Manti Te’o girlfriend hoax: Al Vaosa revealed as key player in Lennay Kekua scandal

Al Vaosa was revealed as one of the key players in the Manti Te’o fake girlfriend Lennay Kekua scandal.

Al Vaosa, who tweets under the username Jay Rahz, is a youth leader at Manti Te’o’s Christian Church and former pharmacy lab technician.

He joked about Lennay Kekua and even said he was “running her profile” last December.

He has even said on Twitter that he knew it was all a hoax back in 2008.

Al Vaosa, 28, claims at that point that he severed all ties with Ronaiah Tuiasosopo, who is the main suspect of being the person behind Lennay Kekua, even though she did not actually exist.

It is not currently known what the relationship between the two of them is or when it began.

Al Vaosa, who is also known as J.R., casts himself as a responsible young adult but he has questions to answer over his role in how Manti Te’o, the star linebacker with Notre Dame college, was apparently duped – and if he was not involved why he did nothing to stop it.

In particular, Al Vaosa tweeted that Lennay Kekua was a fake two days before Manti Te’o found out – and at one point even appears to admit responsibility for the whole thing.

Ronaiah Tuiasosopo remains the main suspect in the bizarre hoax which has led to a 24-hour cat and mouse game on the Internet after it was first reported by Deadspin.com on Wednesday afternoon.

Manti Te’o appears to have maintained a relationship with Lennay Kekua for a year before her death in September from leukemia while he was leading his team to glory in an undefeated run to the BCS championship – turning him into the season’s star.

The death was six hours after his beloved grandmother died and sparked a groundswell of support from fans and the public at large.

Manti Te’o found out about the hoax on December 6 but it has now become public and dragged in at least two other football players, former Arizona Cardinals fullback Reagan Mauia and Pittsburgh Steelers safety Troy Polamalu.

Now the spotlight has turned to Al Vaosa.

On December 4, two nights before Manti Te’o found out the news, Al Vaosa Tweeted: “The person behind @LennayKay created the leukemia death story cause of @WhatIsCatfish.”

Catfish was the 2010 film about the dangers of Internet hoaxes.

The next night, 24 hours before the hoax was exposed, Al Vaosa appears to have become paranoid and Tweeted: “It’s so hard to tweet like nothing is going on LOL.”

He added: “I seriously believe we’re being watched!! No joke!”

Al Vaosa also added: “Omgah now I’m getting a blocked # calling me.”

The most interesting Tweet of all comes from Al Vaosa himself who on December 12 wrote to a relative named Celeste, whose tag is @ceeweezy51: “aka *goes back to running @LennayKay’s profile* lmfao.”