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Deadspin: (Notre Dame football player) Manti Te’o’s Dead Girlfriend is a hoax

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Ninja Scooter said:
They were sitting in their hands because they are no longer an investigative news organization. It's not their priority anymore. They are the MTV of sports. Deadspin, on the other hand, makes their living on breaking news like this and outscooping the big guys. You can call it shitty, lazy journalism, and I would agree, but the idea that ESPN is afraid to report negative stories about notre dame (or anyone for that matter) has little basis in this case.
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I think you're misunderstanding me a little. ESPN has no issue reporting on this negative story right now, but they had zero interest in being the ones to break it. Whether it was because of their own personal embarrassment as an organization or out of a need to protect the feel-good story that they themselves perpetuated. They may not be a hard hitting investigative force anymore, but this story was practically handed to them months ago and they chose to ignore it.

That goes a little further than lazy journalism in my opinion but other than that I think we agree.

Edit: And I also think that the strength of the program and its boosters were a factor in their decision to ignore what was going on.
 
One thing that perplexes me is the sheer degree of sophistication behind the attempt of creating this woman. There is certainly enough to build a compelling suggestion that Te'o was a victim himself.

Tuiasosopo had been in a car accident a month before Lennay's supposed accident. Was this Lennay Kekua? We spoke with friends and relatives of Ronaiah Tuiasosopo who asserted that Ronaiah was the man behind Lennay. He created Lennay in 2008, one source said, and Te'o wasn't the first person to have an online "relationship" with her. One mark—who had been "introduced" to Lennay by Tuiasosopo—lasted about a month before family members grew suspicious that Lennay could never be found on the telephone, and that wherever one expected Lennay to be, Ronaiah was there instead. Two sources discounted Ronaiah's stunt as a prank that only metastasized because of Te'o's rise to national celebrity this past season.
​

But at the same time, there is evidence to suggest Te'o has been lying by referencing the death of his girlfriend days after he reportedly told ND that he was scammed. Having said that, from the hours of getting another woman to impersonate Lennay and talk to him, and his friends, on the phone for hours, to the creation of yet another woman in the form of her cousin (Donna Tei) after she died; none of that fits into the mould of this being a ploy by Te'o or just merely a hoax against him. Would you continue the charade [if you were Te'o] by creating fake relatives after her death to draw more attention to your loss? Tei's fake account was created a month before Heisman winner was announced. But wouldn't it have been more effective to merely kill off Lennay around this time rather than September? If not a ploy by him, would Tuiasosopo, not satisfied with killing off his girlfriend, be so obsessed to create yet another fake relationship with Te'o? by invoking a cousin?

Surely there are simpler, less convoluted, methods of fabricating a sob story for the media? Same question goes for the theory of Tuiasosopo being responsible for all of this. This goes way beyond a prank on his part; it is nothing short of an infatuation with Te'o.

Neither story is particularly convincing so far in my opinion.

P.S. I don't think his claims of 'meeting her' at a game, or back home at Hawaii, are indicative of an involvement in the hoax. Online relationships sometimes see one of the partners embellish, or hide the nature of the relationship, from others in fear of being ridiculed.
 
Jason Raize '75 - '04 said:
P.S. I don't think his claims of 'meeting her' at a game, or back home at Hawaii, are indicative of an involvement in the hoax. Online relationships sometimes see one of the partners embellish, or hide the nature of the relationship, from others in fear of being ridiculed.
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It does establish him as a liar, as do the numerous lies he continued to tell long after December 6th.
 
BigAT said:
It does establish him as a liar, as do the numerous lies he continued to tell long after December 6th.
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What I'm saying, rather, is those specific lies can't really be used as good evidence that he was involved in the ploy for the reason I explained above. The fact that he referenced her 'death' to the media days after informing ND it was all a scam is a red flag; that is good evidence.

By the way, do we have more information on this alleged comment he made in early December about his girlfriend dying? If that is legit, then we can wrap this up

wienke said:
NBC Nightly News has a full segment basically defending Manti Teo. They're talking about how common it is for someone like Teo to be a victim.
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It is true though. Anyone who has ever seen Catfish will attest to this. In fact, people have been in online relationships for years with someone who had sent them fake photographs and lied about details of their lives. By in most of those examples, there was genuine love - they had a motive to continue the charade. What was Tuiasosopo's motive for doing this? It's hard to believe he did it just for shits and giggles. Unless, of course, there were no hours of phone conversations and he and Te'o lied about all of that
 
Jason Raize '75 - '04 said:
What I'm saying, rather, is those specific lies can't really be used as good evidence that he was involved in the ploy for the reason I explained above. The fact that he referenced her 'death' to the media days after informing ND it was all a scam is a red flag; that is good evidence.

