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Holy Cow - Manti Te’o’s Dead Girlfriend is a HOAX

Woman on TMZ(audio) says Manti was duped...Pastor Ronaiah "Ronny" Tuiasosopo is at the core of this scam -- Manti's "friend".

Manti Te'o told Notre Dame officials he NEVER met his supposed girlfriend in person ... and only realized her death was a hoax last month ... after receiving a phone call from "Lennay's" cell phone.

Jack Swarbrick -- Director of Athletics at Notre Dame -- called an emergency media conference Wednesday night in the wake of the not-really-dead girlfriend scandal. Here are the highlights:

-- Manti is expected to address the media sometime tomorrow (Thursday).
-- Manti called Notre Dame officials on Dec. 26 ... and alerted them to the hoax.
-- According to Swarbrick, Manti realized Lennay Kekua wasn't dead when he got a phone call from her cell phone at an ESPN award show in December ... months after her supposed death.
-- Manti claims the woman who called from "Lennay's" phone was the same person who he had spoken with during his relationship with Lennay.
-- Manti says the woman informed him that Lennay was not dead ... because she was not real.
-- Swarbrick says Manti met with a media team, who had planned to release the story to the media next week ... but they were scooped by Deadspin.
-- Manti told ND officials he had gone to Hawaii to meet Lennay in person on several occasions, but she never showed up.
-- ND believes that Manti was targeted because he's too nice of a guy ... and the perps took pleasure in humiliating him.

Swarbrick also said, "This was a very elaborate, very sophisticated hoax perpetrated for reasons we can't fully understand but had a certain cruelty at its core."

Swarbrick says investigators believe there are numerous people involved in the hoax.

Read more: http://www.tmz.com/page/2/#ixzz2IGszKZrP
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I guess if ND would have won Brent Musberger would not have "whooahed".

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TMZ has a long article about this, and they appear to have found another person linked to the story. That person provided them with the phone numbers used to contact her as Ulani or whatever her name is. Seems this Ronnie guy may have pulled off the greatest trolling of all time, but he had some help.


The Manti Te'o not-really-dead-girlfriend hoax was perpetuated by a man named Ronaiah Tuiasosopo -- who served as a representative for the family of the fake "Lennay Kekua" ... and TMZ has the photo proof.

Here's what we know ...

While Manti was "dating" Lennay ... a Notre Dame die-hard fan who we'll call "Jan" (to protect her identity) reached out to Lennay on Twitter and began an online friendship.

After Lennay's supposed death, Jan became involved with a group called "Wear a Lei 4 Manti" -- in which fans wore Hawaiian leis to ND football games to show their support for the football star.

...



http://www.tmz.com/2013/01/17/manti-teo-ronaiah-tuiasosopo-scandal-hoax-notre-dame-photo-girlfriend/?adid=hero1
 
"The single most trusting human being I've ever met will never be able to trust again in his life."

...............................................--Jack Swarbrick, Athletic Director Notre Dame
 
But wait, there's more!!!

...

The revelation of the hoax has been far-reaching, a Notre Dame graduate who launched a campaign to raise money for a cancer research group in memory of Te'o's girlfriend says he is "shell-shocked" to learn the woman didn't exist.

Dan Tudesco, a 2006 graduate who now works in public relations in New York, set up an online account at fundraising website indiegogo.com on Jan. 9 to solicit $5,000 for the Leukemia & Lymphoma Society Inc. The initial pitch said donations would go to the society in memory of Lennay Kekua and in honor of Te'o, "two individuals who have been an inspiration to us through an iconic season."

Tudesco said he and three friends got the fundraising idea after a seeing a video that went viral of Te'o holding his head in dismay during the Irish's 42-14 loss to Alabama in the national championship game on Jan. 7.

The goal was to turn the loss -- and the player's sudden popularity -- into something positive.

"I think we were all kind of disappointed in the result of the game ... and the Manti story was very inspirational," Tudesco told The Associated Press on Thursday.

