http://deadspin.com/5977416/notre-dames-lennay-kekua-investigation-basically-consisted-of-a-few-guys-using-google-and-nexis
( Hmm , Notre Dame didn't dig to deep here..... )
Notre Dame’s Lennay Kekua “Investigation” Basically Consisted Of A Few Guys Using Google And LexisNexis
Today's South Bend Tribune has the first full account of Notre Dame's investigation of the Lennay Kekua hoax, and it's startling how little investigation actually went on. According to the university, Te'o informed officials of his dead/undead girlfriend on Dec. 26, and Notre Dame proceeded from there. The university hired outside private investigators on Jan. 2, and concluded its investigation on Jan. 4. What happened during those two days? The investigators searched "several sophisticated databases." Anything else?
The investigation ordered by Notre Dame was limited to the electronic search, [spokesman Dennis] Brown said. Investigators did not interview Te'o or his family, nor did anyone attempt to contact Ronaiah Tuiasosopo or any of his relatives.In response to questions, university officials said the investigators did not examine cell phone records, e-mails or other electronic communication to determine the length or extent of Te'o's communication over the past few years with the person claiming to be Lennay Kekua, nor did the university ask Te'o to take a lie detector test.The university did obtain some materials from Te'o—the "MSMK" photo from late December, a supposed home address for Lennay that reportedly connected back to Tuiasosopo—but the outside investigators never interviewed him or got more from him. Yahoo's Dan Wetzel—who, recall, wrote his own story mentioning Lennay in September—had reported on Saturday, in anas-yet-uncorrected column, that "private investigators and forensic computer experts... went through Te'o's computer, emails, social-media accounts, phone bills and other documents." Nothing like that happened. (Update 1:20 p.m.: this portion of the Wetzel post has now been rewritten to reflect the information contained in theSouth Bend Tribune's report, without annotation.)No matter the limits of its investigation, Notre Dame had become convinced that Kekua never existed by Jan. 4. The school decided against revealing it publicly. Officials felt it would be unfair to Alabama and the rest of the athletes playing in the game. The Tribune report also indicates that the school advised Te'o to deflect questions about Kekua and her impact on his season by saying he wanted to focus on the game. But there had been debate on the matter.Some of the small group of administrators wrestling with the Te'o problem had argued for disclosing the news immediately, the other official said. And university leaders discussed over several days whether they should disclose the hoax to the public before the bowl game, Brown said.But at some point in the couple days just before the bowl game, it seemed apparent that exposing the hoax then would not be in the best interest of the teams or the individuals involved, Brown said."There was kind of a realization that this would be a circus. It would be unfair to Alabama, it would be unfair to all the other players not involved, that this suddenly becomes bigger than the national championship football game - bearing in mind that we never intended that it would stay private," said one university official.Notre Dame leaders also wondered if that's what the hoaxers wanted—to cause such a disruption that it would influence the outcome of the game. "Did they want to destroy the atmosphere of the national championship game?" the official said.Instead, officials decided to avoid the circus and wait until there was nothing else going on in college football. Notre Dame's president, the Reverend John Jenkins, also decided after consulting with various administrators that Te'o and his agent—who the family indicated would be hired shortly after the game—would disclose the hoax, not the school. It was Notre Dame's understanding that Te'o would announce the hoax on his own with a major network "a week ago," but he obviously never did.Investigating the hoax [South Bend Tribune]
and......
http://www.breitbart.com/Breitbart-Sports/2013/01/19/Teo-Checking-Account
( Looks like the scammer was fishing for money from Te'o.... )
TE'O: 'GIRLFRIEND' ASKED FOR CHECKING ACCOUNT NUMBER
On Friday, Manti Te'o said his "girlfriend" had once asked him for his checking account number so she could deposit money into Te'os account. Te'o said he never gave her his checking account number.
"I'm not giving my checking account number," Te'o told ESPN in his first interview since the revelations of the girlfriend hoax became public on Wednesday. "I don't care who you are. I'm not giving my checking account number out to you."
Te'o said "Lennay Kekua," the "girlfriend," then asked Te'o best friend Robbie for his checking account, offering to help him with "groceries or help you guys pay for the bills for the house."
"I told him, whatever you do, do not give out your checking account number," Te'o said.
Te'o said this did not raise alarm bells for him because he went to the Notre Dame credit union and asked whether someone could pull money out of his checking account if they could deposit money into it.
They told him they could not take money out and, so, Te'o said, "that red flag went immediately down."
