December 11, 2025 • 51 mins
Jace pulled Heather into a web of lies. But she was determined to untangle it.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:04):
It's not like he was cheating on me, because I
don't think you can call it cheating when what you
do is prey on women, when you are a hunter
trying to find more victims.
Speaker 2 (00:29):
I'm Andrea Gunning and this is Betrayal, a show about
the people we trust the most and the deceptions that
change everything. Heather Rovett is the middle child in a
tight knit family.
Speaker 1 (00:45):
I have an older brother and a younger sister. We
were all very close in age.
Speaker 2 (00:50):
She loved growing up in Toronto, Canada. Her childhood was
filled with all the best.
Speaker 1 (00:55):
Things, joy and fun and love and adventure and kindness.
Speaker 2 (01:03):
Her parents had a great marriage.
Speaker 1 (01:06):
My parents met in high school and were high school sweethearts,
and he would look at my mom with such adoration.
Speaker 2 (01:13):
They also taught her the value of building a meaningful career.
Speaker 1 (01:17):
My mom was a child psychologist neuroscientist. She's very, very smart,
and my father was a lawyer who specialized primarily in
labor law.
Speaker 2 (01:34):
Through high school and university, Heather dated and fell in
love a few times.
Speaker 1 (01:38):
I've always been able to flirt with guys and there's
been interest, but it wasn't my main focus to have
a boyfriend or seek male attention.
Speaker 2 (01:52):
After graduating from university, Heather carved her own path.
Speaker 1 (01:56):
I became a real estate salesperson and then two years
later I upgraded to broker.
Speaker 2 (02:03):
The career came easily to Heather.
Speaker 1 (02:06):
I can see how you can transform a space or
how you can make it your home. I just had
this tenacity and energy.
Speaker 2 (02:15):
Over the next ten years, Heather gained recognition in Toronto's
real estate scene. By her late thirties, she had built
a career she loved.
Speaker 1 (02:23):
I loved working and it paid off, and then it
allowed me to do cool things too, like go on trips.
Speaker 2 (02:31):
She also made a good amount of money. She decided
to renovate her condo in Toronto and she invested some
of her funds with a financial advisor.
Speaker 1 (02:40):
I would meet with him quarterly and he would show
me paperwork of how my money was doing, and I
thought it was great. And when push came to shove
and I wanted to sell and get my money back,
he basically disappeared.
Speaker 2 (02:55):
She'd been scammed.
Speaker 1 (02:57):
He got arrested and there was about five of their people.
He did this too. The sad thing is, even though
he was found guilty and ordered to pay the restitution.
I never saw a penny.
Speaker 2 (03:14):
She lost one hundred and twenty seven thousand dollars. The
scam was damaging, not only financially, but also to her
sense of trust in other people. But with time, Heather
accepted the loss and was able to rebuild. She was
in her mid forties and single. She managed to pull
together the funds to finish renovating her condo.
Speaker 1 (03:34):
And I transformed that condo into a beautiful space. And
then one day I noticed, you know, there were just
some things that weren't quite right.
Speaker 2 (03:43):
Heather noticed an issue with the cabinets, so she called
the company who had installed them. They agreed to send
someone out to take a look.
Speaker 1 (03:51):
He was like, no problem, we have a new service guy.
He's great. I'm going to give him your contact info
and he'll be in touch and probably a week later.
On a Monday morning in July, I woke up to
a text message, this is Jace, and I was hoping
I could come by today to fix the outstanding work.
An hour later, there was a knock at my door
(04:12):
and I was greeted by this very ruggedly cute guy.
I was a little befuddled. I found myself a little
tongue tied and was like, oh wow, sure, come on in.
Speaker 2 (04:32):
Jace got to work fixing the cabinets in her kitchen,
and afterwards I asked.
Speaker 1 (04:37):
Him if he could help me hang a couple towel
bars up in the bathrooms, and he happily obliged. We
were about three quarters of the way through hanging the
second one and his phone was ringing and he was like,
oh my gosh, I'm so behind schedule. I gotta go.
He goes, do you have this? I'm like, I got it,
don't worry. But she didn't have it, and I kind
(05:02):
of made more of a mess of it. Was on
an angle, and I noticed on my kitchen island was
his measuring tape. So I called him and said, you
left your measuring tape here, and by the way, I've
made a mess of this towel bar. And he laughed
and he said, you know what, I'm literally ten minutes away.
Why don't I swing back over and we'll fix it.
(05:22):
And he comes in and within two minutes it's fixed.
Speaker 2 (05:25):
Heather offered to treat Jase to lunch to thank him
for going out of his way, and he agreed.
Speaker 1 (05:33):
Over lunch, we started talking and I did share with
him about, you know, the stress of the renovation and
the guy who stole my money.
Speaker 2 (05:42):
Jase was sympathetic. He was also going through his own
legal battle.
Speaker 1 (05:46):
I learned a little bit more about him. He had
a child, and he was going through family court, and
he had his own software engineering business, but he was
winding that down because of the divorce. I was like,
this is so great. This guy just is so easy,
easy to talk to.
Speaker 2 (06:02):
Jace used to be a software engineer, but after a
difficult separation, he decided to take a break from office work.
He wanted a job working with his hands, which is
how he got into carpentry. At the end of their lunch,
Jace insisted on paying.
Speaker 1 (06:17):
I walked him back to his truck and he said,
you know, if you need any more help around the condo.
I know he didn't get everything done, message me call
me anytime. I'm like, okay.
Speaker 2 (06:28):
On our walk home, she couldn't stop smiling.
Speaker 1 (06:32):
Oh my gosh, was I just flirting?
Speaker 2 (06:34):
Like that guy was really cute. Later that evening, she
decided to try and tackle some other projects herself.
Speaker 1 (06:41):
I went to look for what I like to call
my single girl toolbox, which is a hammer, a leveler,
and the one screwdriver. And I couldn't find my screwdriver anywhere,
so she texted Jace. I just said, hey, you didn't
happen to see a green screwdriver? And he wrote back
(07:02):
He's like, well, what can I say? I found myself
later in the day in possession of your screwdriver and
I didn't know what to do with it, if I
should be honest or just return it.
Speaker 2 (07:13):
He told her that he was holding her screwdriver hostage.
She thought it was cute funny even.
Speaker 1 (07:20):
That led to about two weeks of really flirtatious banter
over text, and I thought it was really fun. Every
time I got a text from him. It was like
like an endorphin hic.
Speaker 2 (07:37):
They started texting every day. Jase wasn't shy about his
attraction to her.
Speaker 1 (07:42):
I remember he sent this one message and he said,
just please tell me you know how sexy you are, Heather.
I'm like what, And I jokingly said, well, you should
see me when I'm really cleaned up.
Speaker 3 (07:53):
I mean you met me.
Speaker 1 (07:54):
I was like just rolled out of bed, lol, and
he said no, it's not that. He goes like, it's
your mind like to know how freaking sexy that is
to me. And I was like, wow, this is so refreshing,
Like this guy isn't just about how I look. He
liked my mind, like this is awesome. So there was
this tension that was definitely building and this flirtation.
Speaker 2 (08:18):
Finally, after two weeks of flirting, Jason asked her out
on a proper date.
Speaker 1 (08:24):
He showed up on a motorcycle, which I thought was
really sexy. We walked to a cute little Italian restaurant
around the corner from my house.
Speaker 2 (08:36):
It was a great date and Heather learned more about him.
Speaker 1 (08:40):
He shared with me how his mom had died when
he was a teenager, and he talked a bit more
about the custody battle and I asked him and I'm like,
that's pretty heavy stuff, like how do you deal with
that much loss and that much pain? And he said,
I put it all in boxes.
Speaker 2 (08:58):
He was being really vulnerable with her, and she was
impressed with how he was able to deal with everything
he had gone through. She found it really attractive.
Speaker 1 (09:09):
The date ended and we walked back to my place
and we're both sort of shuffling in the doorway and
I'm like, in my mind going is he going to
kiss me? And I was like, fuck it, I'm just
going to go for it. So I leaned in to
kiss him. I was like, hey, thanks By, that was
really fun. And next thing I know, he's pushed me
up against the wall and we start making out. And
(09:30):
this kiss was like a kiss I've never experienced before.
Speaker 2 (09:34):
It was passionate and intense. Jace left her in the doorway, stunned.
Speaker 3 (09:40):
I went to.
Speaker 1 (09:41):
Sleep that night with the biggest smile on my face.
When I woke up the next morning, there was already
a text message from him saying, good morning, Heather. It's
a beautiful day and I hope you're spoiling like something
cheesy but lovely, and I was like wow.
Speaker 2 (09:56):
The next night, Jace came over to her place.
Speaker 1 (09:59):
And he brought a bottle of wine. In my mind,
I'm thinking, this is like, really, your second date with
this guy? You don't know him, you know, should you
do the whole like three date rule or is it
a three week rule or a three month rule or
I don't know. And all of a sudden, whatever self
imposed rules I had were just out the window.
Speaker 2 (10:31):
They couldn't wait to see each other again. It was
the start of a summer romance.
Speaker 1 (10:36):
A couple weeks later, he took me out and bought
me a motorcycle helmet, and we that summer went everywhere
on the motorcycle. It was so fun. We had such
a good time. I loved every minute of it. I
don't think I slept a whole night for at least
three months, because I just was so excited having this
(11:00):
gorgeous human being lying beside me. I was like, oh
my god, am I dreaming? This is crazy?
Speaker 2 (11:07):
And soon enough we.
Speaker 1 (11:08):
Were saying I love you. He said it first.
Speaker 2 (11:12):
Heather introduced Jace to her family in September.
Speaker 1 (11:17):
He met my mom and she really liked him. My birthday,
which is in October, he met my sister and her boyfriend,
and then a couple weeks later he met my dad.
Speaker 2 (11:30):
It was harder for her to meet Jace's family because
a lot of them still lived in Italy.
Speaker 1 (11:35):
He was born in Italy, and both his Italian grandfathers
fought in World War Two for the Allies.
Speaker 2 (11:42):
He came from a fascinating background.
Speaker 1 (11:45):
When my friends started meeting him, they all thought he
was pretty great, and I was just so happy. Life
was pretty electric, even like the simple activities going grocery
shopping became fun because I wasn't doing it alone anymore,
and I felt that my future was limitless and we
were just going to live the best life ever.
Speaker 2 (12:29):
Heather Rovett had a meet cute with a man who
fixed her kitchen cabinets. His name was Jace Peretti. Heather
and Jace fell hard and fast, and a whirlwind summer
romance turned into a solid relationship.
Speaker 1 (12:43):
My second birthday with him, he said, check your email
and I said okay, And I looked at my email
and there were Airic Canada tickets from Toronto to Rome.
Speaker 3 (12:54):
And I looked at him.
Speaker 1 (12:55):
I was like, we're going to Italy. And he said
we're going to Italy and I was like, wow, Wow,
I can't believe we're going to go.
Speaker 2 (13:02):
During this time, Jace was dealing with a lot of stress.
He went in more time with his young son, but
he and his ex were constantly in and out of
family court.