Notre Dame took notice of Tudesco's tweets about the fund drive and sent a university videographer to shoot an interview with him. The video was posted on the Notre Dame athletics YouTube channel Tuesday.

Tudesco said he didn't believe Notre Dame was aware of the hoax when it promoted his fundraiser.

"It would surprise me that Notre Dame would want to promote this if they knew something like this was going on," Tudesco said.

However, Notre Dame officials said Wednesday that they became aware of the hoax on Dec. 26, nearly two weeks before the championship game. University spokesman Dennis Brown didn't immediately respond to a request seeking comment Thursday.

Nobody close to the situation had spoken as of Thursday afternoon, but people in Te'o's small Hawaiian hometown of Laie are offering support for the Notre Dame linebacker.
...

http://espn.go.com/college-football/story/_/id/8854472/teammate-manti-teo-says-player-played-girlfriend-angle
 
One thing that I am having difficulty with is this:

Te’o was aware that she had cancer. It was not a situation where he found out she had cancer and then she died. So there was a certain period where she had cancer and he was aware. If this person was really the love of his life, why would he not at least visited her once in the hospital? I know if someone I cared about was in the hospital, I would visit them. If the love of my life was diagnosed with Leukemia, you can bet your life savings I would have visited her at least once. Hard to wrap my mind around that one.

I wrote this a little earlier. Not only cancer but an accident...and no visit.
 
As more details come out and more people begin to speculate I'm beginning to think he really didn't know this girl didn't exist. What I believe happened is he saw an opportunity to capitalize on the sympathy factor that he was already set to receive with his grandmother passing away. Apparently he's been known to hook up with random chicks at parties at ND so I don't think he's gay, but just somewhat of an attention whore and an opportunist. I don't believe that he talked to this girl for nights on end falling asleep on the phone.

He saw a shot with a "girl" he'd been chatting with online, found out somehow that she passed, and used this to gain sympathy. He overshot it though by overplaying how "close" they really were and now it's coming back to bite him. There is one thing about lying and that is you have to keep lying in order to carry the first lie on. Sooner or later it all snowballs on you. His teammates and even people back in Hawaii all knew this was a BS story while it was going on. He's a scumbag by using someone's "death" to gain sympathy and overemphasizing how much in love they were if this is true. This is all just my opinion, but its just kind of how I see things unfolding as more starts to come out.
 
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As more details come out and more people begin to speculate I'm beginning to think he really didn't know this girl didn't exist. What I believe happened is he saw an opportunity to capitalize on the sympathy factor that he was already set to receive with his grandmother passing away. Apparently he's been known to hook up with random chicks at parties at ND so I don't think he's gay, but just somewhat of a attention whore and an opportunist. I don't believe that he talked to this girl for nights on end falling asleep on the phone.

He saw a shot with a "girl" he'd been chatting with online, found out somehow that she passed, and used this to gain sympathy. He overshot it though by overplaying how "close" they really were and now it's coming back to bite him. There is one thing about lying and that is you have to keep lying in order to carry the first lie on. Sooner or later it all snowballs on you. His teammates and even people back in Hawaii all knew this was a BS story while it was going on. He's a scumbag by using someone's "death" to gain sympathy and overemphasizing how much in love they were if this is true. This is all just my opinion, but its just kind of how I see things unfolding as more starts to come out.

I'm with you an a lot of this. I think his agent, the school and him must be talking behind closed doors right now because they all got caught with their pants down on this one. The longer it goes, the more ex-teammates and others come out making it seem like he knew more than what he is leading on. At the most he was complicit..at the least he lied for part of the season to keep it going because he had read the stories about how they met, etc and kept running with it.

I will never buy that a guy is in love for a woman for 3 years and when she is in a car wreck and then gets leukemia, he never goes to visit or attempts to visit a hospital.
 
Oh look, more oddities from Te'o. Did he find out on December 6th or 26th? Btw, the Heisman presentation was December 8th.

Manti Te'o has said he was a victim of a cruel hoax, so many are wondering why he continued to perpetuate the lie that his girlfriend had died after he found out that it was all a scam.