Had Te'o accepted money from "Lennay Kekua," he could have been in danger of violating NCAA rules and been ruled ineligible for Notre Dame football games.
http://www.businessinsider.com/ronaiah-tuiasosopo-twitter-apology-2013-1
( The story still has holes..... we shall see what comes next I guess ... )
Here Are The Twitter Messages Ronaiah Tuiasosopo Allegedly Sent To Manti Te'o To Apologize For Hoaxing Him
During Manti Te'o's interview with ESPN's Jeremy Schaap last night, Te'o showed Schaap Twitter direct messages that Ronaiah Tuiasosopo allegedly sent to Te'o apologizing for the entire hoax.
There are a few aspects of this that leave us confused. In order to send someone a direct message on Twitter, that person has to be following you. The messages shown are from a "@lennaykay" account. Right now, that account has on 56 followers, and Manti Te'o is not one of them. As Deadspin also points out, a quick look at Te'o's Twitter shows he is not following the "@lennaykay" account, nor is he following Ronaiah Tuiasosopo.
But he allegedly showed the following messages on his phone to Schaap:
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And was Ronny Tuiasosopo using real life events in the fraud ???? I wonder what Manti Te'o's phone records would reveal as to when or if he called his GF Lennay ?
http://deadspin.com/5977293/report-two-months-after-ronaiah-tuiasosopo-gave-lennay-kekua-fake-leukemia-his-cousin-was-diagnosed-with-real-leukemia?tag=manti-te.o
Report: Two Months After Ronaiah Tuiasosopo Gave “Lennay Kekua” Fake Leukemia, His Cousin Was Diagnosed With Real Leukemia
Among the (many) confusing things about the ongoing saga of Manti Te'o's fake dead girlfriend, the similarities between the real life of Te'o-deceiver Ronaiah Tuiasosopo and the false narrative he created have especially muddled the facts. Two turning points in the faked narrative: "Lennay Kekua" was involved in a car accident in 2012 that left her "on the brink of death," and Kekua died of leukemia. Two turning points in Tuiasosopo's life, one of which we knew when we first published—that Tuiasosopo himself had been in a major car accident—and one which USA Today uncovered yesterday: Tuiasosopo's real life cousin, Jazmine Lutu, is indeed a "beautiful young woman" in her early 20s, currently battling leukemia. As in Kekua's story, she received a bone marrow transplant.
However, if the widely reported timelines are to be believed in this instance (a big if), the strange part is not that Tuiasosopo pulled a fact from his real life to embellish his story. That would be relatively banal, all things considered. The strange part is that a story Tuiasosopo made up appears to have come true for his cousin two months after the lie.
You'll recall this portion of the Lennay Kekua timeline, in which it's discovered—that is to say, conveyed to Te'o and his parents, who subsequently relayed the story to reporters—that Kekua has leukemia:
Some time in 2012: Kekua has a car accident somewhere in California that leaves her "on the brink of death" (Sports Illustrated). But when? Eight months before she died of cancer, in September, reports ESPN. "About the time Kekua and Manti became a couple," reports the South Bend Tribune. April 28, reports SI.June 2012: As Kekua recovers from her injuries, doctors discover she has leukemia. She has a bone-marrow transplant. ("That was just in June," Brian Te'o told the South Bend Tribune in October of 2012. "I remember Manti telling me later she was going to have a bone marrow transplant and, sure enough, that's exactly what happened. From all I knew, she was doing really, really well.")
Kekua was diagnosed in June, given a bone-marrow transplant, and dead by September; in the meantime, Te'o talked to her nightly over the phone—Sports Illustrated relayed the now-infamous anecdote about their telephone correspondence: "When he woke up in the morning his phone would show an eight-hour call, and he would hear Lennay breathing on the other end of the line." USA Today reports that Tuiasospo's cousin might have been the inspiration for those developments in Kekua's life—had she not been diagnosed with leukemia and given a bone-marrow transplant two months after Kekua:
She is a beautiful young woman, in her early 20s, fighting leukemia. Unlike Lennay Kekua, she is real.Jazmine Lutu smiles back from the Facebook page of her uncle [Ronaiah's father], Titus Tuiasosopo. It is her cousin, Ronaiah Tuiasosopo, who several media reports say orchestrated the hoax that led former Notre Dame linebacker Manti Te'o to believe Kekua had died of the disease when she never even existed.Reached on Friday, Lutu confirmed to USA TODAY Sports that she continues to battle cancer but declined to comment further about her family.According to Titus Tuiasosopo's Facebook page, Lutu was diagnosed with acute lymphoblastic leukemia in August. She was set to receive a bone marrow transplant.There are (at least) two options here: First, that the timeline of events reported during the college football season, from the facts offered by the Te'o family, was even more woefully inaccurate than it appeared at first glance. Second, that the fictions Tuiasosopo dreamed up to give dimension to the Kekua character were substantiated in real life in the form of his cousin, who came down with the same illness and required the same treatment two months after he first imagined it.That summer of eight-hour phone conversations always seemed like an odd detail. Now, it seems possible that Tuiasosopo actually told Te'o of "Kekua's" leukemia diagnosis in August rather than June, and that the order of events had been misreported. Of course, that assumes that the most logical answer is also the accurate answer, and if Te'o's saga has taught us nothing else, it's taught us never to assume.Picture via.
