By Gabriela Resto-Montero
DNAinfo Reporter/Producer
MANHATTAN — Even the Governor of New York is vulnerable to identity theft on Twitter.
Hours after his inauguration Sunday, the Twitter handle that Andrew Cuomo posted on his official website, @NYGovernor, was taken over by a tech-savvy graduate student who noticed that the account wasn't actually set up and didn't exist on Twiter yet, the New York Times reported.
Nicholas Fahrenkopf, 24, a Ph. D candidate in nanobioscience at the University at Albany, posted an official-looking photo of Cuomo and began tweeting as the governor.
Poking fun at Cuomo's expected state worker wage freeze, Fahrenkopf answered several followers' earnest questions while pretending to be the newly-sworn-in governor.
In response to a question from a Twitter user about Albany's hiring freeze, Fahrenkopf cracked wise, saying he was looking to fill one position: "I am looking for someone to write my jokes," Fahrenkopf wrote. "Patterson (sic) is on the top of my list right now."
The bio section of the fake Twitter account also played on the governor's relationship with Sandra Lee, his love for muscle cars and declared Cuomo the "first elected governor since the Luv Guv", a reference which Fahrenkopf later removed.
Cuomo's team caught the gaffe and quickly set up another account, @NYGovCuomo, to tweet the new governor's official escapades.
Eventually, Fahrenkopf admitted to the ruse.
"I tried to follow the Gov through his webpage and noticed the dead link," he wrote. "Claimed the account and had some fun."
Fahrenkopf's fake account had 475 followers to Cuomo's 285 on Monday.
There's no indication that Fahrenkopf will be punished for his prank.
Among his first acts as the real governor, Cuomo was expected to call for a year-long state worker wage freeze during his State of the State address Wednesday, the Times reported.
The plan would save the state between $200 and $400 million dollars in the expected $9 billion deficit, the paper reported.
