Manti Te'o's Dead Girlfriend was a hoax?!?!?!?!

ArizonaKid said:
How awesome would it be if Teo did come out and somehow ended up being teammates with Tebow next season.

ESPN would create a new network devoted to covering them 24-7 LOL
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http://espn.go.com/college-football...opo-cousin-was-voice-talking-manti-teo-report

Hollywood couldn't make this up. One day after a report that the voice of Manti Te'o's fake girlfriend belonged to the man who masterminded the hoax, Ronaiah Tuiasosopo, another voice has emerged -- that of his female cousin.
Relatives of Tino Tuiasosopo, a woman in her mid-20s who lives in Pago Pago, American Samoa, told the New York Post that Te'o has been speaking to her."Tino is the girl that Manti has been talking to all these months," said a Tuiasosopo cousin, according to the Post.

<!-- begin inline 1 -->[h=4]Maisel: Longfellow Deeds in a gold helmet[/h]
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Manti Te'o isn't the first to play this role. Frank Capra made a living making movies about humble, modest men who hit hard times. Story


<!-- end inline 1 -->In an interview with ESPN's Jeremy Schaap on Friday, Te'o said that he had discovered that a cast of characters portrayed Lennay Kekua, the fake girlfriend who had supposedly been in a serious car accident and then died of leukemia.
When asked who he had been speaking to all that time, Te'o said: "Two guys and a girl are responsible for the whole thing."
He was asked if he knew who they were and he said: "I don't know. I don't know. According to Ronaiah, Ronaiah's one."
According to Ronaiah Tuiasosopo's relatives, another is Tino Tuiasosopo, who works for her father's construction company.
A source told the newspaper that she became the voice of Te'o's girlfriend after another long-distance relationship that had "extraordinary similarities" to the Te'o saga ended in late 2011. Te'o says his relationship with Kekua began in 2009, however, making it very possible others portrayed Kekua.
Tino Tuiasosopo's relatives are certain that at least on voice mails Te'o supplied for his appearance on Katie Couric's television show this week, Tino's voice can be heard.
A person identified as Tino Tuiasosopo's cousin said: "There is no doubt whatsoever that it's Tino."
After listening to the tape of "Kekua" hysterically accusing Te'o of having another girl in his room, one of the Post's sources said: "That's the way [Tino] cries when she's feeling sorry for herself. Its her, that's the voice."
Although the quality of the recording is not very good on all of the clips, the voice does sound feminine."It didn't sound like a man," Te'o told Couric during the interview that aired Thursday. "It sounded like a woman. It's incredible that he can make that noise."
Others didn't think it sounded like a man either. "Good Morning America" sent the tapes to four audio experts, who were unanimous in saying that the voice on the tapes was that of a woman.
A Tuiasosopo relative thinks that Ronaiah Tuiasosopo's lawyer, Milton Grimes, told the New York Daily News that his client has been the voice all this time because his client "is determined to take the rap," according to the Post.
Grimes had been clear, however, on Thursday. He said that Te'o "thought it was a female he was talking with. It was Ronaiah as Lennay."Tuiasosopo, 22, has had dramatic training, plays in a Christian band and even auditioned last year for the television show "The Voice."
"Come on, Hollywood does it all the time," Grimes said of his client pretending to be a woman. "People can do that."
No matter the voice, Te'o did spend hours on the phone with somebody. A source close to Te'o gave ESPN's Schaap documents that the source says are Te'o's AT&T phone records from May 11 to Sept. 12, the date Kekua supposedly died of leukemia. The logs are not originals, but rather spreadsheets sent via emails, and could not be independently verified.The records show that in the four-month span -- when Te'o has said he believed Kekua to be in a Los Angeles hospital recovering from an accident and being treated for cancer -- Te'o made and received more than 1,000 calls totaling more than 500 hours in length from the same number in the 661 area code. The 661 area code covers Lancaster, Calif., which is part of Los Angeles County. The source told Schaap that Te'o believed the 661 phone number in question was Kekua's.
Of these calls, 110 were more than 60 minutes in length, including several that were several hundred minutes long. In an ESPN interview last Friday, and in interviews with both ESPN and Sports Illustrated last fall, Te'o said he was on the phone "every single night" with a person he believed to be Kekua, often for long stretches late at night.
Last Friday, he said to Schaap in an off-camera interview: "I'd be on the phone. And she had complications from the accident and she said the only thing that could help her sleep was if I was on the phone. So I would be on the phone, and I'd have the phone on the whole night."
From the records, it does not appear that Te'o was on the phone every night for the entire night, but the volume of calls and their duration are sizable.

Information from ESPN's Jeremy Schaap and The Associated Press was used in this report.
 
B.A.R. said:
Haha, was just coming to post this. lmao.
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Too slow, young man.

By the way, can you locate RJ, Esq. and ask if I can get disability for my twitter addiction?