Finally , Manti Te'o talks....... let's just say , the best thing one can say here is that Manti admits to using poor judgment and deceiving the press and his parents about Lennay ( at a minimum ) .... however , some of his responses are unbelievable ( such as the response to why he never visited his sick / dying girlfriend in the hospital " It never really crossed my mind " )
http://deadspin.com/5977282/in-espn-interview-manti-teo-admits-to-tailoring-his-stories-says-he-wasnt-convinced-lennay-kekua-was-fake-until-wednesday
JAN 19, 2013 2:08 AM13,808
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In ESPN Interview, Manti Te’o Admits To “Tailoring His Stories,” Says He Wasn’t Convinced Lennay Kekua Was Fake Until Wednesday [UPDATE]
Admitting that he deceived his parents and the press about the nature of his relationship with Lennay Kekua, but denying any involvement in the hoax, Manti Te'o spoke with ESPN's Jeremy Schaap Friday night for more than two hours in an off-camera interview. (Most of what little we know about the interview with Te'o comes from a surreal interview Schaap did withSportsCenter early Saturday morning. We'll update as more emerges.)
Amazingly, Te'o claimed he wasn't "fully convinced" that Lennay Kekua did not exist until Wednesday, after we published our report on the hoax. This goes against a good deal of what Notre Dame athletic director Jack Swarbrick said in a press conference Wednesday night. (Te'o's agents at CAA, not Notre Dame, negotiated the interview with Schaap.) Swarbrick said he shared the findings from the university's investigation of the hoax with Te'o's parents more than two weeks ago, on Jan. 5. Had they really not told their son the news? And had Notre Dame told Te'o nothing? It was, after all, per Notre Dame's official account, a Dec. 26 tip from Te'o himself that prompted the school to investigate Kekua. According to Swarbrick, Te'o had received a call on Dec. 6 from a living woman who had previously identified herself as Kekua, who, you will recall, he believed to be dead.
Te'o also told Schaap—per the story available on ESPN.com—that a woman claiming to be Kekua turned up at the Notre Dame hotel before the BCS national championship game in Miami. Writes ESPN, "Te'o said he knew they were at the hotel because the group took photos in the hotel lobby."
We know this woman could not have been the woman Te'o saw in pictures that were purportedly of Lennay: That woman did not attend the game and, moreover, knew nothing about her photos being connected to Kekua's online identity. So who was this woman? Did Te'o believe her claim that she was Kekua, if she did make this claim to him? (The story isn't clear.) How did he remain unconvinced that his dead girlfriend never existed until Wednesday, if he had two separate moments of contact with her before Jan. 7? Why, if he was agnostic about her existence, did he still refer to her death multiple times in the press? Te'o did tell Schaap that he lied to his father, Brian, about the pair's visits in Hawaii, and that he "tailored his stories" to the press.
When asked if he was a part of the hoax, Te'o, who was interviewed with an attorney present at IMG Sports Academy in Bradenton, Fla., responded, "I wasn't faking it, I wasn't part of this." As for why Te'o never visited his dying girlfriend in the hospital, he told Schaap, "It never really crossed my mind."
