NBA star Chris Andersen has been found to be a victim of an internet impersonation hoax after police initially targeted him and even raided his home.

People were starting to wonder about the heavily-tattooed Miami Heat forward after the Douglas County Sheriff's Internet Crimes Against Children unit seized property from his home.

Andersen's lawyers maintained that he was an innocent victim and their claims turned out to be exactly right. A 29-year-old Canadian woman named Shelly Lynn Chartie, who has been charged with a variety of crimes, carried out a "catfish" hoax where she used Andersen's name in her conversations with people online and through social media platforms, Andersen's attorneys said.

Many people are comparing it to the situation with Manti Te'o.

"We were always confident that Chris was innocent, but we just couldn't figure out what had happened," Andersen's lawyer, Mark Bryant, said to ESPN. "It turned out that it was a Manti Te'o situation. It was Manti Te'o on steroids."

Although Andersen has been cleared and is innocent, his attorneys said that his reputation has taken a hit because his name is associated with all of the wrong things.

"Somebody's reputation worldwide was smeared; you Googled his name and at the top he was being called a pedophile," Bryant said. "The cruelty of public opinion was very difficult. It's been exhaustive and humbling to restore his name. But we're not glad; nothing glad came out of this."

Andersen was cut from the Denver Nuggets last July, which was during the investigation. He eventually signed with the Miami Heat and signed a one-year extension in July.