First off, I don't practice law and didn't pursue agency work after getting my J.D., either; I'm a teacher, almost three years removed from any agency work.

But, to answer your question, I think most would agree: unpredictable, but finite. Where Te'o is different from, say a USC QB projected to be a top-10 draft pick with -- let's say, hypothetically -- a sexual assault allegation, is that there's more a ceiling on his expected returns to an agency as: (a) a linebacker: and (b) NFL scouts maybe already seeing him as overrated. He isn't an RG3-type 'money in the bank' entity.

What an agency can do is refer those people, confidentially, to other agencies to represent those with something significant to create the narrative -- true or false. There's already speculation floating that this would make a great movie. My cynic-hat tells me that this buzz isn't completely spontaneous, but even if so, it's incredibly advantageous now for someone like Ronaiah, his cousins, and others to offer their details to someone who can make a profit on their investment in these scammers.

Purely a guess off the top of my head without inner-agency raw projections of Te'o's futures value. If people are getting paid to embellish facts, what they're paid has to be more than what they can be paid to unveil something that damns Te'o, though.

Where this is also very different from situations with criminal allegations is there's more gray area (if any area at all) where incentivizing the direction of the narrative is something of negative consequence. Without damages to person or property involved, it does greatly lower the risk and make it more plausible that anything we hear from anyone is bought.

Bolded give motive for the "all a hoax" theory

Explain what you mean. I know you mean "scapegoats" but what I mean is, are you asking what it would "cost" to get some of the participants to cover-up for Te'o by selling a story that protects him as not a liar? Are you asking how to quiet down people with pertinent information?

All these things can be done, cost is almost impossible to guess.

EDIT: Also, horrorshow is right about the value of this thing to begin with. If the shelf-life is really short, the numbers won't be very high. I don't see a motion picture in this, for example. Maybe an Oprah interview, some other paying interview. A group interview with scripted responses would be valuable. I'm just spitballing obviously. Also, Te'o has probably ruined most of his endorser value in advertising because he's pretty much a moron (right?) whose enthusiastic endorsement might not bolster a product in any way. I don't see windfalls anywhere.

EDIT2: Maybe turn it into a bullying PSA and link it to other recent internet scandals (suicidal teen girls) arising from blatant trolling? Start a foundation? Could take this interesting ways, but I don't see any of them as hyper lucrative.

I've thought since late the first evening it was "fooled, then played it up in a scummy way". But the longer he's silent and Tuiasosopo is MIA, the more I think there's something totally mind blowing in here somewhere. Why the eff would he not just come clean? Heck, why would Tuiasosopo not do the same? When people act like something really bad happened, I'm gonna assume something bad happened.

Shelley Smith putting it all on Tuiasosopo.

yeah i mean getting Ronaiah and whoever else (prob 1-2 ppl at least) to take the fall for this completely. yes we catfished him, no he didn't have any involvement, 100% victim, etc, etc, etc. the MSM seems dying to eat a story like that up, put a bow on it, and move on. this is all assuming that Manti has been in on it from the start, or has known that "Lennay" was fake a looong time ago.

if you have no idea about about cost then nvm on that. would you think it likely that CAA could/would draw up a plan of action like this for Manti and get it organized this quickly? what do you make of the fact that none of the key figures are talking, it's all 2nd hand from random friends, cousins, etc? feels like no one wants to be on record about anything, and see if this will just go away.

(and i mean, the fact is this thing wouldn't exist without Manti & his dad bc they are like 100% of Lennay's backstory, confirmation of her being real, etc)

It's obvious to me that everyone will have contacted a lawyer by now, and any smart lawyer will have said "do not say anything to anyone you idiot jesus christ liability EVERYWHERE," etc., etc.

Silence would just be good advice.

MTV has been showing a "Catfish" marathon all day. Watched a few episodes, interesting stuff. Seems really impossible to successfully pull this off unless you are the same sex of the person you are pretending to be OR sound like that sex (which it seems way more difficult for a guy to sound like a girl than vice versa).

Could just be he is afraid with what is happening to LA right now that being branded a huge self promoting lying piece of **** could ruin all his value as an endorser of products, as hoya said, and.... lawyers.

.

Dating chick IRL after MK passed away

http://www.tmz.com/2013/01/18/manti-...dra-del-pilar/

damn. he got over his the love of his life pretty quick.

Manti Te'o Girlfriend Original Art Sketch Card by Kevin-John 1/1


Bidding at $15.50

Bid, have been outbid.

Starting to look like:

Legit fooled -> Embellished for PR purposes

Right?

yup

We may have to begin to consider if Ronaiah Tuiasosopo is one of the GOAT trolls of our time.

If the real deal is legit fooled, and we're trying to be real about this, it seems like probably he let this go on for years because dumb guy + hot chick = all kinds of dumb ****. He probably tapped plenty on the side so didn't really NEED to actually sleuth this out. Elaboration probably all a result of actually being tricked by the cancer crap and the story being so fantastical that it exploded. Jock not wanting to harm team is kind of believable, especially if for him this was not actually the most important thing going on in his life, so he lies to keep ND's amazing season unblemished. Then **** goes crazy.

I don't find this impossible. It's dumb as hell, but not impossible.

seemed almost instant, given that he didn't even attend the funeral or anything

just "sent some white roses" or whatever and moved on...

weird, huh?

Legit fooled but figured it out earlier than people realize. Decided he really didn't care that he had been catfished very much and just decided to go with it.

So sick that if they just lose to Pitt like they should have the championship game doesn't suck nearly so hard, and this might not have happened yet.

People keep forgetting...

They weren't "together" for 3 years. They were an item for a few months. That's it. They just met like 3 years ago.

meh. I dunno. I don't think we'll ever know exactly how the PR stuff happened.

I think it's perfectly plausible that the media kind of ran with this thing and he just never stepped in front of it like he should have.

Sorry for being unclear, so no one misunderstands what I said about the movie buzz possibly being planted. I'm saying that this buzz, were I somewhere involved in this at CAA, would be something I'd use as bait to get hush agreements signed with certain parties with scripts and coaching attached in exchange for agency referrals while the story is hot and this is something worth offering.

A Lifetime movie could be a long shot, but details to sell to Pete Thamel's publisher, producers at 60 Minutes or somewhere, etc. are possible. They will not be the height of these scammers' dreams, but something they can get. And, later this year or so, when they're disappointed by not getting some Hollywood producer to pay them hundreds of thousands, oops, there's a hush agreement with a seven-figure liability attached to it and no one really cares about the story anymore to make damning Te'o worth their while.

If anyone thinks this sounds silly, OK, I'm also spitballing.

If anyone thinks this sounds genius, bear in mind that a team of people much smarter and more connected than me are behind the wheel.

If he thought she was a real person really going through this illness, so he embellished to make it more central to him, but tons of others embellish stories all the time. The reason it looks so bad is she was legitimately not even a real person. If we saw all of the communication it could be somewhat justifiable, albeit he is still dumb as rocks.