavishly and breed horses will hear her admit it in person Wednesday, according to federal prosecutors.

Rita Crundwell, the former comptroller of Dixon, is scheduled to plead guilty to a federal charge that accuses her of stealing public money while overseeing the town's public finances and siphoning it into a secret bank account, U.S. attorney's spokesman Randall Samborn said.

Townsfolk in Dixon, the boyhood home of the late President Ronald Reagan, say they will welcome a confession from Crundwell. Its 16,000 residents are largely lower-middle class, working at factories and grain farms, and they had come to trust Crundwell to manage the town's finances with little oversight.