Te'o also told Schaap that Ronaiah Tuiasosopo, the man we identified as being behind Lennay Kekua, apologized to him Wednesday via Twitter direct message. Te'o also said two others, a man and a woman, were Ronaiah's accomplices, but he didn't name them. Schaap said he saw the messages, but we're still not sure how such an apology would have worked. Tuiasosopo deleted his Twitter account weeks ago, and direct messages on Twitter require the recipient to follow the sender. We checked the list of Twitter users Te'o follows on Tuesday and didn't see any sign of Ronaiah. It's possible Ronaiah used a new account to send an @-reply Te'o's way to apologize, but tweets including Te'o's Twitter name were coming at such a rapid pace Wednesday it's inconceivable that Te'o could have picked out a single apology from all the other tweets.
Te'o claimed he met Tuiasosopo in person for the first time after the Notre Dame-USC game on Nov. 24. (A tweet from Ronaiah's deleted account suggests that Te'o and Tuiasosopo met on the 23rd, but we haven't been able to recover the image associated with Tuiasosopo's tweet. The individual who provided this photo of Te'o with Ronaiah's sister told us it was taken the 23rd.)
As for what Te'o wants for Tuiasosopo, he told Schaap "I don't wish an ill thing to somebody. I just hope he learns. I think embarrassment is big enough." Manti Te'o's apparent defense is that he had no reason to think his twice-undead dead long-distance girlfriend, whom he never met or saw outside of photographs, whose funeral he never thought to attend, might have been a phony. Regardless of whether he's telling the truth, he'll soon see just how big embarrassment can get.
Update (2:34 a.m.): ESPN has removed all references to the woman claiming to be Lennay showing up at the team hotel from its online story. There is no explanation, note, or correction in their story.
and there will still be questions - but at this point , we at least have Manti's tak as to what went down...
While we wait for Notre Dame star Manti Te'o to come clean - sit down with a legitimate reporter and answer fully all of the questions floating out there , let's recap what we have seen in the two days of this circus ! First a recap from way back to the beginning - which was Wednesday ......
http://fredw-catharsisours.blogspot.com/2013/01/manti-teos-dead-girlfriend-most.html
And the weirdness just doesn't stop - just when you begin to think you have your arms around the story , it takes a UFO style dart to the horizon ! The latest.....
http://www.businessinsider.com/report-manti-teos-girfriend-tried-new-hoax-on-teo-in-december-2013-1
Report: Manti Teo's 'Girlfriend' Tried New Hoax On Te'o In December
Jonathan Daniel/Getty Images
According to the source, the person on the phone "tried to re-engage a relationship with Te'o."
Notre Dame athletic director Jack Swarbrick told the media earlier this week that Te'o had received a call from Lennay's phone on December 6, three months after she had supposedly died of Leukemia.
According to the report, Te'o was immediately skeptical and asked for a picture to be sent to him with a date stamp. She did send him a picture, but according to Lewis this "did not allay his suspicions."
http://www.staradvertiser.com/news/breaking/20130118_EXCLUSIVE_Woman_tried_new_hoax_in_December_call_to_Teo.html?id=187505701
EXCLUSIVE: Woman tried new hoax in December call to Te'o
By Ferd Lewis
POSTED: 11:39 a.m. HST, Jan 18, 2013
LAST UPDATED: 01:14 p.m. HST, Jan 18, 2013
LAST UPDATED: 01:14 p.m. HST, Jan 18, 2013
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.
The account does not give the date of the call but on Wednesday Notre Dame athletic director Jack Swarbrick told a campus press conference that the woman contacted Te'o on Dec. 6 while he was in Florida for an ESPN post-season awards show. "He received a phone call from a number that he recognized as having been associated with Lennay Kekua," Swarbrick said. "When he answered it, it was a person whose voice sounded like the same person that he had talked to, who told him she was, in fact, not dead."
On Dec. 26, Te'o notified school officials, according to a statement from Te‘o Wednesday.
Subsequently Notre Dame commissioned an investigation that concluded Te'o had been the victim of a hoax, the school said.
In his statement, Te‘o said he was embarrassed to acknowledge that he was the victim "of what apparently was someone's sick joke and constant lies,” a hoax in which he had a long-distance online and phone relationship with a fictitious woman, whom he knew as Lennay Kekua.
However, Te'o has yet to address questions about statements he made to the press about her death from cancer after Dec. 6.
The bizarre case became national news after the website deadspin.com published a story Wednesday that Kekua did not exist. The story of Te‘o playing through the pain of having his grandmother and girlfriend die within 24 hours of each other became a major narrative in Notre Dame’s storybook 2012 season. With Te‘o as a team captain, the Fighting Irish had a 12-0 regular season and lost in the championship game to Alabama on Jan. 7.