Speaker 1 (13:12):
It was really hard for him. He had been the
primary parent because he was working from home, so he
went from spending all this time with his kid to
now only seeing him two times a week for supervised visits.
Speaker 2 (13:27):
When Heather asked Jace about the custody arrangement.
Speaker 1 (13:30):
He explained because he had both a Canadian and an
Italian passport. Her lawyer put the idea into her mind
and the court that Jace had the capability of kidnapping
their son and taking him to Italy.
Speaker 2 (13:47):
She felt for jas he wasn't that guy. He loved
his son.
Speaker 1 (13:53):
He would go to the town she was living in
and he would take him out for dinner, and then
he would take him home and tuck him in and
say good night to him, read them stories.
Speaker 2 (14:01):
Heather and Jace had been together for two years. They
were living together in Toronto, but she had never met
his son. With this custody arrangement, it put their relationship
in a holding pattern.
Speaker 1 (14:13):
Honestly, not meeting his son and the family court was
the albatross around our relationship's neck. It was the only
thing we would fight about. I just couldn't understand that
the family court was taking so long. I was like,
this is so unfair.
Speaker 2 (14:31):
Heather was trying to help Jace regain some agency in
the situation. She tried to help him in any way
she could.
Speaker 1 (14:39):
I was like, you need a lawyer. So I had
arranged a meeting for him with another very well known
Toronto family lawyer, and she said, the trials just around
the corner and things will get settled. Let's hold off
on introducing Heather for now.
Speaker 2 (14:59):
It was frustrating, but Heather didn't want to do anything
that would compromise Jason's custody of his son. She agreed
it was best to wait until everything was settled to
bring his son into their lives. In the meantime, she
wanted to set up their home so when the time came,
they would be prepared to welcome him.
Speaker 1 (15:19):
I turned the guest room into a little boy's room,
and I had toys for him and books for him
and games for him. And I spent two weeks online
trying to find like the perfect duvet cover for his
bedroom because I was so obsessed with making everything amazing
for him, and I couldn't wait for him to come
and start having sleepovers at our house.
Speaker 2 (15:37):
But every time she got her hopes.
Speaker 1 (15:39):
Up, something would happen, and it just kept being pushed back.
And then I remember in early February, he came home
and he was a little upset, and he said, you're
never going to believe it. Heather, but the trial has
been set and it's one. We're in Italy.
Speaker 2 (16:00):
Jays had to be at the trial. There was no
way around it.
Speaker 1 (16:05):
I said, wow, okay, well, obviously we're not going to Italy,
like we've been waiting for this now for two and
a half years. Like, we'll just postpone the trip. I'll
cancel the hotels and whatnot.
Speaker 2 (16:18):
They canceled their trip to Italy. When the day of
the trial came, he came home and he said, yeah,
things are good. We have a two week adjournment and
then we're going back and she has to provide me
with a full repayment schedule for the house and the
line of credit that she shut me out of. And
(16:39):
most importantly, instead of having two supervised visits a week,
they were going to start phasing into unsupervised and then
one night's sleepover on the weekend.
Speaker 1 (16:50):
And I was like, this is so great. I was like, yes,
thank you, finally, finally, finally.
Speaker 2 (16:56):
It was good news, but terrible timing.
Speaker 1 (16:59):
And then in that two week window, COVID happened and
the whole world got locked down, which meant no family court.
Speaker 2 (17:08):
It was March twenty twenty and Toronto went into lockdown. Soon,
Heather and Jason began looking at houses to rent outside
the city.
Speaker 1 (17:16):
I wanted space and solitude. I found this house for
rent and it was perfect, and it was on five
acres of property. It had this beautiful family room with
a vaulted ceiling and a wood burning fireplace.
Speaker 2 (17:33):
They signed the lease together and moved to Aurora, Ontario.
It was exactly the refuge they hoped it would be.
Speaker 1 (17:40):
That winter, we had fires almost every day. I love
that house. I remember one day, a couple weeks after
we moved in, we were standing on the back deck
and there's wild turkeys and often you'd see deer and bunnies.
And he said this would be the best place to
have a backyard, and I was like, yes, it would.
Speaker 2 (18:04):
They started daydreaming about throwing a big celebration at the
house once COVID restrictions lifted. During the lockdown, Heather and
Jace had to find new ways to connect with friends
and family. Heather called her mom often.
Speaker 1 (18:18):
My mom probably back in April, called and she was like, Heath,
have you seen my bracelet or have you seen this necklace?
And I'm like no, And I'd get off the phone
and I'd look at Jace and I'm like, I think
my mom's starting to like forget things, you know, she
seems to be misplacing all her stuff. It was just
(18:39):
like one thing after the other with her, Like my
grandmother died of dementia.
Speaker 2 (18:46):
Dementia ran in Heather's family, but there wasn't much they
could do from Afar. Plus, the pandemic had destabilized both
Heather and Jays financially. He had just started a new
remote job back in software development.
Speaker 1 (19:00):
He'd gotten this job for Oracle, but even when we
moved to Aurora and we had to pay the first
and last month's rent and a security deposit, I ended
up paying for all of it because he didn't have
anything saved. How can this be like you're getting Oracle
paychecks when push came to shove, he just never seemed
to have money.
Speaker 2 (19:21):
Between his custody battle and COVID, Jace had depleted his savings,
but what was in his bank account didn't matter to Heather.
She could support the both of them. The bigger issue
for her was that she still hadn't met Jase's son.
Speaker 1 (19:36):
I had set up the room for his son in
the house, and he still kept going two times a
week on his supervised visits to see his son. I'm
starting to really resent the situation.
Speaker 2 (19:48):
At the end of twenty twenty, Heather bought a furniture
and a core business and moved the inventory into their.
Speaker 1 (19:54):
Home, and when we moved to Aurora, Jay started getting
really into building furniture. I was like, well, that's a
no brainer. I can sell all that inventory and make
my investment back tenfold, and we can sell all this furniture.
Speaker 2 (20:10):
Jace was working more and more at Oracle. He was
coming home late, and when he was home he was
exhausted from working long hours. He never seemed to have
energy for Heather or for their new furniture business. The
couple started getting in fights more often.
Speaker 1 (20:28):
By June of twenty twenty one, I was getting frustrated
with my life with him because I felt like the
world's opening up and here we are, and he seems
to always be working and he never wants to do anything,
and I just felt very isolated. She wasn't happy, so
(20:50):
I was like, fuck it, and I said something like,
you know, if you're not into this relationship, just tell me.
And then that turned into a pretty escalated, heated argument,
and he left, and I felt really bad and said,
(21:10):
do you know, I think I'm going to go down
to the city for a couple of days just to
give us a bit of space.
Speaker 2 (21:16):
Heather wanted to actually talk with him. Something was going on,
but he wasn't giving her anything. After a few days apart,
Heather headed back to their house.
Speaker 1 (21:28):
And I call him and he said, oh, hey, I'm
just about to go tea off. I'm like, what, you're
in golfing and he goes, I'm not quite ready to
forgive you yet.
Speaker 2 (21:39):
Forgive her for what she hadn't done anything, but Jays
hung up the phone.
Speaker 1 (21:46):
He finally gets home from golfing and he goes by
the way, I washed the sheets, the DVA cover still
in the dryer. I was just crying, like, I don't
understand what's going on. The more I cried, the more
he was actually getting kind of angry stranded. I started going,
this just doesn't seem normal. But I just kept saying,
you know what, we'll get through it. We love each
(22:07):
other and we'll get through this. But August twenty twenty
one was such a brutal month because he just stopped
coming home. He was claiming he was sleeping in the
car or sleeping at the office, and he would randomly
stop by the house to like pick something up.
Speaker 2 (22:28):
Heather had uprooted her life to be with Jase. She'd
supported him financially for years. She decorated a bedroom for
his son to stay in, but all of a sudden,
a switch had flipped. Jayce had discarded her. Heather didn't
know what to do.
Speaker 1 (22:44):
I've gone through the whole month of August alone, living
in this big house by myself, and just hurting so badly.
Every effort I made to mend us, he just spat
veno and back and it was a really scary time.
Speaker 2 (23:05):
Then one afternoon, Heather was doing work on her laptop.
When signing into one of her accounts, a screen popped
up with all of her saved passwords, including the login
for Jace's email. Heather wondered if his email account might
hold some of the answers she couldn't get from jas himself,
so she typed in his password.
Speaker 1 (23:26):
All of a sudden, I'm in his email.
Speaker 2 (23:29):
She started scrolling through his inbox, expecting to find work
emails and messages from friends, but instead.
Speaker 1 (23:37):
It's bumble match, bad news like He's on every dating app.
Speaker 2 (23:42):
I'm like, what The emails revealed dozens of relationships Jace
was having with other women. Heather couldn't believe what she
was seeing. She kept scrolling.
Speaker 1 (23:53):
That began me going down hours of rabbit holes and
emails and greenshots. Then I got further and I started
seeing Kijigi ads.
Speaker 2 (24:08):
Kijigi is like the Canadian version of Craigslist. People post
items for sale. Heather's all emails confirming sales Jace made
through the site.
Speaker 1 (24:18):
It was a Kidjigi ad for Tiffany bracelet, Tiffany ring
and click on it. I'm like, oh my god, what
the fuck that's my mom's stuff.
Speaker 2 (24:55):
For months, Jace was growing more and more distant. Everything
Heather did to try and reconnect only pushed him further away.
One day, Heather accidentally logged into Jesse's email and discovered
he was using multiple dating apps. Heather was horrified the
man who she'd built a life with for the last
(25:16):
three years had dozens of other relationships. As she scrolled
through his inbox, she saw something else that made her
stomach drop. Jas was selling jewelry online, and Heather recognized
the pieces.
Speaker 1 (25:32):
The first one I opened was for this tiffany necklace.
It was a white gold circle with diamonds and a
simple chain. I'm like, I'm pretty sure that's my mom's necklace,
you know. I got pictures of her wearing it.
Speaker 2 (25:50):
Looking through the rest of Jase's jewelry sales only confirmed
what she feared. He had been stealing her mom's jewelry
for years and selling it online.
Speaker 3 (26:01):
I was just horrified that he could do that.
Speaker 2 (26:06):
And horrified by how long he had been doing it for.
Speaker 3 (26:10):
It wasn't like he just did it all at one
foul swoop.
Speaker 1 (26:13):
It wasn't like a break and enter where you're just
like throwing everything in a bag and getting out of there.
Speaker 2 (26:19):
The dates of the jewelry sales told an eerie story.
Jace had been stealing it piece by piece. He would
steal a necklace when they went over to her parents'
house for dinner, and then the next time it would
be ear rings. Because he did this so slowly and insidiously,
it took Heather's mom months to even notice, and.
Speaker 1 (26:38):
It wouldn't be until she eventually like opened the entire
safe box that she saw it was all empty. All
the bags and boxes were there.
Speaker 2 (26:49):
Heather sat in front of her laptop, seething. She wanted
an explanation.
Speaker 3 (26:55):
I called him. He didn't answer.
Speaker 2 (26:57):
She knew he would twist this, try to explain his
way out of it. She would need proof of everything
she was seeing, so she got to work.
Speaker 1 (27:06):
I just took screenshot after screenshot, and I just sat
there for hours.
