Washington --

Sen. Dianne Feinstein's $5.2 million re-election war chest may or may not be "wiped out" by a trusted - and now arrested - treasurer, campaign officials for California's senior senator suggested Tuesday.

Bill Carrick, Feinstein's top campaign consultant, said First California Bank, which holds the campaign funds for Feinstein, Reps. Loretta Sanchez and Susan Davis and others involved in Kinde Durkee's alleged fraud, will not allow anyone access to the accounts without signing a release that indemnifies the bank against lawsuits.

Expect plenty of those. Hundreds of thousands of dollars have allegedly been misappropriated and Durkee had signature authority for more than 400 accounts, according to the FBI.

"It's an extraordinarily complicated mess and we just don't know right now what the reality is," Carrick said in a telephone interview. "We are trying like hell to find out."

Durkee, whom Feinstein described as a trusted aide, served as treasurer for Feinstein's Senate and gubernatorial campaigns in 1992, 1994, 2000 and 2006 as well as her current campaign. Durkee was arrested Sept. 2 on charges that she stole or misappropriated $670,000 from state Assemblyman Jose Solorio, D-Anaheim.

Carrick said the pattern of Durkee's alleged fraud, outlined in the FBI complaint, "obviously is very sinister." She allegedly commingled and transferred funds among various accounts and used money to pay personal bills, including her American Express card, her mother's assisted-living expenses, mortgage payments and the like.

"But the potential exposure people are talking about is a lot more than that kind of bill paying," Carrick said.

The FBI complaint said Durkee used funds to make payroll at her firm, Durkee and Associates. According to the complaint, one of the checks she paid to American Express was for $16,855, which in turn went to charges at Amazon, Baskin-Robbins, Turners Outdoorsman, Decker Surgical, Ariel's Grotto at Disneyland, TIVO and Bixby Animal Clinic, among others.

Federal agents said she "admitted she had been misappropriating her clients' money for years and that forms she filed with the state were false."