Damn, poor Chris Andersen! His lawyer is calling this situation, “Manti Te’o on steroids” and he nearly lost his NBA career over it. Chris Anderson was a victim of a wide-ranging internet hoax, but the good news is that he’s been cleared of any wrongdoing.
Check out this story…
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.
Andersen has been told that prosecutors will not file charges against him, clearing him after a 15-month ordeal that nearly cost him his NBA career.
“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.”
Te’o, the former Notre Dame football star, was caught up in a scheme last year when several individuals created a fake person and started a relationship with Te’o over the Internet, something known as “catfishing.”
In Andersen’s case, a woman in the middle used social media to dupe two people without their knowledge, according to police.
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.
“When they searched Chris’ house they were basically looking for an I.P. address,” Bryant said. “But it wasn’t there. They kept investigating but it took time because it ended up involving two countries.”
(Story Continues at ESPN….)