Multiple media outlets have found numerous instances of the Notre Dame linebacker talking about Lennay Kekua as if she had existed after Dec. 6, the date that he and the university say he found out that the girl that he thought he was having a relationship with and who died of leukemia was made up.

At the Heisman Trophy presentation Dec. 8 in New York, ESPN's Chris Fowler asked Te'o what moment of his very public story of tragedy he would remember.

"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," Te'o said. "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."

Te'o also said on ESPN Radio the same day that he hoped his grandmother, who died Sept. 12, and his girlfriend, who was reported to have died on the same day, were proud of him.

The Associated Press turned up two more instances during that gap between Dec. 6 and Dec. 26, the date when Te'o told Notre Dame that he knew of the hoax, when the football star mentioned Kekua in public.

During another interview at the Heisman ceremony that ran on WSBT.com, the website for a South Bend TV station, Te'o said: "I mean, I don't like cancer at all. I lost both my grandparents and my girlfriend to cancer. So I've really tried to go to children's hospitals and see, you know, children."

In a column that first ran in The Los Angeles Times, on Dec. 10, Te'o recounted why he played a few days after he found out Kekua died in September, and the day she was supposedly buried.

"She made me promise, when it happened, that I would stay and play," he said Dec. 9 while attending a ceremony in Newport Beach, Calif., for the Lott Impact Awards.

Doubts about Te'o's participation in the scam even extend to his own campus, where he is one of the most popular players in Notre Dame's storied history.

"Whenever Manti decides to speak I'll bet the entire campus will stop what they're doing and watch what he has to say," Notre Dame student body president Brett Rocheleau said Thursday. "I think the majority of students believe in Manti. They just want to hear him answer these final few questions and hear the story from his point of view."

Anonymous teammates have said in the past few days that they questioned the entire girlfriend scenario.

....

http://espn.go.com/college-football/story/_/id/8856519/manti-teo-talked-girlfriend-knowing-hoax
 
The fake funeral thing is the most confusing part of this to me. Was someone really feeding him info about when the casket closed? Did they really provide him with an address where he sent white flowers? If so wouldn't it be pretty easy to connect the dots if he was given addresses? And those letters that were mailed? No address? Hospital she was at? No address? This guy just can't seriously be that dumb. At least thats what I keep telling myself, but maybe he is.
 
Ronaiah Tuiasosopo used 9 year old sister in plot to "raise money"
One of the central unanswered questions surrounding the Manti Te'o girlfriend hoax is the linebacker's relationship with Ronaiah Tuiasosopo, the man reported by Deadspin as the mastermind behind the fake persona of Lennay Kekua.

While Te'o didn't speak on the matter Thursday, his great uncle Alema joined Salt Lake City radio station 1280 The Zone and, in a 33-minute discussion, elaborated on Te'o's meeting with Tuiasosopo in Los Angeles prior to Notre Dame's regular-season finale against USC.

Alema Te'o said he met Tuiasosopo in a Los Angeles hotel lobby and quickly felt something was off. Te'o runs a football camp in American Samoa, which Tuiasosopo said he had a hand in planning -- a statement which, according to Te'o, was not the case.

"If he’s telling me that he was doing my job, then where the hell was I?" Te'o said.

Te'o detailed how Tuiasosopo had with him a 9-year-old girl called Pookah, which jives with a TMZ report involving a separate meeting with Tuiasosopo and a child referred to as Pookah. Te'o said his great-nephew was "mesmerized" by Pookah and was led to believe she was a cousin of Kekua, when in fact she was one of Ronaiah Tuiasosopo's sisters, according to the elder Te'o.

Alema Te'o also said Manti Te'o had previously talked on the phone with Pookah while Kekua was purportedly still alive but too tired to talk.

When one of Alema Te'o's nieces attempted to talk with Pookah, she -- according to Te'o -- didn't speak, only nodding or shaking her head while Tuiasosopo stood over her with both his hands on her shoulders.

