DECATUR, Ala. (WAFF) – A Morgan County judge is warning the public about online scams after a hacker took over her Facebook account and used it to steal money from her friends.
Jennifer Howell, a longtime Morgan County circuit court judge, woke up one morning in early February to find herself locked out of her Facebook account. A new email address and phone number had been registered to the account — signs she had been hacked.
The hacker posed as Howell and posted about a family member with a terminal cancer diagnosis, using real images of a man in a hospital bed.
“I started seeing that he was posting these things, that I had this dying uncle. And it was just this heart-wrenching thing with real pictures of some guy on his death bed in his hospital room,” Howell said. “And it’s not my uncle. My uncle is fine.”
In the scammer’s next post, they claimed because Howell’s uncle was dying, the family was selling all his personal belongings. This included seven vehicles, three trailers, a tractor, a golf cart, and even a PlayStation.
Howell said the hacker exchanged private messages with 137 different people in less than 48 hours, with around 50 of them committing to buy something. One woman attempted to wire $30,000 to the scammer for multiple cars and a trailer that did not exist.
“The bank told her this is a scam, and it didn’t go through. That was my biggest fear, is people know me and they’re going to think, ‘Oh, this is a judge. She’s not going to scam me,’” Howell said. “‘She says she’s going to meet me on Friday with a truck? She’s going to meet me on Friday with a truck.”
The scammer disabled comments and blocked users who noticed the account was hacked. Howell says only three payments went through, none totaling more than $2,000.
But according to a 2025 Pew Research study, 11% of adults encounter at least one social media scam every day.
And Howell doesn’t want anyone else to fall for these costly tricks.
“Two times I changed my password just to protect myself out of an abundance of caution, and still, this guy found a way in,” she said. “If you’re going to buy something online, see it in person. See the actual piece of property in person. See the actual face of the person selling it in person.”
Howell says regaining control of her account through Facebook’s standard services was virtually impossible. A friend of a friend who works for Facebook ultimately helped her recover the account.
Decatur police are currently investigating the case. No arrests have been made.
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