Speaker 2 (27:12):
As she took screenshots of everything, the full extent of
his deception became clear. Jace had another life since the beginning.
Speaker 1 (27:23):
And when I went back and went through the email,
I'm seeing email after email of like you're a match,
You're a match, going back our entire relationship.
Speaker 2 (27:35):
Then she came across an email that changed everything. It
was about his family court proceedings. Heather clicked on the attachment.
Her eyes locked on a line at the top of
the page name of respondent Jason Porter. It was a
completely different name. The document made no mention of Jace PERETTI.
Speaker 1 (27:55):
My stomach went up in my throat, and my throat
went in my stomach, and I felt cold and hot
at the same time.
Speaker 2 (28:02):
So she googled Jason Porter.
Speaker 1 (28:06):
I was just shocked. At the very end of twenty eleven,
there was a warrant out for his.
Speaker 3 (28:11):
Arrest, and all the news.
Speaker 1 (28:13):
Outlets were picking it up here in Ontario and they
dubbed him the online Romeo because he had been meeting
women and stealing from them.
Speaker 3 (28:27):
This cannot be my Jase.
Speaker 1 (28:29):
This is not my life, This is not the man
I love.
Speaker 3 (28:33):
It's like, how is How did I not see this?
Speaker 2 (28:37):
Back in twenty twelve, Jace pled guilty to multiple fraud
charges and was sentenced to thirty months in federal prison.
He was released in twenty fourteen. After getting out of prison,
he changed his legal name from Jason Porter to Jace Parotti.
By the time he met Heather a few years later,
he was going by a variation of that name, Jace Perett.
(29:01):
Heather was sick. This was so much darker than she imagined.
Jayce wasn't just lying to cover up the fact that
he was cheating. He was lying about who he was.
Speaker 1 (29:12):
It's not like he was cheating on me, because I
don't think you can call it cheating when what you
do is prey on women, when you are a hunter
on these dating apps trying to find more victims.
Speaker 2 (29:28):
It was getting dark out then the phone rang I was.
Speaker 3 (29:32):
Like, holy shit, it's him.
Speaker 1 (29:34):
It was probably going on like eight thirty nine o'clock
at this point on a Friday night of a lot.
It was Labor Day weekend here in Canada. She picked up,
and I'm trying to be calm, cool and like, I
do not want to let him know that I'm onto him.
And I just remember this so well. I could hear
crickets in the background.
Speaker 2 (29:56):
Jase told her that he was in the city for
the night.
Speaker 3 (30:00):
He's like, Oh, I just got back to the offices.
We just finished up.
Speaker 1 (30:03):
I'm like, oh, wow, that's really late. That's so weird though,
because you know, I grew up in Toronto. I've never
heard crickets, never heard crickets.
Speaker 2 (30:11):
Heather tried to hide her suspicion, but it was hard.
Speaker 1 (30:16):
And I said, I feel like I don't even know
who you are anymore, Jace, And it was like, what
do you mean. I was like, I've gone from spending
every weekend with you to now, like the past month,
it's nine o'clock on a Friday night and I have
no idea what you're doing this weekend, Like we're supposed
to be working on our relationship, and I just feel
like I don't even know who you are.
Speaker 3 (30:35):
Anymore.
Speaker 2 (30:36):
He recommended that they talk over dinner on Sunday, and
Heather agreed.
Speaker 1 (30:40):
And within minutes of getting off the phone, I refreshed
and I was logged out of all the different accounts
that I had been in, and I was like, uh oh.
Speaker 2 (30:51):
Jas must have heard the suspicion in Heather's voice. He
knew he'd been caught. Heather called her friend Kristen, who
rushed out to Aurora to help her figure out what
to do.
Speaker 1 (31:02):
She's now sitting on the couch reading through all the
screenshots and she's like, this is his job. I think
he's getting women to send him money.
Speaker 2 (31:11):
Heather's friend was right. He had never been a software
engineer for Oracle. His full time job was being a
con artist, a romance scammer. In the course of just
a few hours, Heather's understanding of the man she loved
had been completely rearranged. She saw that everything about him
was a carefully constructed character. The Jase she cared so
(31:33):
deeply for did not exist anymore, and now she was
faced with Jason Porter, a stranger. The next day, Heather's
sister and brother in law encouraged her to call the police.
Speaker 1 (31:47):
They sent two police officers to the house, and I
started telling the cops what I've discovered, and the cops
asked me if he had hurt me, and I said
physically and they said yes, and I was like, well no,
but I am scared, and I said to the cops,
can I get a restraining order? And they basically laughed
(32:08):
at me. They're like, no, we can't give you one.
And I was like, oh, okay, well that's okay. I
want to call a locksmith and change all the locks.
And I said I wouldn't advise you to do that, ma'am.
He is your co tenant and he has rights according
to the lease. And that's when I looked at them.
I was like, how can our release even be real?
Like the name on the lease is Jase Peretti. He's
(32:29):
not Jase Peretti. They just dismissed me, and then you know,
their parting words were basically, but if he does come
back to the house and you feel scared, call nine
one one and we'll come back.
Speaker 2 (32:42):
The police couldn't really do anything. I left Heather in shock,
I mean just belief, like just nauseatingly sick.
Speaker 1 (32:51):
The reality, I guess is slowly sinking in that my
life is all a fucking live.
Speaker 2 (32:57):
But Heather's parents had a plan been borrowing her dad's
car that full summer.
Speaker 1 (33:02):
Jace had been driving around in my dad's Mercedes SUV
because my dad had stopped driving. There had been no
payment and he was just freely driving around.
Speaker 2 (33:15):
Maybe they could have him arrested for car theft. Heather's
dad went to the police to explain the situation.
Speaker 3 (33:22):
The advice that the officer had given him was send
him a text message and just say that you want
your car backed by such and such a date and time,
and if you don't get it back, you're going to
call the police and report it stolen.
Speaker 2 (33:37):
That's what they did. Heather's dad texted Jace.
Speaker 1 (33:40):
As soon as my dad sent that, my phone's ringing
and it's him. And then I'm getting text messages saying
what the hell's going on. I'll be home in twenty minutes.
Speaker 2 (33:54):
Jace was on his way to the house at that point.
Speaker 3 (33:57):
He must have known the jig was up.
Speaker 2 (33:59):
Heather began to panic. She was grateful that she wasn't
alone and that her friend Kristen was there.
Speaker 1 (34:05):
Kristen is the one who called nine one one we're terrified.
It was a pretty big house and there was a
lot of doors, and I'm running around just like double
checking everything is locked.
Speaker 3 (34:17):
We're turning off all the lights.
Speaker 2 (34:19):
They debated whether it was safer to leave or stay
locked in the house.
Speaker 1 (34:23):
Christen's like, I think we should leave. I think we
should leave. I'm like, but we're like, where are we
going to go?
Speaker 3 (34:28):
I'm like, we're.
Speaker 1 (34:29):
Safe because, you know, like he can't get in the.
Speaker 2 (34:31):
Night before, despite the police's advice, Heather had changed the locks,
so she felt safe enough to stay.
Speaker 1 (34:38):
And the nine to one one ladies like, don't leave.
The police are on their way. The next thing you know,
we hear him coming down the driveway and he's in
my dad's car.
Speaker 3 (34:48):
Kristen's on the phone with nine to one one.
Speaker 1 (34:50):
She's saying, like he's hearing scair but he's at the back,
and she's like, just stay calm, just stay calm.
Speaker 3 (34:55):
The police have been dispatched, they're on the way.
Speaker 1 (34:57):
She's like, where the.
Speaker 4 (34:58):
Fuck are they?
Speaker 3 (34:59):
I can hear my heart something.
Speaker 1 (35:01):
It came down the driveway and beside the garage is
a side door, and then you're in the mudroom, so
I hear him like, put his key in there.
Speaker 3 (35:08):
Then I hear him come to the front door, same thing.
Put his key in didn't work.
Speaker 2 (35:13):
She was relieved.
Speaker 1 (35:15):
And then the next thing, I note he's come in
through the dining room window.
Speaker 2 (35:20):
He had broken into the house. Heather felt a surge
of adrenaline and she made a snap decision.
Speaker 1 (35:26):
And I like bolt out of the bedroom screaming. I said,
I know who you are. I know you're Jason Porter.
I know you've been online dating, I know you've been
in prison.
Speaker 3 (35:40):
I know everything.
Speaker 2 (35:43):
But Jace was unfazed.
Speaker 1 (35:45):
He's in the kitchen going to the coffee machine to
make himself an espresso.
Speaker 3 (35:50):
And he literally looks at me and shrugs and he's like.
Speaker 2 (35:53):
So minutes later the cops arrived.
Speaker 1 (35:58):
I'm like freaking out. He's so calm and cool and collected.
Speaker 2 (36:03):
One of the cops took Jason's side to talk with
him one on one.
Speaker 1 (36:07):
And I was like, what's going on, Like why aren't
you arresting him? And they're like, he's claiming you assaulted him. Heather,
I couldn't even believe what I was hearing. I guess
that night we had the fight five weeks prior now,
he's claiming I assaulted him, and apparently there's some sort
(36:28):
of proof.
Speaker 2 (36:30):
Heather told them that never happened.
Speaker 1 (36:33):
I said, you know, this guy is a master photoshopper
and he can edit videos like whatever the evidence is,
it's not real. And they said, Jace is not going
to press charges tonight.
Speaker 3 (36:47):
However, he is.
Speaker 1 (36:49):
Reinstating himself in the house and you have to give
him one of the new keys.
Speaker 2 (36:54):
Heather was incredulous. She couldn't believe the police's response.
Speaker 1 (37:00):
They said to me, if you don't feel safe, you
should leave. The police left and they left us in
the house together.
Speaker 2 (37:10):
As soon as the police left, Jace jumped into action.
Speaker 1 (37:14):
Jace goes into the office, which also had two French doors,
and he took an iPhone cord and wrapped it around
so I couldn't come in. And he sat there and
he erased the computer and then he comes out and
he was like, I'll be back tomorrow early.
Speaker 2 (37:31):
Heather wanted to be gone by the time he came back.
Speaker 1 (37:35):
I loaded up the car with as much as I could,
and Kristin brilliantly walked through the entire house and the
entire downstairs where the showroom was and made recordings saying
this is Heather's, this is Heather's, this is Heather, this
is the business that's Jase's.
Speaker 2 (37:51):
About a week later, Heather returned to the house for
the first time.
Speaker 3 (37:55):
There were already things missing. He had taken my Dyson,
he took the Google speakers, he took my go program
like he took all the stuff.
Speaker 2 (38:04):
During this time, Heather found out Jace had a new girlfriend.
Speaker 1 (38:08):
He was taking things that were mine and giving them
to her. So the whole month I thought he was
living at the office or sleeping in his car, yet
in fact moved in with this other woman.
Speaker 2 (38:20):
She later learned that when she'd gone to the city
for a few days and Jace mentioned washing the sheets,
it was because his new girlfriend had been at the
house and had slept in her bed. Heather's parents decided
to press charges for the stolen jewel rate. Jace agreed
to turn himself in, but before he did, he showed
(38:41):
up at the Aurora house and asked Heather to let
him in to talk one last time.