The new details on the December phone call come on the heels of a report earlier today by ESPN which quoted a woman who said the California man allegedly behind the girlfriend hoax had admitted to her that he and his cousins had duped Te‘o, a 2009 Punahou School graduate from Laie.
The woman told the ESPN show “Outside the Lines” that Ronaiah Tuiasosopo of California cried when he admitted to her in December that he was involved in the scam. ESPN did not identify the woman at her request but described her as in her 20s and a church friend of Tuiasosopo.
"He (Ronaiah) told me Manti was not involved at all, he was a victim. The girlfriend was a lie; the accident was a lie; the leukemia was a lie," the woman told ESPN. "He was crying; he was literally crying. He's like 'I know, I know what I have to do.'"
She added, "It is not only Manti, but he was telling me that it is a lot of other people they had done this to."
Outside the Lines interviewed two others who said they had family members who had a similar hoax played on them by Tuiasosopo.
The deadspin.com story identified Tuiasosopo as the man behind the scheme, but also raised questions about whether or not Te'o was a willing participant in the hoax.
Notre Dame’s Swarbrick, meanwhile, said Friday he has strongly encouraged the Te'o family to speak publicly. Except for the brief written statement Wednesday following the deadspin.com report, the family has not commented. A planned one-on-one interview Thursday with Te'o was scrubbed.
Meanwhile, several TV sites, including Inside Edition, have identified the woman in the photo that had been posted on Kekua's Facebook page as Diane O'Meara, a 23-year old who works in marketing. She has said the photo was used without her permission and she was not involved.
O'Meara was not at her Torrance, Calif., office Friday. Messages left on her voice mail were not immediately returned to the Star-Advertiser.
http://deadspin.com/5977167/what-did-manti-teo-say-about-his-dead-girlfriend-after-hed-learned-she-wasnt-real?tag=manti-te.o
What Did Manti Te’o Say About His Dead Girlfriend After He’d Learned She Wasn’t Real?
Notre Dame AD Jack Swarbrick said that Manti Te'o was at ESPN's college football awards show, on Dec. 6, when he received a phone call alerting him to the hoax. That was the moment, according to the Notre Dame timeline, that Te'o learned Lennay Kekua wasn't dead, and wasn't real. Here are quotes from Te'o in the days following Dec. 6 in which he makes reference to Kekua.
http://gawker.com/5976940/did-manti-teo-violate-notre-dames-stringent-code-of-conduct-by-lying-about-his-dead-girlfriend?tag=manti-te.oFowler: "There were a lot of cameras around you this year, there was so much public sharing of very private moments, which shared moment will you never forget above the others?"Te'o: "I think I'll never forget the time when I found out that, you know, my girlfriend passed away and the first person to run to my aid was my defensive coordinator, Coach [Bob] Diaco, and you know he said something very profound to me, he said ‘this is where your faith is tested.' Right after that, I ran into the players' lounge and I got on the phone with my parents – and I opened my eyes and my head coach was sitting right there. And so, you know, there are a hundred-plus people on our team and the defensive coordinator and our head coach took time to just go get one [of those players]. You know I think that was the most meaningful to me."
Also on Dec. 8, Te'o went on ESPN Radio with Freddie Coleman and Mel Kiper Jr. (Starts at the 4:23 mark.)
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."Coleman: "Same day. So what do you think both of those ladies would say to you, being a Heisman Trophy finalist?"Te'o: "I hope that my grandmom, and my girlfriend, would say that they're proud."
That same day, Te'o held a press conference in New York. A South Bend, Ind., TV station later aired it.
"I don't like cancer at all. I lost both my grandparents and my girlfriend to cancer."On Dec. 9, Te'o attended the Lott Impact Awards. In a comment that would run in the Los Angeles Times the next day, Te'o addressed why he had played the week his girlfriend and grandmother died.He said girlfriend Lennay Kekau "made me promise, when it happened, that I would stay and play."On Dec. 26, according to Jack Swarbrick, Te'o told coaches and administrators that he had fallen victim to a hoax. Te'o was asked to provide details, and "was forthright, answered every question, and was eager to share the information with me."
