Manti Te'o got ate by a catfish or something

[lukethedrifter]

ndistops says that there was no sex thus no rape.

Then it must be true..

You can ask the county prosecutor if you'd like.

St. Joe County prosecutor Mike Dvorak said Seeberg alleged that the player touched her breasts which prosecutors were investigating as a potential sexual battery charge

Then again, that would be inconvenient to people that like to toss around the word rape haphazardly, wouldn't it?

Right. They shouldn't call it rape. They should call it sexual battery. But IF she was bullied and threatened and/or not taken seriously then shame on ND and those who were involved.

[lukethedrifter]

Actually, it seems so much more likely that Te'o wasn't in on it to me that I can't figure out where you guys are coming from.

That this dude has done this repeatedly is further evidence.


http://www.fannation.com/truth_and_rumo ... &eref=sihp

[stlouie_lipp]

Again, I don't think anyone is saying he was some mastermind and orchestrated the entire thing. I think for most it is a question of what he knew and when he knew it and what he did subsequently. At least it is for me.

[cardsfansince82]

It's not really that difficult to understand. You can't accept his version of events AND also conclude this person was truly important to him. He played the sympathy card over and over and exploited her "story" for personal gain for someone he ultimately didn't care about. Whether she was real or not doesn't actually matter that much. To paint him as a victim is not accurate.

It would be like David Freese exchanging a couple of emails with a sick kid during the 2011 season and making up a story about promising him a game 6 homerun. And then bringing it up every chance he got from then on.

[docellis]

I think the term girlfriend was used liberally and not exclusively. For instance, he said that they would go long periods without talking at all (I think he said up to a year without talking). Sounds very on and off. And yeah, instead of downplaying the relationship he did the opposite.

[ndistops]

I think the term girlfriend was used liberally and not exclusively. For instance, he said that they would go long periods without talking at all (I think he said up to a year without talking). Sounds very on and off. And yeah, instead of downplaying the relationship he did the opposite.

He said he knew her for a long time before the 'relationship' moved 'up a level'. It wasn't until her fake car accident in April that he concluded that he wanted to be 'exclusive', after which they talked much more often.

[Socnorb11]

It's not really that difficult to understand. You can't accept his version of events AND also conclude this person was truly important to him. He played the sympathy card over and over and exploited her "story" for personal gain for someone he ultimately didn't care about. Whether she was real or not doesn't actually matter that much. To paint him as a victim is not accurate.

It would be like David Freese exchanging a couple of emails with a sick kid during the 2011 season and making up a story about promising him a game 6 homerun. And then bringing it up every chance he got from then on.

I've seen first-hand how a guy can fall for a girl that he's never met. Just because you haven't witnessed it personally, that doesn't mean that it's not possible. The guy that I work with was obsessed with some "fake" girl that he met online. He talked on the phone with her regularly, sometimes for hours.

Te'o was a victim of a sickening scam. Was he too naive? Sure. Did he enjoy the attention? Probably.......... just like almost every other athlete. But it's absolutely possible (even probably, really) that he was heartbroken by this girl's "death". I can't believe unbelievable it is for everyone to think that a college athlete wanted some attention. This is an unheard of concept for you? Really?

I still don't get what his "personal gain" was by playing this relationship card. Maybe I didn't pay enough attention, but I heard almost nothing about his sick girlfriend. Do you think Heisman votes or draft status was really going to be swayed by a sick girlfriend who died? I think that's REALLY a stretch.

[stlouie_lipp]

I don't think it is a stretch at all. People love a feel good narrative. I think it is a stretch to think it didn't help him.

[cardsfansince82]

How many more levels did the relationship need to "move up" before he makes any effort whatsoever to visit her in the hospital or I dunno GO TO HER FUNERAL. Why haven't we seen any phone records or anything else of substance?

You can tell your coworker's story as often as you want but the situations are not comparable. Your coworker probably did establish a deep emotional attachment because he had nothing else. Te'o had everything he wanted including other women by his own account. He's admitted to grossly embellishing or outright fabricating every single aspect of their relationship. He was probably hoaxed in the beginning but the hoax he pulled on the public was much bigger. This other person had no choice but to keep it going because Te'o made it a central part of his own story.

[Transmogrified Tiger]

I'm a lot more willing to believe that Te'o was duped than when the story first came out, but I'm just confused why there's more and more inconsistency every time someone has tried to tell his side of the story. Notre Dame emphatically stated that Te'o was duped, that they had hired investigators and that Ronaiah being the perpetrator did not match their info. Then over the next few days we find out their investigation was literally not much more than a google search, that Ronaiah is very clearly involved(as anyone who read the Deadspin story could tell), and Te'o himself says he wasn't 100% sure that Lennay was fake until after he had informed ND. Te'o's own words have been lies on top of lies to this point, most egregiously(to me, at least) saying that Ronaiah confessed to him using a twitter account we can be pretty sure was not in his possession at the time of the confession. There's just no version of the story that makes any sense with the information we have now, and since Te'o is the one with the most to lose and the one who has been shown to repeatedly lie about the topic, I think it's more than healthy to continue to question him.