Te'o detailed how Tuiasosopo said he was hoping to raise money for a friend of Kekua's, who also had leukemia and attended Stanford, so that person could put herself through college. That hope was characterized as a "dying wish" of Kekua's, according to Te'o.

Te'o said Tuiasosopo continually talked up a charity event for his foundation, and believed at the time Tuiasosopo was attempting to align himself with Te'o to gain notoriety for his foundation.

Te'o minced no words when referring to Tuiasosopo multiple times during the segment, saying: "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."

Notre Dame star linebacker Manti Te'o's fake girlfriend "Lennay Kekua" may have hoaxed other unsuspecting suitors.

"Catfish" movie director and actor Ariel Schulman told "Good Morning America" today that he believes there may have been "a few other people duped by the fake Lennay character."

Schulman and his brother Nev Schulman have been looking into the elaborate scam and claim to be corresponding with various players involved. They have come to believe that there were "a lot of other people that she was corresponding with before and maybe even during her relationship [with Te'o]."

Nev Schulman was the subject of the 2010 movie "Catfish," which spawned the TV series, because he himself was sucked in by an Internet pretender -- or a "catfish" -- who built an elaborate fake life.

As questions mount about Te'o's possible role in the complex scam, the number one question is whether Te'o was unknowingly ensnared, as he says, or whether he was complicit in the scam.

"I stand by the guy. My heart goes out to him," Ariel Schulman said. His brother has reached out to Te'o, but has not heard back.

"He had his heart broken," Schulman said. "He was grieving for someone, whether she existed or not. Those were real feelings."
Te'o...received a phone call Dec. 6, while at an awards show, from what he believed was the old cellphone number of the supposed girlfriend, Lennay Kekua. The woman on the other end -- in a voice he recognized as Kekua's -- told him that she wasn't dead. She later tried to rekindle the relationship, Swarbrick said.
 
Fake questions NFL general managers might ask Manti Te'o

New York Jets -- "If you were so in love with this woman, why did you not get a tattoo of her wearing a Ron Powlus jersey?"

Buffalo Bills -- "How long did it take you to make a long-term commitment to the relationship? We usually wait two, three weeks."

Cincinnati Bengals -- "So you haven't been charged with any crime? NEXT!"

San Francisco 49ers -- "Do you see the read option as a clever offensive scheme or a 'sad and cruel hoax'?"

New York Giants -- "In order to hold the phone to your ear for eight hours, you must have great arm strength. Can you teach some to Eli?"

New Orleans Saints -- "How angry were you at the perpetrators of this hoax? $5,000? $10,000? $25,000??"

Green Bay Packers -- "Through all of this, you're certain you had no cell phone communication with Brett Favre?"

Dallas Cowboys -- "As long as you didn't take any girlfriend to Los Cabos before a big game, we're cool."

Cleveland Browns -- "Your performance in your first game after finding out about the hoax was pathetic. If you can't learn to get past crushing disappointments, how do you ever expect to succeed with the Browns?"

Indianapolis Colts -- "Seriously, don't worry about it. Jim Irsay's done far worse on Twitter."

Jacksonville Jaguars -- "If we draft you, can we put your phony girlfriend down for season tickets? Like 35,000 of them?"

Miami Dolphins -- "Manti, you're probably getting a lot of questions about your role in the hoax. I trust you. What I'm curious about is whether your mother had any role in this?"

Philadelphia Eagles -- "Have you ever actually met Brian Kelly? Because we're not really sure we have either."

Oakland Raiders -- "It's not the lying and half-truths we're concerned about, it's the affiliation with a guy named Tuiasosopo."

Pittsburgh Steelers -- "More like the Immaculate Deception, amirite?!" (High-fives Dan Rooney.)

New England Patriots -- "Your biggest error wasn't gullibility, but in failing to document everything with videotape proof."

Washington Redskins -- "We want you to feel comfortable here. This is a safe space and you can say anything you want. So, please be honest: You didn't have a problem with Shanahan leaving RGIII in the game, right?"


http://www.usatoday.com/story/gameon/2013/01/17/mantei-teo-questions-nfl-general-managers-fake/1842499/
 
One good thing will surely come out of this...

