reported<\/a>.<\/p>\nTino Tuiasosopo convinced the Notre Dame star that she was the real deal, calling him at school, telling him she loved him and even sobbing hysterically when another girl answered his phone, several of the woman\u2019s relatives confirmed on Thursday.<\/p>\n
\u201cTino is the girl that Manti has been talking to all these months,\u201d said one of Tuiasosopo’s cousins.<\/p>\n
The revelation shoots down claims by Ronaiah Tuiasosopo\u2019s attorney, Milton Grimes, that Ronaiah altered his masculine voice to play the part of Kekua.<\/p>\n
Grimes did not respond to calls or e-mails for comment.<\/p>\n
One of Ronaiah\u2019s relatives believes Grimes put out the story because the admitted hoaxer \u201cis determined to take the rap.\u201d<\/p>\n
Thurday on Katie Couric’s interview with Manti Te’o, voicemails were released that were sent to Teo’ that he had saved. After hearing the voicemails, one of Tino\u2019s cousins told The NY Post, \u201cThere is no doubt whatsoever that it\u2019s Tino.\u201d<\/p>\n
Te\u2019o told Couric he believes the voice he heard as \u201cLennay\u201d was definitely a woman. \u201cWell, it didn\u2019t sound like a man. It sounded like a woman,\u201d he said<\/p>\n
Tino is in her mid-20s, lives in Pago Pago, American Samoa and works for her dad. She listed “acting” on a profile from 2008.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Ronaiah Tuiasosopo\u2019s cousin Tino Tuiasosopo\u00a0 played the part of \u201cLennay Kekua,\u201d the fake girlfriend he created, The NY Post reported. Tino Tuiasosopo convinced the Notre Dame star that she was the real deal, calling him at school, telling him she loved him and even sobbing hysterically when another girl answered his phone, several of the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":525,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[132],"tags":[],"coauthors":[7],"class_list":["post-524","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-ncaafb-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/tireball.com\/ncaafb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/524","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/tireball.com\/ncaafb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/tireball.com\/ncaafb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tireball.com\/ncaafb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tireball.com\/ncaafb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=524"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/tireball.com\/ncaafb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/524\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tireball.com\/ncaafb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/525"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/tireball.com\/ncaafb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=524"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tireball.com\/ncaafb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=524"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tireball.com\/ncaafb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=524"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tireball.com\/ncaafb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/coauthors?post=524"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
![\"tino\"](\"http:\/\/tireball.com\/ncaafb\/files\/2013\/01\/tino.jpg\")
<\/p>\n