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tina was ronaiah tuiasosopo's name and in fact she was talking to another person and he plays football for notre dame. how weird is that? >> you want to know why. what is the motivation here? what raises my eyebrow is the person most likely to gain in the hoax is the football player if he won the heisman trophy because he played over the top. you know, huge financial money rolls his way. what are the hoax goals? what are the legal ramifications -- it is a crime to criminally impersonate someone. but you have to be trying to get something. you have to be trying -- there
ronaiah tuiasosopo. >> this girl, who i committed myself to, died on september 12. now i get a phone call on december 6 saying she's alive and now i'm going to be on national tv two days later. and they asked me the same question. what would you do? >> the fact is, we had four dead americans. was it because of a protest or because some guys out for a walk that decided they were going to kill some americans? what difference at this point does it make? >> being able to do the job should be the standard, not whether you are male or female. i believe as leaders, we took our eye off the ball. we enabled a climate where our troops became vulnerable. >> i feel cold, yeah. >> very cold. >> it's very easy to completely forget who i am when i'm in the army. everyone is wearing the same uniform. and doing the same kind of thing. >> i want to thank my parents, jack and jackie harbaugh and go, ravens. >> i don't know if we had a dream this big. we had a few dreams, we had a
who te'o says created the beautiful and fictitious lennay kekua. so convincing, te'o would spend up to eight hours baring his soul to her, in over 1,000 phone calls. and tuiasosopo may have been duping people for years. this polynesian beauty queen says this lennay kekua contacted her in 2008. >> i think what made her seem real is just being consistent at the same time. >> reporter: she says when they were supposed to meet, someone else showed up. ronaiah tuiasosopo. but what might drive someone to attempt such an elaborate hoax? >> it's a weak ego with a character disorder with a tremendous need to manipulate. >> reporter: the daily news reports tuiasosopo's attorney insists his client was just a person trying to reach out and communicate and have a relationship. matt gutman, abc news, los
during the commercial break. >> she lipsynced. >> whatever. >> friday morning, it is definitely time to get the party started. >> it's been a very busy week in the news. here's a look back in our friday rewind. >> i, barack hussein obama do solemnly swear. >> good job, dad. >> i did it. >> i know she had a lot of other people that she could have chosen from, and to be the one that she chose is one of those amazingly humbling experiences. >> beyonce may have lipsynced the national anthem. >> this has never happened before on an inauguration day where the performance of the national anthem had been pretaped. >> it's worse than that. it may not have been beyonce at all. noted manti te'o prankster
same guy that duped manti te'o. >> alisyn: his name is ronaiah something like that, tuiasosopo. if you commit a crime, have a you be pronounceable last name and makes it harder. he duped this beauty queen into a friendship. they had a friendship, traded tips and ronaiah tuiasosopo last night. but anyway, he is the one who clearly had an issue and what he was trying to do with the beauty queen was set himself with the beauty queen when went to meet lennay, there he was and trying to score a date with this beauty queen. >> it seems like he has, this fella who concocted this hoax and we don't know for sure if, you know, manti was ever in on it or realized it, or what, but the guy seems to have a lot of time on his hands. may i suggest if you're
occurred to him to go see her. >> but he did send her two dozen-- when she died, he sent her family two dozen white roses to the address that this tu so tuiasosopo provided him. and he went through the motions somebody he cared about died. >> that's his perspective and what he's presenting because the nfl draft is coming and he would like a big job in the national football league. a lot of people are cynical of the story because you know, she was supposedly the love of his life, he never met her face-to-face, and then, he and his father both told stories that made it seem possible, yeah, he went out to hawaii and visited her, his father said and he, manti told stories to interviewers, when we met we did this and now he's saying we never-- and even if you're right and
talk you on the phone. >> brian: three years. >> alisyn: at some point i understand most people need physical contact, but it apparently happens more than we know and the rub, i think, brian, this guy, ronaiah tuiasosopo, the one behind it, he's the one with the mental condition and keeps pretending to be lennay, and who keeps tricking people. something is wrong with him. >> brian: he absolutely is-- that's what the uncle said. so manti te'o, you talked about yesterday, a two and a half hour interview and it was brilliant, i think, to have this interview with no cameras, just a recorder on espn, and basically jeremy schapp who says the report, i kind of believe him. he said i didn't go out with her straight through, i wasn't candid in saying where i met him and how i met her too embarrassed to say i never met her in picture. every time i asked to skype, i could never get the picture and only the audio and find out she was sick and never
sort of reflection or thoughts on why-- was it just really, an idea that blew up in his face, a hoax that was, may have sounded a good idea when it started or a disaster or some sinister reason or trying to get even with manti? why the hoax? >> what i know so far, it looks like this thing is the kind of new age, social media prank and even tv show on mtv, they do this to people, c catfish and they film it and they went too far and a naive gullible person and a football player, magnetic guy. in his personal life, quiet, religious, and i can tell you that ronaiah tuiasosopo is his name and he's in hiding and news trucks out in front of his house for days and people
i'm obviously kidding. >> what? >> i'm obviously kidding, but my point is this. first of all, funny to see how much attention has been taken off lance armstrong this week by this manti te'o story, but my serious point is that you look at the issue of trust of sports stars. right? in the same week we've got lance armstrong, who we obviously, people trusted him for a decade or more and were inspired by, and now he's turned out to be nothing but a giant hoax and a sham. right? and we've got manti te'o who was a victim of a hoax possibly, but we're having a hard time believing that. i think stories like lance armstrong are part of why we're having such a hard time believing manti te'o could have been a victim. >> yeah. other than the lance armstrong theory, which you know we're kidding about, he did say that two guys and a girl are responsible for the whole thing. hoop is he talking about? >> well, he's talking about a guy named tuiasosopo. ronaiah tuiasosopo, a high
look is he a bad person because he did it? well he was protecting his team. if you have ever been involved in sports like that they were heading into a pcs championship game. this was really important to his team and the school. do you make media splash and distract the player. a lot of people would say, including me who is in the media, i think he did the right thing, you protect your team and immediately afterward you start talking about it. martha: that may be the one element of this story that i do understand that makes sense to me. i have a lot of questions about that phone call. you know, because it's like, oh the phone rang, then i knew she was not alive and the whole thing was on a hoax. who was on that phone? did he have a conversation with someone? was it the other guy ronaiah tuiasosopo? or did he ever get that call? or did he just say that he got that call because he knew he needed a catalyst for the gig to be up. >> that is a great point. i can tell you we spoke to somebody yesterday who was kind