"They were not deceived" -- yeah, that's the ticket! [1]
Nice use of passive voice to obscure the subject of the sentence. He just couldn't bring himself to say "I did not deceive them." It's technically true that there's somebody in the universe who didn't deceive both of those people.
I thought he was quite convincing in that performance. In fact, what tipped me off was just how convincing he was, the way a conman would be. What about his body language tipped you off?
Nice use of passive voice to obscure the subject of the sentence. He just couldn't bring himself to say "I did not deceive them." It's technically true that there's somebody in the universe who didn't deceive both of those people.
[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pkYNBwCEeH4