Speaker 1 (38:46):
I sat down at the kitchen table and he's leaning
at the island, and he still said, you know, you're
the best thing that ever happened to me other I
loved you. He tried to convince me he never cheated
on me, and this is all just a big misunderstanding.
This is just going to devastate my son.
Speaker 2 (39:03):
The son she'd never met. In that moment, Heather felt
split in two.
Speaker 1 (39:09):
And there's a part of me that's looking at him, going,
I love this person. My heart still looks at him
and feels love. And then there's the other side of
me that's like disbelief. And he's stole all your mom's
jewelry and he's a predator.
Speaker 2 (39:26):
She saw through the facade.
Speaker 1 (39:28):
And I was like, you did all this, like you're
still gaslighting me. You're still trying to turn this around
and make it like it's my fault. And he left,
and he went off and got arrested.
Speaker 2 (39:43):
In September of twenty twenty one. He was arrested for
theft under five thousand dollars and possession of property obtained
by crime. When Jason raised the computer at their house
in Aurora, he deleted a lot of evidence. Heather and
her family hired a lawyer to help them prove that
Jay stole far more than five thousand dollars from them.
(40:05):
Heather wanted to get out of the house she shared
with Jase. She began to sell off their belongings. She
listed the furniture she bought for Jason's son on Facebook
marketplace and began clearing out the kid's bedroom, which had
sat empty during their whole relationship.
Speaker 1 (40:22):
Then I see this, like all the stuff under the bed.
Speaker 3 (40:25):
I'm like, what's this that?
Speaker 1 (40:27):
So I pull it out and it's a plastic bag
just stuffed to with like papers.
Speaker 2 (40:33):
These were court documents, and.
Speaker 1 (40:35):
I realized I'm staring at all his things from family
court and I'm reading that he was only ever going
to have these twice a week supervised visits.
Speaker 3 (40:46):
There was no custody battle.
Speaker 2 (40:49):
Jason Porter does have a son. In fact, he has
more than one child, though Heather only ever heard about one,
but his custody arrangement had been decided in February twenty nineteen,
a year before Heather and Jace moved in together. The
hope that Jason Heather would have unsupervised visits or sleepovers
with his son was never a reality. The central tension
(41:12):
of their relationship Heather waiting to meet his son, the
custody battle. It was all manufactured.
Speaker 3 (41:20):
There was no lawyer, there was no nothing. It was
all a lie.
Speaker 1 (41:26):
I had been deceived for over three years about this
family court situation that didn't exist. And also in that
bag were the birthday cards and Christmas cards I had
given his son.
Speaker 2 (41:39):
And that wasn't all. As she continued to clean out
the house, Heather found more and more.
Speaker 1 (41:46):
There were my mom's missing credit cards. There were all
these SIM cards and credit cards and a burner phone.
I can't even believe what I'm looking at.
Speaker 2 (41:58):
Jace didn't have to post bail, and shortly after being arrested,
he was released again.
Speaker 1 (42:04):
August of Tember October of twenty twenty one, or probably
three of the worst months of my life because it
was just exhausting.
Speaker 2 (42:11):
And what made it even harder was that she got
little to no help from the police.
Speaker 1 (42:16):
I realized when the police weren't going to help me,
I wanted answers. I wanted somebody to hold this guy accountable.
Speaker 2 (42:25):
She got in touch with a local journalist at Toronto
Life magazine.
Speaker 3 (42:30):
They do often some really great investigative.
Speaker 1 (42:33):
Stories, and maybe like a week later, I was sitting
down with a journalist, Jane Gerster, and she was incredible
I realized if I hold on to feeling embarrassed and
ashamed about what he did to me, it just gives
him more power and more fuel.
Speaker 2 (42:53):
Heather wanted to take back her story, and she wanted
to stop jas. This article would be a great way
to do that. When the piece came out.
Speaker 1 (43:02):
Within days, I'm having people reach out to me, and
I'm like, oh my god, I'm connecting with more victims
of his, and I have more people just randomly reaching
out to me.
Speaker 2 (43:12):
She learned really quickly the scale of Jason Porter's con.
He had scammed so many women, and their stories all
followed the same pattern. Jace posed as the perfect boyfriend
in order to gain access to their possessions. The story
being out in the open allowed them to come together.
Speaker 1 (43:30):
All the women I've connected with, they're lovely, Leslie. I
talked to her yesterday. I talked to her all the time.
She is such an beautiful, amazing woman. Judy, I have
so much respect for her. She is such a titan
in business. And there's some that I still haven't even
met in person, But like every now and then one
(43:50):
of them will call and I'll be like, I was
thinking about you.
Speaker 2 (43:55):
Jay's hurt a lot of people. It took three and
a half years for Heather to finally see her day
in court. Once everything was uncovered, Heather's family learned that
Jace stole over fifty thousand dollars in value from them
through stolen property. Purchase is made with Heather's credit card,
unpaid bills, and more. But because Jay's deleted everything off
(44:16):
the computer, there wasn't enough evidence to prove the full
extent of his crimes.
Speaker 1 (44:23):
In January of twenty twenty four, we finally were set
to start the trial, and as luck would have it,
Jace's lawyer was sick that day, so everybody got sent
home and court was going to readjourn on Wednesday and
I was going to be the first witness up. I
get a phone call from the opp detective saying, don't
(44:45):
bother coming to court. Court's been adjourned. Why, well, some
very serious allegations have been brought forward. He said, did
you see flyers the other day at court? I'm like flyars, Like,
what are you talking about?
Speaker 2 (45:00):
The courthouse had been canvassed with flyers campaigning against Jace.
Speaker 1 (45:06):
And it's a picture of Jace and it says guilty
Jace Parati, and he said, they basically implicate you for
jury tampering. Heather.
Speaker 2 (45:19):
It looked like someone was trying to bias the jury
against him and that could have serious consequences.
Speaker 1 (45:26):
At the very bottom of the flyer, it says something like,
if you have more information or would like to be interviewed,
contact heatherovet at Gmail or call and it was my
phone number, but I'm like, oh, he actually got my
phone number wrong by one digit.
Speaker 2 (45:45):
The police began investigating who was behind the flyers.
Speaker 1 (45:50):
Jace was eventually arrested or obstruction of justice, jury tampering,
and Detective con said to me, these are very serious allegations.
These actually hold way more weight than the theft and crime.
Speaker 2 (46:05):
On January twentieth, twenty twenty five, Jas pled guilty to
one count of theft of property over five thousand dollars
and one count of possession of property obtained by crime
over five thousand dollars.
Speaker 3 (46:18):
Two months later, there was a sentencing hearing and we
got to read our victim impact statements and I went
in person and he was there and he wouldn't look
at me, he wouldn't acknowledge me.
Speaker 2 (46:32):
The judge ended up giving him more time than the
prosecutors asked for.
Speaker 3 (46:37):
So he got two years last one day.
Speaker 1 (46:39):
She definitely made a point of referencing that it wasn't
just a robbery and theft. It was calculated, done over
a length of time. There was the intimacy and bringing
him into my family. He really betrayed our trust. The
judge ordered him into and he was led away in handcuffs.
Speaker 2 (47:03):
After her trial, Heather had to focus on healing and
rebuilding her life.
Speaker 1 (47:08):
I had two therapists. I did a lot of amdr
for the trauma. I've gotten way more into meditating and
Kundalini yoga.
Speaker 3 (47:17):
I know it all helps.
Speaker 2 (47:19):
Another part of her healing has been sharing her story.
Heather told her story on a documentary alongside other women
that were victimized by Jason Porter.
Speaker 1 (47:29):
By talking publicly, I felt like it gave me back
my story, like it gave me control, It gave me confidence,
it gave me.
Speaker 3 (47:38):
The power back.
Speaker 2 (47:40):
She's become a face of the movement to criminalize and
stop serial romance gammers.
Speaker 1 (47:46):
And after all of this, it's still not a crime
what he did to me. You know, I really hope
that times change and I just wish the system would
recognize the emotional abuse, especially if it's from a known felon.
Speaker 2 (48:04):
It's helping her and she hopes her story brings awareness.
Speaker 3 (48:08):
My story is not unique.
Speaker 1 (48:11):
There is a Jason Jason in every town, city, province,
country around the world. One in twenty five people are
a sociopath, psychopath, narcissist, whatever. If something doesn't feel right,
you ought to be able to speak to that person
(48:34):
and get a straight answer. But it's very hard when
you are being conditioned, groomed, love bombed and you're not
thinking straight. And I do think those little nudges of
not feeling right, it's easy to ignore them, but I
do think that's like your deepest intuition, Like that's something
in you that's saying like, uh huh, that doesn't listen, listen,
(48:57):
and it's a soft whisper, but I think we have
to listen to that.
Speaker 2 (49:09):
We end every weekly episode with the same question, why
do you want to share your story?
Speaker 3 (49:16):
Your podcast?
Speaker 1 (49:17):
I feel helps heal the internal bruises that we can't see,
like you just feel this, like, oh my god, it's
not just me.
Speaker 3 (49:28):
I'm not so alone.
Speaker 1 (49:29):
I'm not making up how I'm feeling like it's so validating.
It's that human heart connection that's so important. When you
tell your story, you're taking ownership of it, and that
is so empowering.
Speaker 2 (49:47):
If you want to watch Heather's documentary, you can find
it on Amazon Prime. It's called rom Con. Who the
f Is? Jason Porter On the next episode of Betrayal Weekly.
Speaker 4 (50:01):
She made it seem like it was a normal thing.
But we'd have gold bars. A gold bar. I remember
at the time it being like ten thousand dollars. It
was like the slow burn to like that wasn't weird
to me. I don't think I was even always told
what I was doing. I just did whatever she asked
me to do.
Speaker 2 (50:23):
If you would like to reach out to the Betrayal
team or want to tell us your Betrayal story, email
us at Betrayalpod at gmail dot com. That's Betrayal Pod
at gmail dot com, or follow us on Instagram at
Betrayal Pod. You can also connect with me on Instagram
at It's Andrea Gunning. To access our newsletter, view additional content,
(50:45):
and connect with the Betrayal community, join our substack at
Betrayal dot substack dot com. We're grateful for your support.
One way to show support is by subscribing to our
show on Apple Podcasts and don't forget to rate and
review Betrayal VI Star reviews, Go a Long Way. A
big thank you to all of our listeners. Betrayal is
a production of Glass Podcasts, a division of Glass Entertainment
(51:08):
Group and partnership with iHeart Podcasts. The show is executive
produced by Nancy Glass and Jennifer Fason, hosted and produced
by me Andrea Gunning. This episode was written and produced
by Olivia Hewitt and Monique Leboard, with additional production from
Ben Fetterman. Casting support from Curry Richmond. Our iHeart team
(51:28):
is Ali Perry and Jessica Krincheck.
Speaker 5 (51:31):
Audio editing and mixing by Matt del Vecchio. Additional audio
editing by Tanner Robbins. Betrayal's theme composed by Oliver Bains.
Music library provided by my.
Speaker 2 (51:42):
Music And For more podcasts from iHeart, visit the iHeartRadio app,
Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.