People are sure to be more careful on the Internet....right?
 
Honolulu Star Advisor: Man confesses to creating hoax, says Te'o was victim per ESPN

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.
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Plain and simple, this Ronaiah guy and Manti were in on it together this whole time to garner attention. Once deadspin broke the story, Ronaiah took the fall, and Manti will probably give him some cash after he gets drafted. You can't discount the lies by Manti of seeing/talking in person with Lennay(nobody)...its so painfully obvious
 
I will never buy that a guy is in love for a woman for 3 years and when she is in a car wreck and then gets leukemia, he never goes to visit or attempts to visit a hospital.

Ding! Exactly.

The rest of this nutty story is, well, just too nutty...but nothing is more absurd than the idea that so many bad things could happen to the woman you're in love with and you're just starin' away at them 2 online photos. I mean, sure, whatever else could a loving boyfriend do?

Even Vince Young isn't this stupid. Something's up.
 
Wow. This is all so very disturbing.

THIS is what our culture is coming to? I mean, I did some prank phone calls and stuff when I was a kid in the 1990s...but stuff is way too elaborate these days.

What wank-offs have the time and energy to create and SUSTAIN this type of hoax....and for what reason? For fun?

Dude is messed up in the head.
 
Plain and simple, this Ronaiah guy and Manti were in on it together this whole time to garner attention.

Wrong. Te'o just gave ESPN's Jeremy Schaap a 2 1/2 hour interview.

BA8QlN7CUAAjGBD.jpg


Manti was catfished by the guy Ronaiah Tuiasosopo who called him and confessed on Wednesday and apologized.

Te'o admitted to lying about meeting Lennay. He first lied to his unapproving father when he returned from what was supposed to be his first meeting with Lennay in Hawaii. "She" didn't show, and instead of getting an "I told you so" he just said he met her.

Te'o admitted to the other times he lied about meeting her, saying lying was easier than going into the whole convoluted truth of this bizarre online relationship. He regrets his lies the most.

Te'o was told "Lennay" had been in an accident and a coma. When "she" woke from the coma, she asked if he would stay on the phone with her while she slept. "She" said his presence took away some of the pain she was going through.

So Te'o called her every day. And every night he would stay on the phone with "Lennay" throughout the night so she could sleep.

Te'o & his parents would do almost daily Bible studies with "Lennay" while she was hospitalized for the accident and later for leukemia.

Then Te'o was informed his grandmother had died. Hours later, a "sibling" of "Lennay" called to tell him Lennay had died. Te'o friends, some players, and a coach were there when he got this call. He was crushed.

This Ronaiah Tuiasosopo is strangely described as a very religious person. I think he's was sick S.O.B. There were supposedly 3 different people who pretended to be Lennay, and others who pretended to be her siblings/cousins including Tuasosopo's 9 year old sister.

Te'o has since spoken with others who were also targeted by this hoax.

Te'o is guilty of being extremely naive/idealistic/trusting, and of lying about meeting "her".
 
He had an off- camera interview. The interviewer had to meet with Te'os lawyer first. Why was that exactly? He's playing everything in damage control mode as if he's guilty of something. Getting duped isn't a reason to hide to this extent. This story is far from over.
 
He had an off- camera interview...Why was that exactly?
Schaap said Te'o wanted a more relaxed, informal environment. It's all on audiotape, Schaap said Te'o answered every one of his over 300 questions.

...The interviewer had to meet with Te'os lawyer first...
There have been fundraisers and other outpourings of support because of this story -- and he did lie about meeting her. Te'o (and maybe ND) will potentially be the target of numerous lawsuits.

