Via ESPN: ”For more than a year, Miami Heat center Chris “Birdman” Andersen lived with a cloud over his head and a sullied reputation after authorities in Colorado raided his home as part of an investigation surrounding a relationship with an underaged girl from California.
It came to light Wednesday that not only was Andersen not guilty of a crime, but he was the victim of an “extremely complex” Internet scheme. Police in both Colorado and Canada believe it was the work of a woman living in rural Manitoba.
“We were always confident that Chris was innocent but we just couldn’t figure out what had happened,” Andersen’s lawyer, Mark Bryant, told ESPN.com. “It turned out that it was a Manti Te’o situation. It was Manti Te’o on steroids.”
The woman, identified by the Denver Post as Shelly Lynn Chartier of Easterville, Manitoba, posed as Andersen in electronic conversations with a woman in California. Then she posed as the California woman in electronic conversations with Andersen.
Along the way, police told Andersen, she made threats pretending to be Andersen and attempted extortion pretending to be the woman from California. Chartier was arrested by Canadian authorities in January.
Her communications between the parties were successful enough that the woman from California traveled to Colorado, when Andersen was then playing for the Denver Nuggets, and met Andersen. Their relationship, however, did not develop. At the time of their meeting, the woman from California was of legal age, Bryant said.”
You know it’s bad when people start saying you got Manti Te’o'd, right? I mean people basically mocked the shit out of that guy for 4 months basically because he got duped by some creepy guy. All Te’o wanted was a little love and ended up being catfished like you ready about. Now, we find out the Birdman had the same thing happen to him, only it was about a million times as bad. Read that last sentence above; Birdman and the chick trying to meet Andersen actually DID MEET! This crazy chick from Canada basically catfished the shit out two people, including an NBA star and was able to get the two to meet in Denver. This is just insanely ridiculous!
I just think it’s cruel for these internet trolls to go after these athletes that are weak. I mean Te’o was so wrapped up in playing football and being weird and dammit, Birdman is a recovering druggie. I want these guys to try and go after someone like Michael Jordan or Lebron James or someone like that. Birdman and Te’o are the minor leagues, when is someone going to step up to the big leagues? Go big or go home clowns.
P.S. how and when did catfish become a verb? Just saying.
P.P.S. What’s the record for quotation marks in a title? Easy answer is as many as are above, 8. Game over, new record.