It's not like he was cheating on me, because I
don't think you can call it cheating when what you
do is prey on women, when you are a hunter
trying to find more victims.
Speaker 2 (00:29):
I'm Andrea Gunning and this is Betrayal, a show about
the people we trust the most and the deceptions that
change everything. Heather Rovett is the middle child in a
tight knit family.
Speaker 1 (00:45):
I have an older brother and a younger sister. We
were all very close in age.
Speaker 2 (00:50):
She loved growing up in Toronto, Canada. Her childhood was
filled with all the best.
Speaker 1 (00:55):
Things, joy and fun and love and adventure and kindness.
Speaker 2 (01:03):
Her parents had a great marriage.
Speaker 1 (01:06):
My parents met in high school and were high school sweethearts,
and he would look at my mom with such adoration.
Speaker 2 (01:13):
They also taught her the value of building a meaningful career.
Speaker 1 (01:17):
My mom was a child psychologist neuroscientist. She's very, very smart,
and my father was a lawyer who specialized primarily in
labor law.
Speaker 2 (01:34):
Through high school and university, Heather dated and fell in
love a few times.
Speaker 1 (01:38):
I've always been able to flirt with guys and there's
been interest, but it wasn't my main focus to have
a boyfriend or seek male attention.
Speaker 2 (01:52):
After graduating from university, Heather carved her own path.
Speaker 1 (01:56):
I became a real estate salesperson and then two years
later I upgraded to broker.
Speaker 2 (02:03):
The career came easily to Heather.
Speaker 1 (02:06):
I can see how you can transform a space or
how you can make it your home. I just had
this tenacity and energy.
Speaker 2 (02:15):
Over the next ten years, Heather gained recognition in Toronto's
real estate scene. By her late thirties, she had built
a career she loved.
Speaker 1 (02:23):
I loved working and it paid off, and then it
allowed me to do cool things too, like go on trips.
Speaker 2 (02:31):
She also made a good amount of money. She decided
to renovate her condo in Toronto and she invested some
of her funds with a financial advisor.
Speaker 1 (02:40):
I would meet with him quarterly and he would show
me paperwork of how my money was doing, and I
thought it was great. And when push came to shove
and I wanted to sell and get my money back,
he basically disappeared.
Speaker 2 (02:55):
She'd been scammed.
Speaker 1 (02:57):
He got arrested and there was about five of their people.
He did this too. The sad thing is, even though
he was found guilty and ordered to pay the restitution.
I never saw a penny.
Speaker 2 (03:14):
She lost one hundred and twenty seven thousand dollars. The
scam was damaging, not only financially, but also to her
sense of trust in other people. But with time, Heather
accepted the loss and was able to rebuild. She was
in her mid forties and single. She managed to pull
together the funds to finish renovating her condo.
Speaker 1 (03:34):
And I transformed that condo into a beautiful space. And
then one day I noticed, you know, there were just
some things that weren't quite right.
Speaker 2 (03:43):
Heather noticed an issue with the cabinets, so she called
the company who had installed them. They agreed to send
someone out to take a look.
Speaker 1 (03:51):
He was like, no problem, we have a new service guy.
He's great. I'm going to give him your contact info
and he'll be in touch and probably a week later.
On a Monday morning in July, I woke up to
a text message, this is Jace, and I was hoping
I could come by today to fix the outstanding work.
An hour later, there was a knock at my door
(04:12):
and I was greeted by this very ruggedly cute guy.
I was a little befuddled. I found myself a little
tongue tied and was like, oh wow, sure, come on in.
Speaker 2 (04:32):
Jace got to work fixing the cabinets in her kitchen,
and afterwards I asked.
Speaker 1 (04:37):
Him if he could help me hang a couple towel
bars up in the bathrooms, and he happily obliged. We
were about three quarters of the way through hanging the
second one and his phone was ringing and he was like,
oh my gosh, I'm so behind schedule. I gotta go.
He goes, do you have this? I'm like, I got it,
don't worry. But she didn't have it, and I kind
(05:02):
of made more of a mess of it. Was on
an angle, and I noticed on my kitchen island was
his measuring tape. So I called him and said, you
left your measuring tape here, and by the way, I've
made a mess of this towel bar. And he laughed
and he said, you know what, I'm literally ten minutes away.
Why don't I swing back over and we'll fix it.
(05:22):
And he comes in and within two minutes it's fixed.
Speaker 2 (05:25):
Heather offered to treat Jase to lunch to thank him
for going out of his way, and he agreed.
Speaker 1 (05:33):
Over lunch, we started talking and I did share with
him about, you know, the stress of the renovation and
the guy who stole my money.
Speaker 2 (05:42):
Jase was sympathetic. He was also going through his own
legal battle.
Speaker 1 (05:46):
I learned a little bit more about him. He had
a child, and he was going through family court, and
he had his own software engineering business, but he was
winding that down because of the divorce. I was like,
this is so great. This guy just is so easy,
easy to talk to.
Speaker 2 (06:02):
Jace used to be a software engineer, but after a
difficult separation, he decided to take a break from office work.
He wanted a job working with his hands, which is
how he got into carpentry. At the end of their lunch,
Jace insisted on paying.
Speaker 1 (06:17):
I walked him back to his truck and he said,
you know, if you need any more help around the condo.
I know he didn't get everything done, message me call
me anytime. I'm like, okay.
Speaker 2 (06:28):
On our walk home, she couldn't stop smiling.
Speaker 1 (06:32):
Oh my gosh, was I just flirting?
Speaker 2 (06:34):
Like that guy was really cute. Later that evening, she
decided to try and tackle some other projects herself.
Speaker 1 (06:41):
I went to look for what I like to call
my single girl toolbox, which is a hammer, a leveler,
and the one screwdriver. And I couldn't find my screwdriver anywhere,
so she texted Jace. I just said, hey, you didn't
happen to see a green screwdriver? And he wrote back
(07:02):
He's like, well, what can I say? I found myself
later in the day in possession of your screwdriver and
I didn't know what to do with it, if I
should be honest or just return it.
Speaker 2 (07:13):
He told her that he was holding her screwdriver hostage.
She thought it was cute funny even.
Speaker 1 (07:20):
That led to about two weeks of really flirtatious banter
over text, and I thought it was really fun. Every
time I got a text from him. It was like
like an endorphin hic.
Speaker 2 (07:37):
They started texting every day. Jase wasn't shy about his
attraction to her.
Speaker 1 (07:42):
I remember he sent this one message and he said,
just please tell me you know how sexy you are, Heather.
I'm like what, And I jokingly said, well, you should
see me when I'm really cleaned up.
Speaker 3 (07:53):
I mean you met me.
Speaker 1 (07:54):
I was like just rolled out of bed, lol, and
he said no, it's not that. He goes like, it's
your mind like to know how freaking sexy that is
to me. And I was like, wow, this is so refreshing,
Like this guy isn't just about how I look. He
liked my mind, like this is awesome. So there was
this tension that was definitely building and this flirtation.
Speaker 2 (08:18):
Finally, after two weeks of flirting, Jason asked her out
on a proper date.
Speaker 1 (08:24):
He showed up on a motorcycle, which I thought was
really sexy. We walked to a cute little Italian restaurant
around the corner from my house.
Speaker 2 (08:36):
It was a great date and Heather learned more about him.
Speaker 1 (08:40):
He shared with me how his mom had died when
he was a teenager, and he talked a bit more
about the custody battle and I asked him and I'm like,
that's pretty heavy stuff, like how do you deal with
that much loss and that much pain? And he said,
I put it all in boxes.
Speaker 2 (08:58):
He was being really vulnerable with her, and she was
impressed with how he was able to deal with everything
he had gone through. She found it really attractive.
Speaker 1 (09:09):
The date ended and we walked back to my place
and we're both sort of shuffling in the doorway and
I'm like, in my mind going is he going to
kiss me? And I was like, fuck it, I'm just
going to go for it. So I leaned in to
kiss him. I was like, hey, thanks By, that was
really fun. And next thing I know, he's pushed me
up against the wall and we start making out. And
(09:30):
this kiss was like a kiss I've never experienced before.
Speaker 2 (09:34):
It was passionate and intense. Jace left her in the doorway, stunned.
Speaker 3 (09:40):
I went to.
Speaker 1 (09:41):
Sleep that night with the biggest smile on my face.
When I woke up the next morning, there was already
a text message from him saying, good morning, Heather. It's
a beautiful day and I hope you're spoiling like something
cheesy but lovely, and I was like wow.
Speaker 2 (09:56):
The next night, Jace came over to her place.
Speaker 1 (09:59):
And he brought a bottle of wine. In my mind,
I'm thinking, this is like, really, your second date with
this guy? You don't know him, you know, should you
do the whole like three date rule or is it
a three week rule or a three month rule or
I don't know. And all of a sudden, whatever self
imposed rules I had were just out the window.
Speaker 2 (10:31):
They couldn't wait to see each other again. It was
the start of a summer romance.
Speaker 1 (10:36):
A couple weeks later, he took me out and bought
me a motorcycle helmet, and we that summer went everywhere
on the motorcycle. It was so fun. We had such
a good time. I loved every minute of it. I
don't think I slept a whole night for at least
three months, because I just was so excited having this
(11:00):
gorgeous human being lying beside me. I was like, oh
my god, am I dreaming? This is crazy?
Speaker 2 (11:07):
And soon enough we.
Speaker 1 (11:08):
Were saying I love you. He said it first.
Speaker 2 (11:12):
Heather introduced Jace to her family in September.
Speaker 1 (11:17):
He met my mom and she really liked him. My birthday,
which is in October, he met my sister and her boyfriend,
and then a couple weeks later he met my dad.
Speaker 2 (11:30):
It was harder for her to meet Jace's family because
a lot of them still lived in Italy.
Speaker 1 (11:35):
He was born in Italy, and both his Italian grandfathers
fought in World War Two for the Allies.
Speaker 2 (11:42):
He came from a fascinating background.
Speaker 1 (11:45):
When my friends started meeting him, they all thought he
was pretty great, and I was just so happy. Life
was pretty electric, even like the simple activities going grocery
shopping became fun because I wasn't doing it alone anymore,
and I felt that my future was limitless and we
were just going to live the best life ever.
Speaker 2 (12:29):
Heather Rovett had a meet cute with a man who
fixed her kitchen cabinets. His name was Jace Peretti. Heather
and Jace fell hard and fast, and a whirlwind summer
romance turned into a solid relationship.
Speaker 1 (12:43):
My second birthday with him, he said, check your email
and I said okay, And I looked at my email
and there were Airic Canada tickets from Toronto to Rome.
Speaker 3 (12:54):
And I looked at him.
Speaker 1 (12:55):
I was like, we're going to Italy. And he said
we're going to Italy and I was like, wow, Wow,
I can't believe we're going to go.
Speaker 2 (13:02):
During this time, Jace was dealing with a lot of stress.
He went in more time with his young son, but
he and his ex were constantly in and out of
family court.
Speaker 1 (13:12):
It was really hard for him. He had been the
primary parent because he was working from home, so he
went from spending all this time with his kid to
now only seeing him two times a week for supervised visits.