Here's an edited transcript: http://espn.go.com/college-football/story/_/id/8859544/highlights-manti-teo-interview-jeremy-schaap

This elaborate scheme all begain when Manti was a freshman, and they slowly reeled him until sometime around the new year 2012 when they locked onto him.
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Here's an edited transcript: http://espn.go.com/college-football/story/_/id/8859544/highlights-manti-teo-interview-jeremy-schaap

This elaborate scheme all begain when Manti was a freshman, and they slowly reeled him until sometime around the new year 2012 when they locked onto him.
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I stopped reading after this part... Effin' laughable and it's as unreasonable as not going to the love of your life's funeral or visit them at the hospital...like once. Just friggin once? Dude sounds more like a pathological liar to me. Took them a few days to come up with a story....and right off the bat its ridiculous.

JEREMY SCHAAP: What was your reaction when you saw the story came out on Wednesday?

MANTI TE'O: Avoid every piece of technology, don't listen to anything, don't turn the TV on, don't go on Twitter, don't go on Facebook, and that kind of got -- I got information from my friends and they were telling me what people were saying about me and stuff.

JEREMY SCHAAP: You didn't read the story?

MANTI TE'O: No, I haven't.
 
I stopped reading after this part... Effin' laughable and it's as unreasonable as not going to the love of your life's funeral or visit them at the hospital...like once. Just friggin once? Dude sounds more like a pathological liar to me. Took them a few days to come up with a story....and right off the bat its ridiculous.

If I would have been done like that , I try to schedule a cage match with that dude for charity .
 
Manti's off camera interview...
In April she was said to be in a car accident and while receiving treatment, doctors supposedly learned that she had leukemia. She was said to have died on Sept. 12.
Te'o said it never occurred to him to go to the hospital or to Kekua's funeral when she died.
"It never really crossed my mind. I don't know. I was in school," Te'o said.

Never crossed his mind? Please, there were probably tons of people asking him when the funeral was and why he wasn't going to show up. Dude is a pathological liar

http://sports.yahoo.com/blogs/ncaaf...FuZwNlbi11cwRwc3RhaWQDBHBzdGNhdAMEcHQD;_ylv=3
 
Te'o said it never occurred to him to go to the hospital or to Kekua's funeral when she died.
"It never really crossed my mind. I don't know. I was in school," Te'o said.
That misrepresents the interview.

Here he had just been told the fake girl was supposedly in the hospital in a coma in LA:
MANTI TE'O: So they were saying -- they were telling me, 'Bro, she recognized your voice. We know she's there. We know she can hear you.' She would quicken her voice. And I heard it on the phone. They would do it to me. And so that was my communication while she was in a coma.

JEREMY SCHAAP: Why at that time did you not go see her?

MANTI TE'O: It never really crossed my mind. I don't know. I was in school. I was finishing up my year and I was going home. It was towards the end of my junior year. End of my junior year, and I was about to go home. When I decided to go home, the day that I decided to -- the day I left to go home -- they called me and said that that was the same day that they were going to pull the plug. And so it intensifies the whole thing. I'm on the plane. I figured they're about to pull the plug on someone.

From the interview question about the funeral:
JEREMY SCHAAP: Why didn't you go to Lennay's funeral?
MANTI TE'O: Because Lennay's funeral was the same day of the Michigan game.

And because, before Lennay passed away, we had a conversation where she asked me if she passed away, if I could go to her funeral? I told her no, I'm not going to talk like that. I'm not going to talk like that. She said tell me this, if anything happens, promixe me that you'll send me white roses and say you'll play. She said all I want is white roses.

And leading up to the funeral, her siblings kept telling me that their mom told them she didn't want me to come. They didn't want -- and I didn't want myself -- I didn't want that to be the first time that I saw her was lying in a coffin. That's why I didn't go.
 
We already know that but he answered "it didn't cross my mind"...which frankly is another lie. Dude is a pathological liar.
 
We already know that but he answered "it didn't cross my mind"...which frankly is another lie. Dude is a pathological liar.

Unfortunately I agree...... He's got all these excuses of why he didn't do this and didn't do that. For a guy with a 3.5 GPA at Notre Dame he's doing a great job of playing dumb. Thing is people aren't buying it. I still don't think he had anything to do with the hoax, but he's lied so much that he looks ridiculous now.
 
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