On Jan. 3, at a BCS title game press conference, Te'o was asked how he got through "the turmoil you've faced with your grandmother and girlfriend." Here, at least, he avoided retelling the familiar, untrue tale:Te'o: "I think whenever you're in football, it takes your mind off a lot of things. You know, this team is very special to me, and the guys on it have always been there for me, through the good times and the bad times. I rarely have a quiet time to myself because I always have somebody calling me, asking, do you want to go to the movies. Coach is always calling me asking me, 'Are you okay? Do you need anything?' I have three roommates, Zeke, Carlo and Robby Toma, who are always yelling at each other, who's going to play Call of Duty. I'm rarely by myself, and that's how I like it. I'm always around my guys, always around my family."On Jan. 5, at media day for the BCS title game, Te'o again was asked how he coped with the deaths of his girlfriend and grandmother. The quote would be used in the next day's St. Louis Post-Dispatch."My team was always there for me, and my family was always there for me," said Te'o, declining to elaborate on Saturday.Some time after Jan. 9, Notre Dame sent a videographer to interview an alumnus raising money for the Leukemia & Lymphoma Society in Lennay Kekua's name. They posted the interview on the university's official YouTube channel on Jan. 15.
Did Manti Te’o Violate Notre Dame’s Stringent Code of Conduct By Lying About His Dead Girlfriend?
To hear Manti Te'o tell it, he's a victim of one of the greatest web hoaxes in the internet's relatively short lifespan. Te'o, the Notre Dame football star presently embroiled in a fake-dead-girlfriend scandal thanks to Deadspin, says that he was deceived for years by internet pranksters who led him to believe he was dating a woman named Lennay Kekua—a woman who, it turns out, never even existed. Te'o says those same pranksters eventually convinced him Kekua was in a serious car accident and then stricken with leukemia, only to die from leukemia in September of last year on the same day his grandmother died. In a word, it's fantastical. So fantastical, in fact, that a lot of people are having a hard time believing Te'o himself wasn't in on the scam at least partially. Though a lot of questions remain, one thing that's certain is that if Te'o is lying, he will have violated at least some of the regulations in Notre Dame's famously sacrosanct "du Lac" student code of conduct, which is when things get even more complicated.
Though we still don't know all the twists and turns of this truly Byzantine tale—and may never—we do know that Te'o claimed in a statement released on Wednesday that he developed feelings for Kekua "by communicating frequently online and on the phone" with her. If that were always the story, people might be a bit less skeptical of Te'o's innocence. But a wave of inconsistencies are quickly eroding the linebacker's credibility.
Firstly, there are conflicting reports about whether Te'o communicated with Kekua primarily—or solely—via phone and internet or whether he actually interacted with Kekua in person on numerous occasions. For instance, according to an article from the South Bend Tribune, the story goes that Te'o met and exchanged numbers with Kekua, a student at Stanford, after a football game in Palo Alto. Teo's father, Brian, went on to tell the Tribune that Te'o and Kekua were "just friends." "Every once in a while," he added, "she would travel to Hawaii, and that happened to be the time Manti was home, so he would meet with her there."
So which is it? Was Te'o a guy who got suckered by a sham internet girlfriend, or did he meet a girl at Stanford—Stanford has no record of any Lennay Kekua, by the way—who would then occasionally fly to Hawaii to spend time with him and his family? In retrospect, the shadiness of all of this was presaged by a now infamously vague quote Te'o gave to Sports Illustrated writer Pete Thamel, who interviewed Te'o last year and just published the full transcript from that interaction on Thursday:
SI: How did you meet her?TE'O: We met just, ummmm, just she knew my cousin. And kind of saw me there so. Just kind of regular.
"Just kind of regular."
What also doesn't add up is Te'o's assertion that he knew Kekua's life and death were hoaxes on December 6, and then waited until the day after Christmas to tell Notre Dame officials what happened. Here's how Jack Swarbick, Notre Dame's athletic director, explained the story to a press conference on Wednesday evening, according to Deadspin:
Te'o told him that when he was at the ESPN awards, which aired Dec. 6, he took a phone call from a woman whose phone number matched Lennay Kekua's. "When he answered it," Swarbrick said, "it was a person whose voice sounded like the same voice he had talked to, who told him that she was, in fact, not dead."
Even if that is true, and Te'o was innocent until the night of the ESPN awards, he nevertheless continued to speak about "his girlfriend," Kekua, at least twice following December 6, including once on December 9 to allege that Kekua "made him promise" to stay and play an important game instead of coming to see her in her last moments in the hospital.
Once again, which is it? Did Te'o really find out the whole thing was a lie that night in December, or did he simply tell Notre Dame authorities that later? If he did find out what was going on December 6, why did he abet his victimizers by continuing to lie about Kekua days after he learned the truth?