Speaker 2 (13:27):
When Heather asked Jace about the custody arrangement.
Speaker 1 (13:30):
He explained because he had both a Canadian and an
Italian passport. Her lawyer put the idea into her mind
and the court that Jace had the capability of kidnapping
their son and taking him to Italy.
Speaker 2 (13:47):
She felt for jas he wasn't that guy. He loved
his son.
Speaker 1 (13:53):
He would go to the town she was living in
and he would take him out for dinner, and then
he would take him home and tuck him in and
say good night to him, read them stories.
Speaker 2 (14:01):
Heather and Jace had been together for two years. They
were living together in Toronto, but she had never met
his son. With this custody arrangement, it put their relationship
in a holding pattern.
Speaker 1 (14:13):
Honestly, not meeting his son and the family court was
the albatross around our relationship's neck. It was the only
thing we would fight about. I just couldn't understand that
the family court was taking so long. I was like,
this is so unfair.
Speaker 2 (14:31):
Heather was trying to help Jace regain some agency in
the situation. She tried to help him in any way
she could.
Speaker 1 (14:39):
I was like, you need a lawyer. So I had
arranged a meeting for him with another very well known
Toronto family lawyer, and she said, the trials just around
the corner and things will get settled. Let's hold off
on introducing Heather for now.
Speaker 2 (14:59):
It was frustrating, but Heather didn't want to do anything
that would compromise Jason's custody of his son. She agreed
it was best to wait until everything was settled to
bring his son into their lives. In the meantime, she
wanted to set up their home so when the time came,
they would be prepared to welcome him.
Speaker 1 (15:19):
I turned the guest room into a little boy's room,
and I had toys for him and books for him
and games for him. And I spent two weeks online
trying to find like the perfect duvet cover for his
bedroom because I was so obsessed with making everything amazing
for him, and I couldn't wait for him to come
and start having sleepovers at our house.
Speaker 2 (15:37):
But every time she got her hopes.
Speaker 1 (15:39):
Up, something would happen, and it just kept being pushed back.
And then I remember in early February, he came home
and he was a little upset, and he said, you're
never going to believe it. Heather, but the trial has
been set and it's one. We're in Italy.
Speaker 2 (16:00):
Jays had to be at the trial. There was no
way around it.
Speaker 1 (16:05):
I said, wow, okay, well, obviously we're not going to Italy,
like we've been waiting for this now for two and
a half years. Like, we'll just postpone the trip. I'll
cancel the hotels and whatnot.
Speaker 2 (16:18):
They canceled their trip to Italy. When the day of
the trial came, he came home and he said, yeah,
things are good. We have a two week adjournment and
then we're going back and she has to provide me
with a full repayment schedule for the house and the
line of credit that she shut me out of. And
(16:39):
most importantly, instead of having two supervised visits a week,
they were going to start phasing into unsupervised and then
one night's sleepover on the weekend.
Speaker 1 (16:50):
And I was like, this is so great. I was like, yes,
thank you, finally, finally, finally.
Speaker 2 (16:56):
It was good news, but terrible timing.
Speaker 1 (16:59):
And then in that two week window, COVID happened and
the whole world got locked down, which meant no family court.
Speaker 2 (17:08):
It was March twenty twenty and Toronto went into lockdown. Soon,
Heather and Jason began looking at houses to rent outside
the city.
Speaker 1 (17:16):
I wanted space and solitude. I found this house for
rent and it was perfect, and it was on five
acres of property. It had this beautiful family room with
a vaulted ceiling and a wood burning fireplace.
Speaker 2 (17:33):
They signed the lease together and moved to Aurora, Ontario.
It was exactly the refuge they hoped it would be.
Speaker 1 (17:40):
That winter, we had fires almost every day. I love
that house. I remember one day, a couple weeks after
we moved in, we were standing on the back deck
and there's wild turkeys and often you'd see deer and bunnies.
And he said this would be the best place to
have a backyard, and I was like, yes, it would.
Speaker 2 (18:04):
They started daydreaming about throwing a big celebration at the
house once COVID restrictions lifted. During the lockdown, Heather and
Jace had to find new ways to connect with friends
and family. Heather called her mom often.
Speaker 1 (18:18):
My mom probably back in April, called and she was like, Heath,
have you seen my bracelet or have you seen this necklace?
And I'm like no, And I'd get off the phone
and I'd look at Jace and I'm like, I think
my mom's starting to like forget things, you know, she
seems to be misplacing all her stuff. It was just
(18:39):
like one thing after the other with her, Like my
grandmother died of dementia.
Speaker 2 (18:46):
Dementia ran in Heather's family, but there wasn't much they
could do from Afar. Plus, the pandemic had destabilized both
Heather and Jays financially. He had just started a new
remote job back in software development.
Speaker 1 (19:00):
He'd gotten this job for Oracle, but even when we
moved to Aurora and we had to pay the first
and last month's rent and a security deposit, I ended
up paying for all of it because he didn't have
anything saved. How can this be like you're getting Oracle
paychecks when push came to shove, he just never seemed
to have money.
Speaker 2 (19:21):
Between his custody battle and COVID, Jace had depleted his savings,
but what was in his bank account didn't matter to Heather.
She could support the both of them. The bigger issue
for her was that she still hadn't met Jase's son.
Speaker 1 (19:36):
I had set up the room for his son in
the house, and he still kept going two times a
week on his supervised visits to see his son. I'm
starting to really resent the situation.
Speaker 2 (19:48):
At the end of twenty twenty, Heather bought a furniture
and a core business and moved the inventory into their.
Speaker 1 (19:54):
Home, and when we moved to Aurora, Jay started getting
really into building furniture. I was like, well, that's a
no brainer. I can sell all that inventory and make
my investment back tenfold, and we can sell all this furniture.
Speaker 2 (20:10):
Jace was working more and more at Oracle. He was
coming home late, and when he was home he was
exhausted from working long hours. He never seemed to have
energy for Heather or for their new furniture business. The
couple started getting in fights more often.
Speaker 1 (20:28):
By June of twenty twenty one, I was getting frustrated
with my life with him because I felt like the
world's opening up and here we are, and he seems
to always be working and he never wants to do anything,
and I just felt very isolated. She wasn't happy, so
(20:50):
I was like, fuck it, and I said something like,
you know, if you're not into this relationship, just tell me.
And then that turned into a pretty escalated, heated argument,
and he left, and I felt really bad and said,
(21:10):
do you know, I think I'm going to go down
to the city for a couple of days just to
give us a bit of space.
Speaker 2 (21:16):
Heather wanted to actually talk with him. Something was going on,
but he wasn't giving her anything. After a few days apart,
Heather headed back to their house.
Speaker 1 (21:28):
And I call him and he said, oh, hey, I'm
just about to go tea off. I'm like, what, you're
in golfing and he goes, I'm not quite ready to
forgive you yet.
Speaker 2 (21:39):
Forgive her for what she hadn't done anything, but Jays
hung up the phone.
Speaker 1 (21:46):
He finally gets home from golfing and he goes by
the way, I washed the sheets, the DVA cover still
in the dryer. I was just crying, like, I don't
understand what's going on. The more I cried, the more
he was actually getting kind of angry stranded. I started going,
this just doesn't seem normal. But I just kept saying,
you know what, we'll get through it. We love each
(22:07):
other and we'll get through this. But August twenty twenty
one was such a brutal month because he just stopped
coming home. He was claiming he was sleeping in the
car or sleeping at the office, and he would randomly
stop by the house to like pick something up.
Speaker 2 (22:28):
Heather had uprooted her life to be with Jase. She'd
supported him financially for years. She decorated a bedroom for
his son to stay in, but all of a sudden,
a switch had flipped. Jayce had discarded her. Heather didn't
know what to do.
Speaker 1 (22:44):
I've gone through the whole month of August alone, living
in this big house by myself, and just hurting so badly.
Every effort I made to mend us, he just spat
veno and back and it was a really scary time.
Speaker 2 (23:05):
Then one afternoon, Heather was doing work on her laptop.
When signing into one of her accounts, a screen popped
up with all of her saved passwords, including the login
for Jace's email. Heather wondered if his email account might
hold some of the answers she couldn't get from jas himself,
so she typed in his password.
Speaker 1 (23:26):
All of a sudden, I'm in his email.
Speaker 2 (23:29):
She started scrolling through his inbox, expecting to find work
emails and messages from friends, but instead.
Speaker 1 (23:37):
It's bumble match, bad news like He's on every dating app.
Speaker 2 (23:42):
I'm like, what The emails revealed dozens of relationships Jace
was having with other women. Heather couldn't believe what she
was seeing. She kept scrolling.
Speaker 1 (23:53):
That began me going down hours of rabbit holes and
emails and greenshots. Then I got further and I started
seeing Kijigi ads.
Speaker 2 (24:08):
Kijigi is like the Canadian version of Craigslist. People post
items for sale. Heather's all emails confirming sales Jace made
through the site.
Speaker 1 (24:18):
It was a Kidjigi ad for Tiffany bracelet, Tiffany ring
and click on it. I'm like, oh my god, what
the fuck that's my mom's stuff.
Speaker 2 (24:55):
For months, Jace was growing more and more distant. Everything
Heather did to try and reconnect only pushed him further away.
One day, Heather accidentally logged into Jesse's email and discovered
he was using multiple dating apps. Heather was horrified the
man who she'd built a life with for the last
(25:16):
three years had dozens of other relationships. As she scrolled
through his inbox, she saw something else that made her
stomach drop. Jas was selling jewelry online, and Heather recognized
the pieces.
Speaker 1 (25:32):
The first one I opened was for this tiffany necklace.
It was a white gold circle with diamonds and a
simple chain. I'm like, I'm pretty sure that's my mom's necklace,
you know. I got pictures of her wearing it.
Speaker 2 (25:50):
Looking through the rest of Jase's jewelry sales only confirmed
what she feared. He had been stealing her mom's jewelry
for years and selling it online.
Speaker 3 (26:01):
I was just horrified that he could do that.
Speaker 2 (26:06):
And horrified by how long he had been doing it for.
Speaker 3 (26:10):
It wasn't like he just did it all at one
foul swoop.
Speaker 1 (26:13):
It wasn't like a break and enter where you're just
like throwing everything in a bag and getting out of there.
Speaker 2 (26:19):
The dates of the jewelry sales told an eerie story.
Jace had been stealing it piece by piece. He would
steal a necklace when they went over to her parents'
house for dinner, and then the next time it would
be ear rings. Because he did this so slowly and insidiously,
it took Heather's mom months to even notice, and.
Speaker 1 (26:38):
It wouldn't be until she eventually like opened the entire
safe box that she saw it was all empty. All
the bags and boxes were there.
Speaker 2 (26:49):
Heather sat in front of her laptop, seething. She wanted
an explanation.
Speaker 3 (26:55):
I called him. He didn't answer.
Speaker 2 (26:57):
She knew he would twist this, try to explain his
way out of it. She would need proof of everything
she was seeing, so she got to work.
Speaker 1 (27:06):
I just took screenshot after screenshot, and I just sat
there for hours.
