Wiggins' e-mail falls prey to hackers

<p>State Sen. Pat Wiggins, D-Santa Rosa, is not stuck penniless in England.</p><p>But according to a fraudulent e-mail sent Wednesday to an unknown number of people listed on her personal Hotmail account, the senator had misplaced her wallet and was in desperate need of a $2,500 loan to "sort out my hotel bills and get myself back home."</p><p>"She hasn't been in England in 20 years," Wiggins' press secretary, David Miller, said Thursday.</p><p>When Bodega Bay resident and longtime Wiggins friend Donna Freeman saw the plea for money Wednesday, she quickly recognized it as a scam.</p><p>"The words, the phrasing, it's not Pat," said Freeman, who immediately called Wiggins' husband and another Wiggins friend.</p><p>Wiggins' Sacramento office already was on alert since friends, fellow legislators and campaign contributors listed in her e-mail account had begun calling district offices in Sonoma, Lake, Mendocino, Humboldt and Solano counties.</p><p>However, Wiggins herself was unable to sign in to the account to find out what the fuss was about, Miller said.</p><p>Whoever hacked into her account changed the password, allowing the sender of the scam to be the only one to receive the responses.</p><p>Hotmail is a free e-mail service owned by Microsoft, and Miller said the company was called to deal with the problem. Microsoft shut down the e-mail address and traced the sender to somewhere in Africa, he said.</p><p>Miller said staffers are unsure how many e-mails were sent and how many recipients may have responded.</p><p>But he's pretty sure no one sent money.</p><p>Miller said the e-mail's typos, broken English and misspelled words were telltale signs it was a scam.</p><p>Miller said even if Wiggins was short of cash in a foreign country, she wouldn't send e-mails asking constituents to finance her way home.</p><p>"There are always backups if she loses money. She doesn't have to sit down and compose an e-mail," he said.</p><p>Although the e-mail surfaced Wednesday, Miller said his office did not send out a warning to alert the public until 24 hours later.</p><p>"We were trying to get a handle on how widespread it was," he said.</p><p>You can reach Staff Writer Mike McCoy at 521-5276 or mike.mccoy@pressdemocrat.com.</p>