I guess Fondy, Esq. would be good, too...although any of his advice (except the best restaurants and drinking establishments in Milwaukee) would result in me having to seek a second opinion. :)

Also, I'd like to sue Mother Nature for the cold weather forcing me to start my Guiness intake 4 hours earlier than my normal 3 PM...
 
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I DVR'd the interview and watched it this morning. I can say without a doubt he is still lying about shit left and right. One thing I have to admit though is that Im not at all sure what his involvement is at this point. He was absolutely involved in this to some extent. Katie let him off the hook time and time again during this interview. It seemed like she would back him into a corner and then let him out over and over. The part where he was talking about being in San Diego while she was in the hospital in LA was ridiculous. She says something like...."Manti its a two hour drive and the love of your life is in the hospital with cancer" His answer, "I didnt want to disappoint my parents by missing the plane flight" Katie just accepts that and moves on.

I can say a couple things here. First of all Manti Teo just might be the dumbest person on the face of the planet, there is at least a 50% chance that Manti is Yag, He was 100% involved in this although Im not sure as to when he knew for sure. I think this may have started as a scam and he knew very early on that it was just that. He may have carried this on for quite some time knowing that it was a man on the other end because this is the closest thing he could get to an openly Yag relationship. I honestly dont know what the fuck is going on here but we are certainly not getting the truth.
 
tipyerbartender said:
Amphetamine pills? More harmless and less helpful than 5-Hour Energy. Gimme a break.
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This is simply not true. Amphetamines are even classified as "performance enhancing" as well. You can't bring up the steroid talk w/o talking about greenies, if only for the fact of how prevalent each of them were in their eras.

Bonds and Clemens were 1st ballot HOFers loooooooong before any steroid or HGH talk came up. You simply don't like the guys personally if you don't agree with that. There's nothing wrong with that either, but just use that as your reason, don't bother bringing up steroids. Each of them are/were top 5 EVER as a pitcher/fielder in many people's eyes, let alone HOFers.
 
Alex said:
He's Yag, I'm 99% sure, no way you can keep up pretending to sound like a women on the phone for a year. No way.
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Halfway down the original Deadspin article I said he was queer as a 3-dollar bill. There is no other plausible explanation.
 
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HUNT said:
This shit happens in this day and age. Its everywhere. The real question is why does a high profile athlete have the need to go online when he can walk into a dorm room and bang the first girl he sees. Jmo.
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Do you really want me to answer that question???
 
tipyerbartender said:
If you believe his story, then you think Teo's an even more special kind of dumb.
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. . . the kind apparently reserved for Notre Dame grads. Which leads me to my next question. Are there any GMs in the NFL who are Notre Dame grads??? I need to know that before I bet a shit ton of money that Ta'o won't get drafted in the 1st round.
 
ClubDirt said:
wait, the story that a nationally famous start athlete at a big university who can get any real life chick he wants had a multi-year year internet and phone relationship with a girl he never visited, even when he was in her town, and whose grave he never visited after she died of cancer that may have been caused by a car accident and he was allegedly all broken up about it, and he never skyped or video chatted with her out of curiosity as to what she looked like, oh yeah and it turned out to be a guy but he never realized this while he was talking to this guy for those hundreds of hours over the phone, and again he was talking to someone on the phone for hundreds of hours when he had top quality chicks at his disposal right there at ND is plausible but the fact that he is a repressed raging, catholic mormon homosexual who's brain has been warped by repression and staying in the closet so he has to make up some reidiculous story to throw people off his homosexual track is implausible. do i have that right?
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Pulitzer Prize nominee. The only thing you left out is the part where he both he and his parents actually met her on several occasions, but then didn't after everyone found out she was fake.
 
ArizonaKid said:
Well at this point we know that Notre Dame hastily called a press conference and pretended that they had done a conclusive investigation into the matter when in fact they did no such thing.

And I couldn't disagree more about a heterosexual college age male capable of having any women he wants but not doing so has to be Yag....that is simply a fucking stupid statement. Believe it or not some people actually have faith and live by their principles.
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I don't think anyone posting on this board would have any problem believing Ta'o if he wanted to save himself for marriage. I'm confident that a lot of people would respect that, his teammates and myself included. In fact I had a good friend that I played ball with who did that very thing. But unfortunately, as poignant as that sounds, that's not what happened. Instead we have a guy who concocted an elaborated fake girl friend hoax, then concocted her tear-jerking demise, and took said concocted story to the national media for tendentious considerations of self interest, all the while being aided and abetted by a university that is currently sheilding known rapists from prosecution, and that probably was looking to cash in on another fake Rudy movie.
 
I'm over this story jimmy. Could care less either way. It's just offseason entertainment.

Jmo he got played, and it was a professional job. He is as confused as everyone else in what happened.

