New York

Updated: Tuiasosopo disguised voice as a girl when talking to Manti Te’o

Manti Te'o was talking to a man, Ronaiah Tuiasosopo, on the phone during the hoax.
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Of the many phone calls that took place between Note Dame linebacker Manti Te’o and “Lennay Kekua,” at least 110 of them were more than 60 minutes in length. There were some that were several hundred minutes long, according to ESPN.

It turns out that Te’o was actually talking to a man the whole time, instead of who he believed was his girlfriend. Ronaiah Tuiasosopo, who was already revealed as the person who created a “Lennay Kekua” Twitter handle and the person who ripped off pictures from former high school classmate Diane O’Meara’s Facebook page to pose as Kekua, is the person behind the voice of Kekua as well.

Tuiasosopo’s lawyer, Milton Grimes, told the New York Daily News that Te’o “thought it was a female he was talking with. It was Ronaiah as Lennay.

“This wasn’t a prank to make fun,” Grimes told the Daily News. “It was establishing a communication with someone. It was a person with a troubled existence trying to reach out and communicate and have a relationship.”

Te’o told ESPN last week: “I’d be on the phone. And (Keku) had complications from the accident and, she said the only thing that could help her sleep was if I was on the phone. So I would be on the phone, and I’d have the phone on the whole night.”

**Updated***

Here is a segment of the multiple voicemails left by “Lennay Kekua” on Te’o's phone:


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