http://deadspin.com/5906658?utm_camp...ium=socialflow
Is An ESPN Columnist Scamming People On The Internet?
worth the read, very crazy shit
girl goes to Oregon State, maybe Beebs has heard of her or her accomplice
video of Sarah before it gets taken down (she has already deleted her twitter)
Last edited by WillieMcFML; 05-01-2012 at 03:31 PM.
I read this earlier, it is pretty amazing what people can pull off these days. I really feel bad for the kid who made the facebook nba memes page, she had every angle covered to fuck that kid without actually fucking him
Great story, and I suggest everyone read it (and click on the links of evidence that the article provides).
I was pretty shocked to find that Sarah Phillips was a real person. That came at the end of the article, and up until that point, all of the evidence seemed to strongly point to "Sarah" actually being a dude named Nilesh Prasad (with help from his brother Navin Prasad).
However, she posted this video:
... and the article points to a connection between Sarah Phillips and Nilesh Prasad, so it appears Sarah isn't just made up. The girl in the video is probably her.
HOWEVER...
I am pretty sure that this was similar to the Girah/Dogishead situation on 2+2.
Dogishead was a very good poker player, but was generally uncharismatic and blended in with all of the other young poker nerds. For reasons unknown (perhaps to set up a long con), he created the character of "Girah" -- a supposed poker prodigy that quickly rises through the ranks and becomes a huge deal in online poker.
Dogishead likely did a lot of the high limit play from the Girah account and wrote some of Girah's 2+2 posts. He also dumped money to him to win that Lock contest. Basically, Girah appears to be a real guy named Jose Macedo, but he was a puppet, carefully controlled by the guy (Dogishead) who created his image.
I think that's what happened here. Nilesh Prasad was probably a good sportsbettor and was an avid poster on covers.com. At some point, for whatever reason, he came up with the idea to masquerade as his female friend (or girlfriend) Sarah Phillips, figuring his postings would get a lot more attention that way. After all, what is more intriguing -- an Indian dude named Nilesh making good and informed sports picks, or a smoking hot chick named Sarah doing it?
He had Sarah on hand to make "female" appearances whenever necessary, which is probably how she got the job at ESPN.
Nilesh probably kept the bulk of the money made, and gave some of the proceeds to Navin and Sarah.
The Youtube I posted seems very rehearsed, and you can tell that it was scripted for her. Sarah doesn't seem to be expressing her true thoughts.
Not sure why they used so many different pictures of her. Perhaps the real Sarah felt uncomfortable with attaching her real picture to the scam, so she asked Nilesh to post pics of some other hot chick in her place. It's also possible that Nilesh wanted pictures of a girl even hotter than Sarah, so as to attract even more attention.
The threats in this chat seem very much like they're coming from a guy.
Surprising that ESPN took this long to dismiss her. I guess everyone was too afraid to complain and blow their great "chance" at working for ESPN.
Also, pretty sure that the "Leilani Elmore" Facebook account, used to contact the kid with the NBA Memes, was a complete phony account and had 1000 friends simply because it had a picture of a hot chick.
I guess it's also possible that Navin doesn't exist, and is just an invention by this Nilesh character.
Read this chat and you'll see how cruel this "Navin" is to this poor kid:
http://deadspin.com/5906534
I really hope this scumbag gets what's coming to him.
the girl lives in Corvallis
someone needs to get Beebs92 on this
maybe she sold her a dildo
I have to disagree with your assesment of the Girah/DogisHead account... I would wager that it was Dan Cates doing most of the high-stakes playing. I still have no idea how Cates skated on this whole thing while DiH is in Tibet on poker exile or some shit.Originally Posted by Dan Druff
Great story, and I suggest everyone read it (and click on the links of evidence that the article provides).
I was pretty shocked to find that Sarah Phillips was a real person. That came at the end of the article, and up until that point, all of the evidence seemed to strongly point to "Sarah" actually being a dude named Nilesh Prasad (with help from his brother Navin Prasad).