Speaker 2 (27:12):
As she took screenshots of everything, the full extent of
his deception became clear. Jace had another life since the beginning.
Speaker 1 (27:23):
And when I went back and went through the email,
I'm seeing email after email of like you're a match,
You're a match, going back our entire relationship.
Speaker 2 (27:35):
Then she came across an email that changed everything. It
was about his family court proceedings. Heather clicked on the attachment.
Her eyes locked on a line at the top of
the page name of respondent Jason Porter. It was a
completely different name. The document made no mention of Jace PERETTI.
Speaker 1 (27:55):
My stomach went up in my throat, and my throat
went in my stomach, and I felt cold and hot
at the same time.
Speaker 2 (28:02):
So she googled Jason Porter.
Speaker 1 (28:06):
I was just shocked. At the very end of twenty eleven,
there was a warrant out for his.
Speaker 3 (28:11):
Arrest, and all the news.
Speaker 1 (28:13):
Outlets were picking it up here in Ontario and they
dubbed him the online Romeo because he had been meeting
women and stealing from them.
Speaker 3 (28:27):
This cannot be my Jase.
Speaker 1 (28:29):
This is not my life, This is not the man
I love.
Speaker 3 (28:33):
It's like, how is How did I not see this?
Speaker 2 (28:37):
Back in twenty twelve, Jace pled guilty to multiple fraud
charges and was sentenced to thirty months in federal prison.
He was released in twenty fourteen. After getting out of prison,
he changed his legal name from Jason Porter to Jace Parotti.
By the time he met Heather a few years later,
he was going by a variation of that name, Jace Perett.
(29:01):
Heather was sick. This was so much darker than she imagined.
Jayce wasn't just lying to cover up the fact that
he was cheating. He was lying about who he was.
Speaker 1 (29:12):
It's not like he was cheating on me, because I
don't think you can call it cheating when what you
do is prey on women, when you are a hunter
on these dating apps trying to find more victims.
Speaker 2 (29:28):
It was getting dark out then the phone rang I was.
Speaker 3 (29:32):
Like, holy shit, it's him.
Speaker 1 (29:34):
It was probably going on like eight thirty nine o'clock
at this point on a Friday night of a lot.
It was Labor Day weekend here in Canada. She picked up,
and I'm trying to be calm, cool and like, I
do not want to let him know that I'm onto him.
And I just remember this so well. I could hear
crickets in the background.
Speaker 2 (29:56):
Jase told her that he was in the city for
the night.
Speaker 3 (30:00):
He's like, Oh, I just got back to the offices.
We just finished up.
Speaker 1 (30:03):
I'm like, oh, wow, that's really late. That's so weird though,
because you know, I grew up in Toronto. I've never
heard crickets, never heard crickets.
Speaker 2 (30:11):
Heather tried to hide her suspicion, but it was hard.
Speaker 1 (30:16):
And I said, I feel like I don't even know
who you are anymore, Jace, And it was like, what
do you mean. I was like, I've gone from spending
every weekend with you to now, like the past month,
it's nine o'clock on a Friday night and I have
no idea what you're doing this weekend, Like we're supposed
to be working on our relationship, and I just feel
like I don't even know who you are.
Speaker 3 (30:35):
Anymore.
Speaker 2 (30:36):
He recommended that they talk over dinner on Sunday, and
Heather agreed.
Speaker 1 (30:40):
And within minutes of getting off the phone, I refreshed
and I was logged out of all the different accounts
that I had been in, and I was like, uh oh.
Speaker 2 (30:51):
Jas must have heard the suspicion in Heather's voice. He
knew he'd been caught. Heather called her friend Kristen, who
rushed out to Aurora to help her figure out what
to do.
Speaker 1 (31:02):
She's now sitting on the couch reading through all the
screenshots and she's like, this is his job. I think
he's getting women to send him money.
Speaker 2 (31:11):
Heather's friend was right. He had never been a software
engineer for Oracle. His full time job was being a
con artist, a romance scammer. In the course of just
a few hours, Heather's understanding of the man she loved
had been completely rearranged. She saw that everything about him
was a carefully constructed character. The Jase she cared so
(31:33):
deeply for did not exist anymore, and now she was
faced with Jason Porter, a stranger. The next day, Heather's
sister and brother in law encouraged her to call the police.
Speaker 1 (31:47):
They sent two police officers to the house, and I
started telling the cops what I've discovered, and the cops
asked me if he had hurt me, and I said
physically and they said yes, and I was like, well no,
but I am scared, and I said to the cops,
can I get a restraining order? And they basically laughed
(32:08):
at me. They're like, no, we can't give you one.
And I was like, oh, okay, well that's okay. I
want to call a locksmith and change all the locks.
And I said I wouldn't advise you to do that, ma'am.
He is your co tenant and he has rights according
to the lease. And that's when I looked at them.
I was like, how can our release even be real?
Like the name on the lease is Jase Peretti. He's
(32:29):
not Jase Peretti. They just dismissed me, and then you know,
their parting words were basically, but if he does come
back to the house and you feel scared, call nine
one one and we'll come back.
Speaker 2 (32:42):
The police couldn't really do anything. I left Heather in shock,
I mean just belief, like just nauseatingly sick.
Speaker 1 (32:51):
The reality, I guess is slowly sinking in that my
life is all a fucking live.
Speaker 2 (32:57):
But Heather's parents had a plan been borrowing her dad's
car that full summer.
Speaker 1 (33:02):
Jace had been driving around in my dad's Mercedes SUV
because my dad had stopped driving. There had been no
payment and he was just freely driving around.
Speaker 2 (33:15):
Maybe they could have him arrested for car theft. Heather's
dad went to the police to explain the situation.
Speaker 3 (33:22):
The advice that the officer had given him was send
him a text message and just say that you want
your car backed by such and such a date and time,
and if you don't get it back, you're going to
call the police and report it stolen.
Speaker 2 (33:37):
That's what they did. Heather's dad texted Jace.
Speaker 1 (33:40):
As soon as my dad sent that, my phone's ringing
and it's him. And then I'm getting text messages saying
what the hell's going on. I'll be home in twenty minutes.
Speaker 2 (33:54):
Jace was on his way to the house at that point.
Speaker 3 (33:57):
He must have known the jig was up.
Speaker 2 (33:59):
Heather began to panic. She was grateful that she wasn't
alone and that her friend Kristen was there.
Speaker 1 (34:05):
Kristen is the one who called nine one one we're terrified.
It was a pretty big house and there was a
lot of doors, and I'm running around just like double
checking everything is locked.
Speaker 3 (34:17):
We're turning off all the lights.
Speaker 2 (34:19):
They debated whether it was safer to leave or stay
locked in the house.
Speaker 1 (34:23):
Christen's like, I think we should leave. I think we
should leave. I'm like, but we're like, where are we
going to go?
Speaker 3 (34:28):
I'm like, we're.
Speaker 1 (34:29):
Safe because, you know, like he can't get in the.
Speaker 2 (34:31):
Night before, despite the police's advice, Heather had changed the locks,
so she felt safe enough to stay.
Speaker 1 (34:38):
And the nine to one one ladies like, don't leave.
The police are on their way. The next thing you know,
we hear him coming down the driveway and he's in
my dad's car.
Speaker 3 (34:48):
Kristen's on the phone with nine to one one.
Speaker 1 (34:50):
She's saying, like he's hearing scair but he's at the back,
and she's like, just stay calm, just stay calm.
Speaker 3 (34:55):
The police have been dispatched, they're on the way.
Speaker 1 (34:57):
She's like, where the.
Speaker 4 (34:58):
Fuck are they?
Speaker 3 (34:59):
I can hear my heart something.
Speaker 1 (35:01):
It came down the driveway and beside the garage is
a side door, and then you're in the mudroom, so
I hear him like, put his key in there.
Speaker 3 (35:08):
Then I hear him come to the front door, same thing.
Put his key in didn't work.
Speaker 2 (35:13):
She was relieved.
Speaker 1 (35:15):
And then the next thing, I note he's come in
through the dining room window.
Speaker 2 (35:20):
He had broken into the house. Heather felt a surge
of adrenaline and she made a snap decision.
Speaker 1 (35:26):
And I like bolt out of the bedroom screaming. I said,
I know who you are. I know you're Jason Porter.
I know you've been online dating, I know you've been
in prison.
Speaker 3 (35:40):
I know everything.
Speaker 2 (35:43):
But Jace was unfazed.
Speaker 1 (35:45):
He's in the kitchen going to the coffee machine to
make himself an espresso.
Speaker 3 (35:50):
And he literally looks at me and shrugs and he's like.
Speaker 2 (35:53):
So minutes later the cops arrived.
Speaker 1 (35:58):
I'm like freaking out. He's so calm and cool and collected.
Speaker 2 (36:03):
One of the cops took Jason's side to talk with
him one on one.
Speaker 1 (36:07):
And I was like, what's going on, Like why aren't
you arresting him? And they're like, he's claiming you assaulted him. Heather,
I couldn't even believe what I was hearing. I guess
that night we had the fight five weeks prior now,
he's claiming I assaulted him, and apparently there's some sort
(36:28):
of proof.
Speaker 2 (36:30):
Heather told them that never happened.
Speaker 1 (36:33):
I said, you know, this guy is a master photoshopper
and he can edit videos like whatever the evidence is,
it's not real. And they said, Jace is not going
to press charges tonight.
Speaker 3 (36:47):
However, he is.
Speaker 1 (36:49):
Reinstating himself in the house and you have to give
him one of the new keys.
Speaker 2 (36:54):
Heather was incredulous. She couldn't believe the police's response.
Speaker 1 (37:00):
They said to me, if you don't feel safe, you
should leave. The police left and they left us in
the house together.
Speaker 2 (37:10):
As soon as the police left, Jace jumped into action.
Speaker 1 (37:14):
Jace goes into the office, which also had two French doors,
and he took an iPhone cord and wrapped it around
so I couldn't come in. And he sat there and
he erased the computer and then he comes out and
he was like, I'll be back tomorrow early.
Speaker 2 (37:31):
Heather wanted to be gone by the time he came back.
Speaker 1 (37:35):
I loaded up the car with as much as I could,
and Kristin brilliantly walked through the entire house and the
entire downstairs where the showroom was and made recordings saying
this is Heather's, this is Heather's, this is Heather, this
is the business that's Jase's.
Speaker 2 (37:51):
About a week later, Heather returned to the house for
the first time.
Speaker 3 (37:55):
There were already things missing. He had taken my Dyson,
he took the Google speakers, he took my go program
like he took all the stuff.
Speaker 2 (38:04):
During this time, Heather found out Jace had a new girlfriend.
Speaker 1 (38:08):
He was taking things that were mine and giving them
to her. So the whole month I thought he was
living at the office or sleeping in his car, yet
in fact moved in with this other woman.
Speaker 2 (38:20):
She later learned that when she'd gone to the city
for a few days and Jace mentioned washing the sheets,
it was because his new girlfriend had been at the
house and had slept in her bed. Heather's parents decided
to press charges for the stolen jewel rate. Jace agreed
to turn himself in, but before he did, he showed
(38:41):
up at the Aurora house and asked Heather to let
him in to talk one last time.