He might be confused in his sexuality he might not. That part I really don't give a shit for.
 
Lareux said:
This is simply not true. Amphetamines are even classified as "performance enhancing" as well. You can't bring up the steroid talk w/o talking about greenies, if only for the fact of how prevalent each of them were in their eras.

Bonds and Clemens were 1st ballot HOFers loooooooong before any steroid or HGH talk came up. You simply don't like the guys personally if you don't agree with that. There's nothing wrong with that either, but just use that as your reason, don't bother bringing up steroids. Each of them are/were top 5 EVER as a pitcher/fielder in many people's eyes, let alone HOFers.
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Disagree. Both were on track, but their HOF numbers, it's a numbers game, were cemented by late career, presumably enhanced excellence. Clemens was probably in, as he was in the conversation as the best starting pitcher of his generation, and undoubtedly the best for about a three year stretch in the late '80's. Bonds' candidacy as a slam dunk HOFer, if he had retired prior to needing a larger hat, is trickier.
 
And neither one is remotely close to top 5 ever, with or without the drugs. You need to dust off your history books, Lareux.
 
Off the top of my head without looking at numbers, I could name 15-25 better pitchers and 15-25 better position players than Clemens and Bonds, respectively. Top five my ass.
 
Clemens and Bonds weren't even the best at their crafts in the history of their own teams, except for perhaps Clemens and the Blue Jays, but that was when he started taking needles in the ass.
 
There are a bunch ... who was that Villanova guy who was all coked up against Georgetown? I don't think John Lucas ever didn't play wired.
 
I myself once partied all night, didn't sleep, and drained a few threes off the bench in intramural hoops in the morning. Circa 1989, I'm sure it's documented somewhere.
 
i thought there were a couple on villanova.

of course if espn ever did the show, it would be narrated by the master, LT. maybe LT and michael irvin.
 
There's a lot of things you can be a "little bit" of. You can be kinda racist. You can be kinda douchey. But you can't just be kinda Yag
 
alright, this whole catfishing phenomenon needs to fucking stop. my buddy just randomly came across a facebook profile of a girl....and all of her pics are of his gf. one of them is even of him with her. this is a fucked up world were livin in!
 
Trout, I guess you are right, its the only thing that would make sense.


this is actually so messed up. im not a LB for Notre Dame though so I dont expect people to care, but im a lil freaked out.

The fake account had 1 mutual friend with me, a kid who I havent seen since HS, but I sent him a message. he responded saying that he doesnt know her, it was just a girl who friend requested him and he had no reason to decline so he accepted and thought nothign of it.

i dont have access to her friends list, but one guy "liked" her recent photo add, so I sent that guy a message and im awaiting a response.

my guess is that hes just some college perv who she added and he liked her pics bc hes creepy.
 
I'm convinced that Ronaiah is taking the fall here in return for a huge payday by ND or Teo or both. These guys are both Yag and Manti doesn't want to be outed.
 
tipyerbartender said:
Clemens and Bonds weren't even the best at their crafts in the history of their own teams, except for perhaps Clemens and the Blue Jays, but that was when he started taking needles in the ass.
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Barry Bonds was one of the best players that ever lived what are you talking about? My man
 
Maybe so, but he was not the best Pirate, and not the best Giant ... Someone up there had him in the top 5 players ever, which is silly. His late career power numbers were just a little inflated.
 
I'm posting from a phone so navigating the previous pages isn't as easy ... I seriously can't remember how Bonds and Clemens came up in the Mani Teo thread.
 
VK said:
I understand that the story is interesting. It is both bizarre and still a bit of a mystery. I find some of the attitudes in here a little strange though.

Let's take the worst case scenario for Manti.

1. He is a repressed homosexual who carried on an online relationship with another man and after years of hiding their relationship by pretending it was a relationship with a Woman, the two then concoct(k? hehe ) a scheme to fake his/her death to garner sympathy ( because a dead grandma isn't enough ) in order to boost him in the Heisman race.

I have a few problems with this scenario and problems with reaction to it.

Let's start with the whole concept .... If your intent is to hide that you are a fudgepacker, it makes little sense to risk outing yourself by making up such a story that is likely to have ZERO impact on the Heisman race. I don't think a single voter thought about his dead grandma or dead girlfriend when casting a heisman ballot. I find it hard to believe many people would. I am not saying that it isn't possible that Manti could think it but it seems odd. In any event, it would seem to be a huge risk to take for two people who allegedly spent years hiding their homosexual relationship to take. It doesn't make sense. I would like to see the phone records from AFTER the point where he was told she died. Once they make the decision to run the hoax, don't they then have to cut off their daily phone conversations? Again seems doubtful if they are a Yag couple. Possible ( and could still talk on phone and have Manti say it is him talking to family of deceased GF ) but unlikely. And then he would have to agree to run the hoax when his grandma just died ?? The same day?? Again .. let's assume he is a Yag dude in the closet having a relationship with another dude .... do they really decide together as a couple to hatch their plan at that time? Wouldn't his Yag phone sex lover be more interested in comforting his boyfriend? I may not have the timeline right but it again doesn't make any sense ( unless both are sociopaths or he hated his grandma or was apathetic to her death ).

