Lance Armstrong’s lies weren’t the first to lead to a stunning crash. Here is a list of the rest of history’s 10 all-time greatest liars, a rogues gallery of devious dissemblers who can all be enshrined in the forked tongue Hall of Shame.
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RICHARD NIXON — You know when a guy says “I am not a crook,” watch out. “Tricky Dick” Nixon took presidential perfidy to new heights, when he went on TV on August 15, 1973 and said “I had no prior knowledge of the Watergate break-in.” A year later, he resigned.
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BERNIE MADOFF — He was more of a Ponzi King than the scam’s inventor, Charles Ponzi. Madoff pretended to be one of the most savvy investors in New York, but his firm was a bogus house of cards that wound up costing his investors $50 billion when it collapsed. Now Bernie cooling his heels in prison.
Spencer A. Burnett
TAWANA BRAWLEY — Her lie set racial tensions in New York to boiling in the 1980s. The Dutchess County teen falsely claimed to have been abducted and raped by a group of men, including a cop and a prosecutor. In 1988, a grand jury found her story was a horrific hoax.
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JOHN EDWARDS — A slick haircut doesn’t mean you’re honest. The clean-cut Edwards went from possible President to loathed liar when — after two years of denials — he admitted in 2010 to siring a love child with mistress Rielle Hunter while his wife, Elizabeth, was dying of cancer.
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MILLI VANILLI — Their album may have been called “Girl You Know It’s True, ” but it was really a big lie. The “musical” duo of Rob Pilatus and Fab Morvan, became laughing stocks in 1990 when they had to return their Grammy for best new artist after it was revealed they did not actually sing the songs on the album.
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ANTHONY WEINER — Sure, you were “hacked” Mr. Weiner. When a picture of the Queens Congressman’s “member” wound up on the internet he tried to claim he got shafted — by a hacker to stole the picture and put it on line. Later it was revealed that he actually sent the pic to a young woman who was not his wife. He finally admitted “I have not been honest,” and short time later resigned.
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PETE ROSE — He was known as “Charlie Hustle.” It was an appropriate nickname. Baseball’s all time hit leader denied for years that he ever gambled on baseball, even though he was banned from the game in 1989. Then in 2004, he admitted he did place bets on the national passtime, and even bet on his own team, the Cincinnati Reds “every night.”
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MARION JONES — She lost her golds on the track, but still takes top honors for lying. The disgraced track star had the five medals she won in the 2000 Summer Olympics stripped for doping, charges she initially denied. She was later sentenced to six months in jail for lying to federal prosecutors who were probing use of steroids.
PINOCCHIO — History’s all time greatest liar, this little wooden “boy” wouldn’t know the truth if it bit him. His fibs were so devious that they actually made his nose grow, making him the forerunner of all politicians throughout history.
