More questionable info: http://espn.go.com/college-football...ondered-2010-lennay-kekua-situation-was-prank According to his childhood friend, Tessi Tolutau, a former Miss South Pacific, who grew up 5 doors from Te'o, he suspected Lennay might be a prank as far back as 2010. Tolutau responded that she only knew Kekua from online messaging, and wondered if she was causing trouble. Te'o ignored his own instincts and eventually began an online and phone "relationship" with her, the start of a three-year ruse that ended in national humiliation for him this week. "Manti wasn't in on this," says Tolutau, 25. "He checked with a lot of us about her. I believed she was real. We all did." Tolutau said Kekua messaged her "out of the blue" on Facebook in late 2008, pretending to want information on beauty pageants and dance teams. "She told me she played volleyball at Stanford, and that she was an aspiring model, and that she modeled for Victoria's Secret," Tolutau said Friday night via phone from her home in Utah. "She said she dated Mark Sanchez for a while. I thought, 'OK, she's trying to make herself sound really good.' But the picture of her was of a tall, skinny, really pretty dark-haired girl. I totally believed she was a real person, so I can see how Manti would." It's almost inconceivable that someone who already suspected she might be a prank believed she was a Victoria Secrets model, dated Mark Sanchez and played volleyball for Stanford just because she had a pretty picture...
I have this piece of breaking news. In my 3 years of law school at Notre Dame, 2 of which were with Manti, I never once saw him or his fake dead girlfriend.
Let me get this straight. This twitter account was trolling 2 days ago. Now it is the one being used by Teo as 'proof' that Ronaiah Tuiasosopo apologized to him and took all the blame? You (DonnyM) STILL BELIEVE THIS CRAP? You seem like a well-spoken guy, but I'm baffled by your inability to connect the dots here. No offense, but I guess I can see how you were duped before. And you will be duped again in the future. http://www.businessinsider.com/ronaiah-tuiasosopo-twitter-apology-2013-1#comments http://espn.go.com/college-football...-irish-denies-being-part-hoax-late-girlfriend
You might want to look in the mirror. I don't see many people siding with you both there and here. Might want to take a break there, buddy.
* ONE MORE THING... Teo claims those direct messages were from 1/16... yet that same account goes and trolls everyone on 1/17... now that trolling tweet is deleted and in it's place is this: L K @LennayKay 4h It is pretty clear that Manti is a good, trusting person, and he got duped, he was not involved in this. He has a great career ahead of him! Story does not check out at all. Unless ND/Teo paid off/bought that account.
1) As far as I know, that is a parody twitter account. 2) As far as I know, Teo never used this as "proof" of anything, nor has he referenced it. If these two assumptions are incorrect, can you please link me to the info? If I thought/knew what you just said was true, of course I would have some major misgivings. Edit: OK, these are stories that got posted today I haven't seen yet. Wow. What the f***?!
ESPN is using it in their article... pretty sure they wouldn't have done that erroneously... http://espn.go.com/college-football...denies-being-part-hoax-late-girlfriend#correx
Te'o is clearly more in on this than he is trying to make us believe now. It's totally obvious. There are too many inconsistencies...and if you really analyze the guy's facial expressions in some of these videos, I claim that you can see he was acting/lying.
OK, I just caught up on it. So... this account was apparently *actually* the account that was run by the hoaxers? A couple days ago, it was mocking him... then Tuiasasopo got outed as the perpetrator, and then Te'o received a bunch of DMs from the hoax account apologizing and owning up to it (supposedly)? Do I have this straight now? If so, I have a couple questions: 1) How does this prove Tuiasasopo is on the other end of these messages? 2) How does this incriminate Te'o? As far as I know, Tuiasasopo was outed as one of the hoaxers before this twitter convo happened, and before it came to light. Is that incorrect? 3) What is the alternative implication/theory to the claim that Tuiasasopo (or whatever hoaxer was running the account) was behind these messages? That Te'o is running the account?
Supposedly the apologetic direct messages are from Jan. 16. I believe the mocking statement was a day later.
The timeline, as presented, doesn't make any sense. Why would the guy apologize on the 16th, then mock on the 17th... the only thing I can think of that makes sense is ND/Teo buying control of the account. This would explain the deletion of the trolling tweet, and replacing it with a tweet of support. As for the DM's on the 16th, seems like it wouldn't be difficult to change the date and timestamp on an iphone screenshot. While this doesn't necessarily incriminate Teo, it absolutely adds even more inconsistencies and overall sketchiness to this dumpster-fire. Remember... he has been huddled up with his 'team', who's main concern is not to give you the honest/whole truth, but rather to minimize damage as much as possible for their CLIENT's draft stock.
I still think Te'o is in on this. Of course, one could also think up something about several people being behind that Twitter account, one being actually remorseful and having sent the direct messages and the other still laughing his ass off and trolling people. But there is too much cover-up from Te'o's side as well. He deleted numerous tweets, etc. And ESPECIALLY the combination of 1) not even thinking about going to the hospital when his "girlfriend" is dying and 2) not going to the "funeral" and 3) still referring to her even after Dec. 6 (when he first spoke to the school about her not being real) makes it clear to me that Te'o is involved in one way or another. He has already admitted to having lied and embellished several times. One can speculate about whether he did it to protect himself, about social awkwardness, etc. etc., but at the end, we know that he already lied, that his current story has lots of inconsistencies and that it seems clear that he enjoyed the attention very much. My conclusion from all that: He was in on this.
I just don't believe Te'o is that ignorant. Sure it's possible, but his own HS teammate QB for 3 years said that Te'o was not socially awkward with girls at all and had a crew, with two buddies in particular who knew everything. If he got catfished, then his whole crew got catfished. And then you have to add in the Notre Dame student article that came out Thursday or Friday saying Te'o was tagging chicks all over campus while dating online "the love of his life." A lot of things don't add up.
While I agree this opens up a can of worms and casts new doubts, it doesn't put me in the "Te'o was in on it" camp. It puts even more of me in the "wtf" camp. I'm not sure how plausible the whole "buying" the account thing is, and changing date/timestamps seems like it would be pretty easy to detect. Don't multiple people have access to this twitter account? Up to 3, right? I agree that Te'o and his counsel's main concern is for themselves, but the mere fact he has counsel at this point and is choosing his actions carefully does not incriminate him to me, either.
Potential employers getting wind of potential applicant's question marks in background, applicant doing a lot of dancing to explain question marks. Is this about right?