I guess that I can see Manti being either Yag or straight, and either in on it or not in on it .... but having a secret Yag relationship AND being in on it is what seems unlikely to me.

1. Yag and not in on it ....--- Perhaps he knew he was talking to a dude on the phone but was still being played by the person. This would account for why he didn't meet the person or visit in the hospital or go to the funeral etc etc because doing so would out himself when the Press followed. This would make it an easier decision to stay away as he protects his gayness secret. This makes more sense as far as the fake death goes as well .. again I find it hard to believe that after a several year relationship that they were actively risking outing Manti with this easily debunked GF death. It should have been discovered in a couple of days that this chick didn't die and even though it wasn't ... THE Yag COUPLE would SURELY THINK that it would.

2. Yag and in on it --- This only makes sense if Manti was fully ready to come out of the closet right before the Heisman Voting which is completely contradictory to the supposed motive for doing it. If it comes out he is Yag before the Heisman Vote he has to think he is going to be hurt by that in the voting. I don't know if that is true or not ( certainly more likely to get hurt by being a butt pirate in the voting than he would benefit from dead GF sympathy ) but for someone so scared of how people will accept him as being Yag, he would most definitely feel that is the case. This is also contradicted by his behavior since this all came out .... because if he is Yag, he is clearly NOT ready to come out of the closet. Again, the overwhelming, obvious assumption would have to be made that someone in the press would investigate her death, possibly interview her family etc etc .... faking the death is basically outing himself. The timing of it in conjunction with his grandma's death makes no sense at all if they were a Yag couple. This seems the most unlikely scenario to me of them all.

3. Straight and in on it -- This would mean spending several years on the phone with a dude and not figuring out it was a dude. I tend to think this is tough to believe but it does happen to people. I have sat at poker tables where the person across the table is right in front of me ... talking .. and I can see the person .. and I still don't know what the hell it is .. man or woman? That is seeing and hearing the person at the same time live as compared to a phone voice. Once he believes it is a female then he is more likely to believe the voice. My problem here is the discipline and duration of conversations that the scammer would have had to use the voice without falling back onto his own voice a few times. Unless his real voice sounds like a girl's. I think in this scenario he is also unlikely to be in on a fake death hoax. Think about it logically ... if this is a girl he is digging and spending hours on end talking to then presumably they are planning on seeing eachother at some point or at a minimum continuing their relationship. So it would be discovered eventually UNLESS they were breaking up. And if they were breaking up then it seems unlikely that they decide to run a hoax for Heisman sympathy. Again, it fails the laugh test.

4. Straight and not in on it -- This or #1 seem the most likely to me. He gets duped ... finds out about being duped ... and then lies like crazy to hide that it happened.

Now the reactions in this thread to the story also bother me ... accused rapists, robbers, druggies breaking the law, dui, woman beaters .... Sandusky ..... these are crimes and deserve to be covered. Comparing ESPN coverage of Sandusky with ESPN coverage of this Manti thing is like comparing the news coverage of a shoplifter at the local market with news coverage of the Sandy Hook School Shooting. One is a big deal and one isn't. I get that it is interesting .. hell, I read 20 pages of this thread already .... but it isn't really as big deal a deal as actual crime. I am not sure why there is so much vindictive towards someone just because they might be dumb, Yag, a bad liar or some combination of all three.
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With respect to whether the dead girlfriend story influenced the voters of various awards, there are really only two possible trains of thought here.

a) No voters were influenced, and Manti Te'o is indeed the greatest college defensive player that has ever lived or,

b) Voters were in fact influenced which resulted in Te'o winning awards he did not deserve.

Given that scenario a is completely absurd, and given that Chicago Sun Times reporter Rick Telander openly admitted that the dead girlfrined story did influence his Heisman vote, I'll go with scenario b.

I absolutely agree with you that people like Rick Telander have proven themselves to be wholly incompetent to vote on anything, and should be permanently banned from doing so in the future. Unfortunately, I suspect there are a lot of Rick Telander's out there voting on all sorts of awards.
 
Can someone summarize what's happened with this in the past week and a half? I quit paying attention and now I'm lost.

Did he come out as Yag or not?

Did they figure out who was making the phone calls?

Was it a man or a woman?
 
he got asked if he was Yag. he denied it.

i dont think they figured out the phone calls outside of it was Tuiasisoppo or however the f you spell it. saw two reports saying it was a man, other it was a woman.

havent been following really closely but this whole things is a buncha BS
 
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