In the hours since Deadspin's initial Te'o story first broke, so have stories saying that Te'o's teammates, the people he spent most of his time with at Notre Dame, suspected something was amiss with the vaunted linebacker all along. Sports reporter Jackie Pepper interviewed an anonymous Notre Dame player who said that other players had questioned Kekua's authenticity for months, though they never brought it up to Te'o.
Another reporter, Tyler Moorehead, a Notre Dame student journalist, says the word amongst the football team was that Te'o's fake relationship was a cynical attempt to curry favor from Heisman voters:
The debate among teammates wasn't whether or not Manti actually knew this girl—it was clear that they had been in contact; no, players just didn't think that it was fair to call Lennay Kekua Manti's girlfriend, period (it is well-known on campus that he has had relations with other girls during his time at Notre Dame). They recognized what was going on for what it was—a terrible publicity stunt used to fuel Manti Te'o's Heisman campaign. In fact, many of the players privately commented that they didn't want the students to wear leis in support of Manti and wouldn't participate themselves—they cited that the team never responded so publicly to tragic events for other players. But there was also the feeling that Manti didn't deserve to benefit from publicity from the death of somebody he barely knew.
Regardless of exactly how and in what order things went down, it would appear that at least somewhere along the line Manti Te'o—and possibly his family—was complicit in the mendacity that surrounds this mess. Knowing that, an obvious question to anyone familiar with the eminently pious Notre Dame's code of student conduct, du Lac, is what Te'o's punishment should be for violating that code.
The du Lac guidebook, which is separate from the academic honor code and regulates students' personal behavior, is introduced with a passage that notes that, being a Catholic university, Notre Dame "seeks to nurture in its students a love of knowledge and a keenly developed moral sense." As such, there are sections in du Lac about drug possession, alcohol use, and sexual activity ("students who engage in sexual union outside of marriage may be subject to University sanction"). There is also a section called "General Standards of Conduct," which are the guidelines most applicable to Te'o's case. In that section, rule number seven clearly states that any "dishonesty, forgery or taking advantage of another" will be considered "clearly inconsistent with the University's expectations for membership." Five spots down, rule 12 says that Notre Dame bans "[a]ctions which seemingly affect only the individual(s) involved but which may have a negative or disruptive impact on the University community and/or concern a student's personal and academic growth."
Again, thus far it is very difficult to piece together whether Te'o was mostly just an innocent god-fearing man taken advantage of by some malicious trolls or if he had a hand in creating and then cultivating the Lennay Kekua story from the very beginning. But what is clear based on Te'o's own testimony is that he at least continued to lie about Kekua days after he says he knew she never even existed. Beyond that, as this story develops, it seems as if there are far too many holes in Te'o and his family's narrative of how they grew to know Kekua to make sense, which would mean that, indeed, Te'o had a big hand in an action that had a "negative or disruptive" impact on Notre Dame. Almost anyone can see that. Anyone but Notre Dame officials, that is.
I called Notre Dame and asked if Te'o would be disciplined if it does indeed come out that he was telling one of the grandest lies in university history. Spokesman Dennis Brown said that Notre Dame did "a full investigation" into the matter and discovered that Te'o did nothing wrong. When I asked him about Te'o continuing the Kekua narrative days after the fateful night of December 6, Brown told me that these are questions Te'o would have to answer himself one day. "So there is no plan to punish Te'o?" I asked. Brown responded: "Any time we're made aware of a student acting contrary to the rules put forth, we look at it very closely and act upon it appropriately."
Erin Gloria Ryan, a former writer for Jezebel and a member of Notre Dame's class of 2005, said this is all par for the course. She told me in an email that because Te'o is an important figure on campus and has probably completed all his academic requirements—which she notes are difficult even for prestigious athletes—the university is probably content to let him walk on with nary a slap in the wrist. "As long as the University is sticking with their story (OUR STORY AND HIS STORY MATCH THEY ARE THE SAME!) there is no violation," she wrote. "But if [Notre Dame] and Te'o weren't in lockstep, there would definitely be an issue." In other words, it's good to be a star football player, as usual.
