A security expert who examined a provocative email sent to a Mercury News reporter that was later disavowed by Alameda County supervisor Nadia Lockyer says the email was sent from a Verizon cell phone, like an earlier email from Lockyer to the reporter that isn’t in dispute. The email, reported by Julia Prodis Sulek and Josh Richman, reads like a plea for help or a suicide note. Among other things, it asserts that Lockyer’s husband, state Treasurer Bill Lockyer, had in the past bought her drugs. Nadia Lockyer claims that her ex-lover, Steven Chikhani, hacked her account and sent the email, something his lawyer denies.
Also: Although Hayward police found her safe at home Wednesday afternoon after the newspaper notified them of the email, Nadia Lockyer has apparently spent time at the Castro Valley Inn, separated from Bill Lockyer, since emerging from a second round of drug rehab last month. An excerpt:
Late last month, Nadia Lockyer checked into the Castro Valley Inn, telling the manager at the front desk "she needed to get away for a bit."
Last week, manager Leslie Jee said Bill Lockyer came to the inn and asked for a receipt from Nadia's stay. This week, Bill Lockyer returned and sat for a while in the parking lot, Jee said.
"Both times he went," said [Bill Lockyer’s spokesman Tom] Dresslar, confirming the visits, "he was trying to obtain information to help him learn the truth about what was happening in his life."