Speaker 1 (38:46):
I sat down at the kitchen table and he's leaning
at the island, and he still said, you know, you're
the best thing that ever happened to me other I
loved you. He tried to convince me he never cheated
on me, and this is all just a big misunderstanding.
This is just going to devastate my son.
Speaker 2 (39:03):
The son she'd never met. In that moment, Heather felt
split in two.
Speaker 1 (39:09):
And there's a part of me that's looking at him, going,
I love this person. My heart still looks at him
and feels love. And then there's the other side of
me that's like disbelief. And he's stole all your mom's
jewelry and he's a predator.
Speaker 2 (39:26):
She saw through the facade.
Speaker 1 (39:28):
And I was like, you did all this, like you're
still gaslighting me. You're still trying to turn this around
and make it like it's my fault. And he left,
and he went off and got arrested.
Speaker 2 (39:43):
In September of twenty twenty one. He was arrested for
theft under five thousand dollars and possession of property obtained
by crime. When Jason raised the computer at their house
in Aurora, he deleted a lot of evidence. Heather and
her family hired a lawyer to help them prove that
Jay stole far more than five thousand dollars from them.
(40:05):
Heather wanted to get out of the house she shared
with Jase. She began to sell off their belongings. She
listed the furniture she bought for Jason's son on Facebook
marketplace and began clearing out the kid's bedroom, which had
sat empty during their whole relationship.
Speaker 1 (40:22):
Then I see this, like all the stuff under the bed.
Speaker 3 (40:25):
I'm like, what's this that?
Speaker 1 (40:27):
So I pull it out and it's a plastic bag
just stuffed to with like papers.
Speaker 2 (40:33):
These were court documents, and.
Speaker 1 (40:35):
I realized I'm staring at all his things from family
court and I'm reading that he was only ever going
to have these twice a week supervised visits.
Speaker 3 (40:46):
There was no custody battle.
Speaker 2 (40:49):
Jason Porter does have a son. In fact, he has
more than one child, though Heather only ever heard about one,
but his custody arrangement had been decided in February twenty nineteen,
a year before Heather and Jace moved in together. The
hope that Jason Heather would have unsupervised visits or sleepovers
with his son was never a reality. The central tension
(41:12):
of their relationship Heather waiting to meet his son, the
custody battle. It was all manufactured.
Speaker 3 (41:20):
There was no lawyer, there was no nothing. It was
all a lie.
Speaker 1 (41:26):
I had been deceived for over three years about this
family court situation that didn't exist. And also in that
bag were the birthday cards and Christmas cards I had
given his son.
Speaker 2 (41:39):
And that wasn't all. As she continued to clean out
the house, Heather found more and more.
Speaker 1 (41:46):
There were my mom's missing credit cards. There were all
these SIM cards and credit cards and a burner phone.
I can't even believe what I'm looking at.
Speaker 2 (41:58):
Jace didn't have to post bail, and shortly after being arrested,
he was released again.
Speaker 1 (42:04):
August of Tember October of twenty twenty one, or probably
three of the worst months of my life because it
was just exhausting.
Speaker 2 (42:11):
And what made it even harder was that she got
little to no help from the police.
Speaker 1 (42:16):
I realized when the police weren't going to help me,
I wanted answers. I wanted somebody to hold this guy accountable.
Speaker 2 (42:25):
She got in touch with a local journalist at Toronto
Life magazine.
Speaker 3 (42:30):
They do often some really great investigative.
Speaker 1 (42:33):
Stories, and maybe like a week later, I was sitting
down with a journalist, Jane Gerster, and she was incredible
I realized if I hold on to feeling embarrassed and
ashamed about what he did to me, it just gives
him more power and more fuel.
Speaker 2 (42:53):
Heather wanted to take back her story, and she wanted
to stop jas. This article would be a great way
to do that. When the piece came out.
Speaker 1 (43:02):
Within days, I'm having people reach out to me, and
I'm like, oh my god, I'm connecting with more victims
of his, and I have more people just randomly reaching
out to me.
Speaker 2 (43:12):
She learned really quickly the scale of Jason Porter's con.
He had scammed so many women, and their stories all
followed the same pattern. Jace posed as the perfect boyfriend
in order to gain access to their possessions. The story
being out in the open allowed them to come together.
Speaker 1 (43:30):
All the women I've connected with, they're lovely, Leslie. I
talked to her yesterday. I talked to her all the time.
She is such an beautiful, amazing woman. Judy, I have
so much respect for her. She is such a titan
in business. And there's some that I still haven't even
met in person, But like every now and then one
(43:50):
of them will call and I'll be like, I was
thinking about you.
Speaker 2 (43:55):
Jay's hurt a lot of people. It took three and
a half years for Heather to finally see her day
in court. Once everything was uncovered, Heather's family learned that
Jace stole over fifty thousand dollars in value from them
through stolen property. Purchase is made with Heather's credit card,
unpaid bills, and more. But because Jay's deleted everything off
(44:16):
the computer, there wasn't enough evidence to prove the full
extent of his crimes.
Speaker 1 (44:23):
In January of twenty twenty four, we finally were set
to start the trial, and as luck would have it,
Jace's lawyer was sick that day, so everybody got sent
home and court was going to readjourn on Wednesday and
I was going to be the first witness up. I
get a phone call from the opp detective saying, don't
(44:45):
bother coming to court. Court's been adjourned. Why, well, some
very serious allegations have been brought forward. He said, did
you see flyers the other day at court? I'm like flyars, Like,
what are you talking about?
Speaker 2 (45:00):
The courthouse had been canvassed with flyers campaigning against Jace.
Speaker 1 (45:06):
And it's a picture of Jace and it says guilty
Jace Parati, and he said, they basically implicate you for
jury tampering. Heather.
Speaker 2 (45:19):
It looked like someone was trying to bias the jury
against him and that could have serious consequences.
Speaker 1 (45:26):
At the very bottom of the flyer, it says something like,
if you have more information or would like to be interviewed,
contact heatherovet at Gmail or call and it was my
phone number, but I'm like, oh, he actually got my
phone number wrong by one digit.
Speaker 2 (45:45):
The police began investigating who was behind the flyers.
Speaker 1 (45:50):
Jace was eventually arrested or obstruction of justice, jury tampering,
and Detective con said to me, these are very serious allegations.
These actually hold way more weight than the theft and crime.
Speaker 2 (46:05):
On January twentieth, twenty twenty five, Jas pled guilty to
one count of theft of property over five thousand dollars
and one count of possession of property obtained by crime
over five thousand dollars.
Speaker 3 (46:18):
Two months later, there was a sentencing hearing and we
got to read our victim impact statements and I went
in person and he was there and he wouldn't look
at me, he wouldn't acknowledge me.
Speaker 2 (46:32):
The judge ended up giving him more time than the
prosecutors asked for.
Speaker 3 (46:37):
So he got two years last one day.
Speaker 1 (46:39):
She definitely made a point of referencing that it wasn't
just a robbery and theft. It was calculated, done over
a length of time. There was the intimacy and bringing
him into my family. He really betrayed our trust. The
judge ordered him into and he was led away in handcuffs.
Speaker 2 (47:03):
After her trial, Heather had to focus on healing and
rebuilding her life.
Speaker 1 (47:08):
I had two therapists. I did a lot of amdr
for the trauma. I've gotten way more into meditating and
Kundalini yoga.
Speaker 3 (47:17):
I know it all helps.
Speaker 2 (47:19):
Another part of her healing has been sharing her story.
Heather told her story on a documentary alongside other women
that were victimized by Jason Porter.
Speaker 1 (47:29):
By talking publicly, I felt like it gave me back
my story, like it gave me control, It gave me confidence,
it gave me.
Speaker 3 (47:38):
The power back.
Speaker 2 (47:40):
She's become a face of the movement to criminalize and
stop serial romance gammers.
Speaker 1 (47:46):
And after all of this, it's still not a crime
what he did to me. You know, I really hope
that times change and I just wish the system would
recognize the emotional abuse, especially if it's from a known felon.
Speaker 2 (48:04):
It's helping her and she hopes her story brings awareness.
Speaker 3 (48:08):
My story is not unique.
Speaker 1 (48:11):
There is a Jason Jason in every town, city, province,
country around the world. One in twenty five people are
a sociopath, psychopath, narcissist, whatever. If something doesn't feel right,
you ought to be able to speak to that person
(48:34):
and get a straight answer. But it's very hard when
you are being conditioned, groomed, love bombed and you're not
thinking straight. And I do think those little nudges of
not feeling right, it's easy to ignore them, but I
do think that's like your deepest intuition, Like that's something
in you that's saying like, uh huh, that doesn't listen, listen,
(48:57):
and it's a soft whisper, but I think we have
to listen to that.
Speaker 2 (49:09):
We end every weekly episode with the same question, why
do you want to share your story?
Speaker 3 (49:16):
Your podcast?
Speaker 1 (49:17):
I feel helps heal the internal bruises that we can't see,
like you just feel this, like, oh my god, it's
not just me.
Speaker 3 (49:28):
I'm not so alone.
Speaker 1 (49:29):
I'm not making up how I'm feeling like it's so validating.
It's that human heart connection that's so important. When you
tell your story, you're taking ownership of it, and that
is so empowering.
Speaker 2 (49:47):
If you want to watch Heather's documentary, you can find
it on Amazon Prime. It's called rom Con. Who the
f Is? Jason Porter On the next episode of Betrayal Weekly.
Speaker 4 (50:01):
She made it seem like it was a normal thing.
But we'd have gold bars. A gold bar. I remember
at the time it being like ten thousand dollars. It
was like the slow burn to like that wasn't weird
to me. I don't think I was even always told
what I was doing. I just did whatever she asked
me to do.
Speaker 2 (50:23):
If you would like to reach out to the Betrayal
team or want to tell us your Betrayal story, email
us at Betrayalpod at gmail dot com. That's Betrayal Pod
at gmail dot com, or follow us on Instagram at
Betrayal Pod. You can also connect with me on Instagram
at It's Andrea Gunning. To access our newsletter, view additional content,
(50:45):
and connect with the Betrayal community, join our substack at
Betrayal dot substack dot com. We're grateful for your support.
One way to show support is by subscribing to our
show on Apple Podcasts and don't forget to rate and
review Betrayal VI Star reviews, Go a Long Way. A
big thank you to all of our listeners. Betrayal is
a production of Glass Podcasts, a division of Glass Entertainment
(51:08):
Group and partnership with iHeart Podcasts. The show is executive
produced by Nancy Glass and Jennifer Fason, hosted and produced
by me Andrea Gunning. This episode was written and produced
by Olivia Hewitt and Monique Leboard, with additional production from
Ben Fetterman. Casting support from Curry Richmond. Our iHeart team
(51:28):
is Ali Perry and Jessica Krincheck.
Speaker 5 (51:31):
Audio editing and mixing by Matt del Vecchio. Additional audio
editing by Tanner Robbins. Betrayal's theme composed by Oliver Bains.
Music library provided by my.
Speaker 2 (51:42):
Music And For more podcasts from iHeart, visit the iHeartRadio app,
Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.
Host
Andrea Gunning
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