Long time state legislator Rep. Sharon Santos lost the equivalent of nearly half the money contributed to her reelection campaign so far this year after a fraudster conned her campaign treasurer into giving them $20,000 last September.
According to Santos’ campaign treasurer Jeanne Legault, scammers impersonating her credit union and the FBI claimed she had been hacked and Santos’ campaign funds were used to purchase child sexual abuse material. Trying to rectify that fictional nightmare, Legault was tricked into handing a fake undercover FBI agent a literal gift-wrapped package of cash.
Santos’ campaign consultant Michael Charles says the Santos campaign never informed donors about the fraud loss in the intervening 10 months since the theft. Considering the decades worth of surplus campaign contributions stacked up in the account, it’s hard to say precisely whose donations were lost, he says.
Legault explained to The Stranger in detail how the scammers took advantage of her.
She says in September 2025 she got a call from what she assumed was her credit union based on the caller ID. A fraudster impersonating a bank employee told her that according to the FBI “one of your accounts has purchased twenty-thousand dollars in Chinese child pornography.”
They said it was Santos’ account, “and I thought wow, this is really going to hurt her campaign.”
The fraudster told Legault her phone and computer must have been hacked to make the transaction, and convinced her that there was only one way to undo it: withdraw $20,000 in cash from the account and hand it to an undercover FBI officer.
“I’m questioning it the whole time, but I’m desperate to get it fixed,” Legault says. “I have a PhD, I’m not stupid.”
Instructed by the fraudsters to stay on the line, Legault headed to the credit union and, following the thieves’ instructions, told the bank staff she had to make a cash withdrawal to buy a used car.
“They asked me what kind of car, and I’m having to make up all this weird shit,” Legault says. She settled on a used Mustang. But the teller told Legault they didn’t handle cash at that branch.
“If only I’d walked out their scam would be exposed,” she says.
Unfortunately, Legault’s reputation got the best of her: she says a bank manager told her that because she’d been such a good customer over the years they’d make an exception, and allowed her to withdraw $20,000 in cash from the Santos’ campaign account and walk out the door.
Continuing to follow the fraudster’s instructions, Legault returned home and awaited the arrival of an “undercover FBI agent” who would pick up the cash. She was told to wrap up the cash like a present, which she now believes is because the fraudster’s courier was a hired patsy who didn’t know what he was picking up.
She says an Asian man in jeans and a black t-shirt arrived, accepted the wrapped cash from her, and departed.
“He didn’t say much,” Legault says.
After the courier left, the fraudster on the phone told her that the Santos account was now fine, but that there were discrepancies in other campaign accounts she managed, including that of Washington State Senator Bob Hasegawa. That’s when Legault says she was sure something fishy was up. She called the credit union, and they had her call the police. Now the FBI—the real FBI—is involved.
“I’m a 74-year-old woman, they target elderly women. I live on social security,” Legault says.
She wants to pay the Santos’ campaign back, but couldn’t get a loan. She’s still employed by the campaign, and considered working for free, but even then it would take years and years to pay back in kind, and Santos would likely be out of the legislature before it was repaid.
“I will find a way to get that money back,” she says, “thanks to my idiocy, my gullibility, it was lost.”
Legault only had good things to say about Santos, for whom she has worked for many years.
“She was so sweet about it,” Legault says.
The campaign was forced to publicly report the fraud because Washington’s sunshine laws require candidates for political office to file regular campaign finance records of contributions and expenses. A $20,000 loss is hard to hide. Legault said she and the Washington State Public Disclosure Commission (PDC) had to figure out how to report a loss to fraud on campaign financial reports, eventually landing on writing off the $20,000 loss as a campaign expenditure with Seattle Credit Union as a vendor.
Legault is adamant that the mistake is hers alone, and that Santos and her campaign were unaware of the theft until after it occurred. She says she didn’t tell Santos about the fraud for two months.
Legault suspects she was targeted in part because she oversees 16 different campaign bank accounts for local politicians and political groups. The amount of money held in those accounts is public due to state campaign finance disclosure laws, and it is viewable by anyone on the PDC’s website.
The expenditure report admitting the loss was filed in May, its explanation in full below:
“Unfortunately, a fraud was perpetrated upon Jeanne Legault, the treasurer of this account. She received a call from the bank (as identified on her call) so she believed it to be true. They said that $20,000 had been spent on child pornography and the FBI was on the phone. While I did not approve such an expenditure (which did not actually occur), the [sic] said that my phone must have been hacked as they showed that I did approve. In their instructions to correct the situation, I ended up getting conned and actually giving them the $20,000. I am eternally horrified by this.”
Santos said her schedule was too packed to speak with The Stranger on Tuesday, but emailed over the following statement:
“My re-election campaign was attacked by a sophisticated scam artist impersonating as a fraud investigator within the financial institution which holds our accounts, joining an escalating number of American individuals and entities that have been victimized by financial scams and bank fraud. Upon learning of this incident, I directed the campaign treasurer to immediately consult with the Public Disclosure Commission to determine how this fraud needs to be reported to the agency. I immediately contacted the Washington State Department of Financial Institutions to ask for their technical guidance and support in the matter. At this time, the fraud is still under investigation and I have no further information concerning the status of the investigation.”
Santos, who has represented the 37th Legislative District in the House since 1998, has raised nearly $48,000 so far this cycle for her reelection campaign. That $20,000 fraud loss constitutes the equivalent of nearly half of the total donations Santos has received this election.
Because the loss to fraud was written off as a campaign expenditure, that also means a huge chunk of Santos’ roughly $58,000 in expenditures has been for nought. Her opponent, first-time candidate and educator Kelabe Tewolde, has raised over $56,000 to unseat the long-term incumbent representing the International District and much of South Seattle.