BY the way , his " bro " isn't a good guy , not an excuse for Te'o , just reflecting what seems to be factual........
http://deadspin.com/5977154/espn-reports-ronaiah-tuisosopo-confessed-to-teo-hoax-in-december-was-teo-involved-evidence-varies
JAN 18, 2013 3:02 PM56,766 237
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ESPN Reports Ronaiah Tuisosopo Confessed To Te’o Hoax In December. Was Te’o Involved? Evidence Varies
ESPN's Shelley Smith is reporting that Ronaiah Tuisosopo, the apparent creator of the Lennay Kekua hoax, confessed to duping Manti Te'o, according to an interview with a friend of Tuisasopo. "He told me Manti was not involved at all, he was the victim," the woman told Smith, in an audio recording broadcast on ESPN.
That woman isn't named, but we believe we know who she is. Another one of Smith's sources, a man named J.R. Vaosa, spoke to us for our original story, saying Tuiasosopo had confessed to his best friend. He tried to put us in touch with her, to no avail. Vaosa was one of our two unnamed sources who believed that Tuiasosopo had been in league with Te'o in the deception.
Te'o's role in the hoax remains the biggest unanswered question. Notre Dame's investigators said they were certain that Te'o had no knowledge of the hoax before he received a phone call from the number he'd known as Lennay's on Dec. 6. (Regarding the confession's timing: Tweets accusing Ronaiah of masterminding the whole thing surfaced on Dec. 4.) But Vaoso, whose cousin had been duped by Lennay/Tuiasosopo in for a month in 2008, said he was "80 percent" certain that Te'o had known of the hoax at some point before Lennay's "death."
In either case, Te'o, per Notre Dame athletic director Jack Swarbrick, knew by Dec. 6 that Lennay Kakua had not existed. And two days later, as the AP noted first, he was still talking about her publicly as if she were real. "I don't like cancer at all. I lost both my grandparents and my girlfriend to cancer," Te'o said on Dec. 8, while talking to reporters in advance of the Heisman Trophy ceremony.
http://deadspin.com/5977104/i-know-a-liar-when-im-around-one-manti-teos-uncle-comments-on-ronaiah-tuiasosopo?tag=manti-te.o
JAN 18, 2013 1:15 PM35,242 175
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“I Know A Liar When I’m Around One.”: Manti Te’o’s Uncle Comments On Ronaiah Tuiasosopo
Manti Te'o's uncle Alema Te'o went on The Zone Sports Network last night and spoke to radio hosts Scott Garrard and Riley Jensen about the Manti Te'o-Lennay Kekua story that we broke on Wednesday. Alema didn't have much to say about Manti, but he did offer some personal insight into the character of Ronaiah Tuiasosopo, the man who had falsely presented himself as Lennay Kekua.
Alema recalled meeting Ronaiah in a hotel room just before the Notre Dame-USC game in November. During the interview, Alema talked at length about how he thought that Ronaiah was a "bad rat" from the moment he met him. Alema claims that Ronaiah lied to him about helping to organize Troy Polamalu's football camp. Alema says he immediately knew that Ronaiah was lying, because he himself was in charge of running Polamalu's football camp, and he had never heard of Ronaiah before. Alema says he didn't say anything at the time because he didn't want to cause trouble, although he did express his concerns about Ronaiah to Manti's father at a later date.
The weirdest part of Alema's story involved a 9-year-old girl that Ronaiah had brought to the hotel room with him. Ronaiah allegedly introduced the girl as Lennay Kekua's cousin and someone with whom Manti had spoken on the phone numerous times before while Lennay was in the hospital. But Alema claims that she was actually Ronaiah's little sister, and that Ronaiah was "almost guarding her...not letting her speak for herself" while she was in the hotel room.
Alema's suspicions were raised further when Ronaiah began talking about a fundraising effort that he was spearheading. According to Alema, Ronaiah told him that he was creating a foundation to raise money for leukemia victims and was currently trying to raise money for a friend of Lennay's who had been diagnosed with leukemia and needed money to pay for his tuition at Stanford. Alema believes that Ronaiah was somehow trying to get money out of Manti.
Garrard and Jensen did ask Alema if he could explain why Manti and his father had previously stated that Manti and Lennay had met in person. Alema answered by saying that he wouldn't be surprised if Ronaiah had in fact hired a girl to pretend to be Lennay and sent her to meet with Manti in person. Alema said he did not believe that Manti had any part in perpetuating the hoax, and pointed to Ronaiah as the villain of this story:
Ronaiah Tuiasosopo is a liar, he concocted the whole thing, he misrepresented whatever program that he was trying to get across to Manti, and shoot, he lied every step of the way. I don't feel it's beyond him to hire somebody or bring somebody in to play the role of Lennay to get Manti to buy into this deal.