However, she posted this video:
... and the article points to a connection between Sarah Phillips and Nilesh Prasad, so it appears Sarah isn't just made up. The girl in the video is probably her.
HOWEVER...
I am pretty sure that this was similar to the Girah/Dogishead situation on 2+2.
Dogishead was a very good poker player, but was generally uncharismatic and blended in with all of the other young poker nerds. For reasons unknown (perhaps to set up a long con), he created the character of "Girah" -- a supposed poker prodigy that quickly rises through the ranks and becomes a huge deal in online poker.
Dogishead likely did a lot of the high limit play from the Girah account and wrote some of Girah's 2+2 posts. He also dumped money to him to win that Lock contest. Basically, Girah appears to be a real guy named Jose Macedo, but he was a puppet, carefully controlled by the guy (Dogishead) who created his image.
I think that's what happened here. Nilesh Prasad was probably a good sportsbettor and was an avid poster on covers.com. At some point, for whatever reason, he came up with the idea to masquerade as his female friend (or girlfriend) Sarah Phillips, figuring his postings would get a lot more attention that way. After all, what is more intriguing -- an Indian dude named Nilesh making good and informed sports picks, or a smoking hot chick named Sarah doing it?
He had Sarah on hand to make "female" appearances whenever necessary, which is probably how she got the job at ESPN.
Nilesh probably kept the bulk of the money made, and gave some of the proceeds to Navin and Sarah.
The Youtube I posted seems very rehearsed, and you can tell that it was scripted for her. Sarah doesn't seem to be expressing her true thoughts.
Not sure why they used so many different pictures of her. Perhaps the real Sarah felt uncomfortable with attaching her real picture to the scam, so she asked Nilesh to post pics of some other hot chick in her place. It's also possible that Nilesh wanted pictures of a girl even hotter than Sarah, so as to attract even more attention.
The threats in this chat seem very much like they're coming from a guy.
Surprising that ESPN took this long to dismiss her. I guess everyone was too afraid to complain and blow their great "chance" at working for ESPN.
I write things about poker at my Poker Blog and elsewhere on the Internets
Okay, it might have been Dan Cates, too. I agree that he seems to have guilt in the situation, as well.
My point was that Girah was a real person, but his online persona was a puppet.
Seems like we have a similar situation here.
This is also similar to the "Amina Abdallah" situation, where a dude pretended to be an outspoken lesbian living in Syria, complete with a kidnapping story. CNN covered the "kidnapping" without ever stopping to verify if Amina was real.
Here was my post about it last year:
=============================================
Some of you might have heard about the "kidnapping" of the lesbian blogger Amina Abdallah.
Abdallah is supposedly a 35-year-old lesbian, living in Syria. She expressed vocal opposition to the government there in her blog, and supposedly was constantly dodging kidnapping attempts. Gay rights are nonexistent in Syria, and being both gay and in opposition to the government is very unsafe there.
I didn't follow any of this until recently when her kidnapping was widely reported. I had not seen a picture of her yet, and I was expecting her to look like a middle-eastern version of Vanessa Selbst.
Instead, I found this surprisingly pretty, feminine, and soft-looking woman:
Right then I suspected something fishy. This seemed too good to be true. The woman was smart, feisty, beautiful, and brave enough to stand up to the Syrian government. And she was a lesbian. And she was kidnapped. It all seemed too perfectly out of a script for a Sundance film.
I didn't question it much, though, because I figured that large news organizations like CNN wouldn't be doing stories on kidnapped bloggers that nobody verified really existed.
But guess what?
Amina Abdallah didn't exist.
In reality, the picture is of Jelena Lecic, a London woman who has nothing to do with Syria.
Now a person named "Tom McMaster" is taking credit for all of the blogs.
Amazing what the media will eat up these days.
Especially LOL are Amina's "friends" who still swear she's real, but admit that the extent of their correspondence was via e-mail.
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