By the way, do we have more information on this alleged comment he made in early December about his girlfriend dying? If that is legit, then we can wrap this up
Click to expand...

There's a collection of things he said about her after he knew it was fake here:

http://deadspin.com/5977167/what-di...d-girlfriend-after-hed-learned-she-wasnt-real

"I don't like cancer at all. I lost both my grandparents and my girlfriend to cancer." (Dec 8)
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Coleman: You lose your girlfriend and your grandmother the same week, right? I just want to make sure I've got that correct.

Te'o: "Correct—same day, same day." (Dec 8)
 
Jason Raize '75 - '04 said:
What I'm saying, rather, is those specific lies can't really be used as good evidence that he was involved in the ploy for the reason I explained above. The fact that he referenced her 'death' to the media days after informing ND it was all a scam is a red flag; that is good evidence.

By the way, do we have more information on this alleged comment he made in early December about his girlfriend dying? If that is legit, then we can wrap this up



It is true though. Anyone who has ever seen Catfish will attest to this. In fact, people have been in online relationships for years with someone who had sent them fake photographs and lied about details of their lives. By in most of those examples, there was genuine love - they had a motive to continue the charade. What was Tuiasosopo's motive for doing this? It's hard to believe he did it just for shits and giggles. Unless, of course, there were no hours of phone conversations and he and Te'o lied about all of that
Click to expand...

"It is true though. Anyone who has seen Inception will attest to this."

"It is true though. Anyone who has seen Anchorman will attest to this."

"It is true though. Anyone who has seen Looper will attest to this."
 
BigAT said:
There's a collection of things he said about her after he knew it was fake here:

http://deadspin.com/5977167/what-di...d-girlfriend-after-hed-learned-she-wasnt-real

"I don't like cancer at all. I lost both my grandparents and my girlfriend to cancer." (Dec 8)
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Coleman: You lose your girlfriend and your grandmother the same week, right? I just want to make sure I've got that correct.

Te'o: "Correct—same day, same day." (Dec 8)
Click to expand...

Fuck
 
Jason Raize '75 - '04 said:
One thing that perplexes me is the sheer degree of sophistication behind the attempt of creating this woman. There is certainly enough to build a compelling suggestion that Te'o was a victim himself.

Tuiasosopo had been in a car accident a month before Lennay's supposed accident. Was this Lennay Kekua? We spoke with friends and relatives of Ronaiah Tuiasosopo who asserted that Ronaiah was the man behind Lennay. He created Lennay in 2008, one source said, and Te'o wasn't the first person to have an online "relationship" with her. One mark—who had been "introduced" to Lennay by Tuiasosopo—lasted about a month before family members grew suspicious that Lennay could never be found on the telephone, and that wherever one expected Lennay to be, Ronaiah was there instead. Two sources discounted Ronaiah's stunt as a prank that only metastasized because of Te'o's rise to national celebrity this past season.
​

But at the same time, there is evidence to suggest Te'o has been lying by referencing the death of his girlfriend days after he reportedly told ND that he was scammed. Having said that, from the hours of getting another woman to impersonate Lennay and talk to him, and his friends, on the phone for hours, to the creation of yet another woman in the form of her cousin (Donna Tei) after she died; none of that fits into the mould of this being a ploy by Te'o or just merely a hoax against him. Would you continue the charade [if you were Te'o] by creating fake relatives after her death to draw more attention to your loss? Tei's fake account was created a month before Heisman winner was announced. But wouldn't it have been more effective to merely kill off Lennay around this time rather than September? If not a ploy by him, would Tuiasosopo, not satisfied with killing off his girlfriend, be so obsessed to create yet another fake relationship with Te'o? by invoking a cousin?

Surely there are simpler, less convoluted, methods of fabricating a sob story for the media? Same question goes for the theory of Tuiasosopo being responsible for all of this. This goes way beyond a prank on his part; it is nothing short of an infatuation with Te'o.

Neither story is particularly convincing so far in my opinion.

P.S. I don't think his claims of 'meeting her' at a game, or back home at Hawaii, are indicative of an involvement in the hoax. Online relationships sometimes see one of the partners embellish, or hide the nature of the relationship, from others in fear of being ridiculed.
Click to expand...

At a minimum he's a huge liar.
 
Manti Te'o said:
One thing that perplexes me is the sheer degree of sophistication behind the attempt of creating this woman. There is certainly enough to build a compelling suggestion that Te'o was a victim himself.

