Probably a hoax.....
“But Governor Sanford’s team has failed to get ahead of a story that could become tabloid fodder. During Sanford’s first gubernatorial campaign in 2002, an 8-year-old African-American girl wandered onto a Sanford family property on Lady’s Island and drowned. A source close to the governor said she fell into a “retaining pond.” Her family’s lawyer, Manning Smith, called it a “pit.” Other sources claim that Sanford, who owned a hydraulic excavator at the time, digs holes on his property to unwind. According to a source involved in the settlement, the governor’s insurance company paid the girl’s family “around $300,000.”
http://crisstcross.blogspot.com/2009/05/south-carolina-governor-mark-sanford.html
It’s all too convienent to have a personal story about Sanford using a backhoe be in an email.
The emails or the governors corrupt, decadent celebrity like lifestyle?