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FOOLED: Tessi Tolutau, Miss South Pacific 2007, says she, too, was taken in by the “Lennay Kekua” hoax allegedly perpetrated by Ronaiah Tuiasosopo (goateed), a friend of Notre Dame star Manti Te’o (inset left). (
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HONOLULU — The prankster behind Notre Dame linebacker Manti Te’o’s fake online girlfriend left a trail of deceit stretching thousands of miles over the course of five years.
A Hawaiian beauty-pageant queen told The Post that she also was contacted by “Lennay Kekua” in 2008 — before the made-up woman duped the star football player.
“We would chat back and forth,” said Tessi Tolutau, who was crowned Miss South Pacific in 2007 and hails from the same small Hawaiian beach town as Te’o.
“She explained to me that she played basketball at Stanford, that she was a Victoria’s Secret model, that she was dating somebody from Stanford. She even said she was dating [Jets quarterback] Mark Sanchez.”
“Kekua” instant-messaged Tolutau on Facebook for advice on competing in another pageant that she had won.
“She wrote, ‘I just wanted to know what path I should take for the Miss Tonga pageant,’ ” said Tolutau. “We went back and forth. I gave her advice about how to prepare. It was an ongoing conversation . . . She even asked me about [other Hawaiians I knew] and about Manti, too.”
Tolutau said her “stomach dropped” when the news broke last week that Te’o’s “dead girlfriend” had never existed.
“I didn’t even know that Manti’s dead girlfriend was Lennay Kekua until I saw the news this week,” she said — adding that “Kekua” told her she should meet her cousin, Ronaiah Tuiasosopo, the man accused of being behind the prank.
They finally met in California.
“When I was in LA, Lennay told me I should go to this Polynesian-dance practice with her cousin, Ronaiah,” she said.
They had lunch — and it never occurred to her that Tuiasosopo was posing as “Kekua,” she said.
“I never thought that before. That never crossed my mind,” said the beauty queen. “When Ronaiah’s name came out, I started to put the pieces together,” the beauty queen said.
And she and Te’o weren’t the only ones to fall for the scam. Te’o’s cousin was also hoaxed by “Lennay,” according to a source close to the family.
On a 2008 football recruiting trip to Brigham Young University in Utah, a friend passed Te’o’s cousin a cellphone and said, ‘Hey, talk to this girl, Lennay. She’s cool,’ ” recounted a source close to the family who asked not to be named.
The cousin spoke with “Kekua” for hours that night, and they continued to chat regularly over the phone for about six months, the source said.
Sometimes, the cousin would even share his phone with his buddies so they could say hello to “Kekua,” the source added.
In the spring of 2008, “Kekua” asked the cousin for Te’o’s phone number. He gave it to her, and that’s how Lennay and Manti first began speaking, the source said.
Te’o has given a different account, telling ESPN Friday that he met “Kekua” on Facebook after she sent him a friend request during his freshman year at Notre Dame.
Alexandra Del Pilar — who became Te’o’s real-life girlfriend last fall after “Kekua” “died” — and Te’o have since broken up, a source with knowledge of the relationship said yesterday.
Relatives of another alleged “Kekua” victim said their cousin had an online romance with the heartbreaker in 2008 — but every time he tried to meet “Kekua,” Tuiasosopo would show up instead.
“It was truly mean,” said John Tuioti, a cousin of the victim. “No one knows [why he did this]. Ronaiah has to explain what really happened.””
Tuiasosopo could not be reached for comment.
Additional reporting by Helen Kumari and Frank Rosario