Tuiasosopo had been in a car accident a month before Lennay's supposed accident. Was this Lennay Kekua? We spoke with friends and relatives of Ronaiah Tuiasosopo who asserted that Ronaiah was the man behind Lennay. He created Lennay in 2008, one source said, and Te'o wasn't the first person to have an online "relationship" with her. One mark—who had been "introduced" to Lennay by Tuiasosopo—lasted about a month before family members grew suspicious that Lennay could never be found on the telephone, and that wherever one expected Lennay to be, Ronaiah was there instead. Two sources discounted Ronaiah's stunt as a prank that only metastasized because of Te'o's rise to national celebrity this past season.
​

But at the same time, there is evidence to suggest Te'o has been lying by referencing the death of his girlfriend days after he reportedly told ND that he was scammed. Having said that, from the hours of getting another woman to impersonate Lennay and talk to him, and his friends, on the phone for hours, to the creation of yet another woman in the form of her cousin (Donna Tei) after she died; none of that fits into the mould of this being a ploy by Te'o or just merely a hoax against him. Would you continue the charade [if you were Te'o] by creating fake relatives after her death to draw more attention to your loss? Tei's fake account was created a month before Heisman winner was announced. But wouldn't it have been more effective to merely kill off Lennay around this time rather than September? If not a ploy by him, would Tuiasosopo, not satisfied with killing off his girlfriend, be so obsessed to create yet another fake relationship with Te'o? by invoking a cousin?

Surely there are simpler, less convoluted, methods of fabricating a sob story for the media? Same question goes for the theory of Tuiasosopo being responsible for all of this. This goes way beyond a prank on his part; it is nothing short of an infatuation with Te'o.

Neither story is particularly convincing so far in my opinion.

P.S. I don't think his claims of 'meeting her' at a game, or back home at Hawaii, are indicative of an involvement in the hoax. Online relationships sometimes see one of the partners embellish, or hide the nature of the relationship, from others in fear of being ridiculed.
Click to expand...

hmm
 
That one part would seem to fit:

Manti Te'o has told family and friends that the woman who was the voice of his fictitious girlfriend “Lennay Kekua” called him in December and said she had to fake her own death months earlier to elude drug dealers, the Honolulu Star-Advertiser has learned.

The woman, who has yet to be identified, tried to re-engage a relationship with Te‘o months after she supposedly had died of leukemia in early September, the Notre Dame All-American linebacker has told the people close to him. The account was shared with the Star-Advertiser by a source close to the Te‘o family.

According to the account, Te'o asked the woman to transmit a photo to him with a date stamp, which she did, but this did not allay his suspicions and he later told his family and Notre Dame officials about being scammed.
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http://www.staradvertiser.com/news/...oax_in_December_call_to_Teo.html?id=187505701


And from the original Deadspin article:
All of those photographs—with one important exception—came from the private Facebook and Instagram accounts of Reba, whom we found after an exhaustive related-images search of each of Lennay's images (most of which had been modified in some way to prevent reverse image searching). We sent her a number of photographs that had appeared on Lennay's Twitter account, which is now private but apparently still active (see this retweet, for instance). One picture in particular brought Reba to a start. It had been used briefly as @LoveMSMK's Twitter avatar and later in the background of the page (we've blurred out the face, at Reba's request).
That photo hadn't appeared on the internet—at least, not to Reba's knowledge. She had taken it in December 2012 and sent it directly to an old high school acquaintance. The two hadn't talked since graduation, but the classmate, whom Reba remembered fondly, contacted her on Facebook with a somewhat convoluted request: His cousin had been in a serious car accident, and he had seen her photos before and thought she was pretty. Would she be so kind as to take a picture of herself holding up a sign reading "MSMK," to put in a slideshow to support the cousin's recovery? (He didn't explain what MSMK meant, and Reba still doesn't know.) Baffled but trusting, Reba made the sign and sent along the photo.
Click to expand...
 
gutshot said:
Schaap is a good interviewer. This should be interesting.
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Not as interesting as if it was on camera. Why is he hiding now? He was happy to be in front of every camera when he was spewing his BS.

Here's a pic

BA8QlN7CUAAjGBD.jpg
 
Also, very convenient that this will come out this weekend. News cycle timing, especially with the playoffs? this shit will just blow over
 
Sooooo....the guy who duped Te'o did the same exact thing to another cousin, using the exact same profile with identical pictures?
 
They just said that the hoax guy recruited 2 more people to help string Te'o along, including a woman who impersonated Lennay over the phone.
 
It is really simple. If your attorney is present it provides how you are guilty....if you did nothing wrong you do not need an attorney.

My favorite part is how he is seriously trying to have people believe that there was somebody pretending to be somebody else who would invest hours of time, daily, annually for years on the phone with him. What more evidence do you need? How can you take his word if this is what he is standing for? Come on now.
 
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