I Know Everything

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Speaker 10 One of my friends, she said, honey, it sounds like he's gaslighting you. I didn't know what that word was.
She goes, look it up when we're off the phone.

Speaker 10 And I look it up and I'm like, oh, like, oh my gosh, like, yes.

Speaker 4 Welcome to the Knife. I'm Hannah Smith.

Speaker 5 I'm Patia Eaton. Today we're speaking with a woman named Heather Rivet.
In 2018, Heather met a man that swept her off her feet.

Speaker 5 Heather had had success in just about every area of her life, but was still looking for that true life partner. And Jace Peretti seemed to finally be that guy.

Speaker 4 Over the next three years, Heather and Jace built a life together. But one night in the summer of 2021, Heather learned Jace was lying to her.

Speaker 4 Like any modern day detective, she figured out his email password, and what she discovered in his inbox shocked and terrified her. Jace was not the man he claimed to be.

Speaker 4 As a note, Heather's story appears in the documentary, Who the F is Jason Porter, which we refer to during the interview.

Speaker 5 Let's get into it.

Speaker 10 Well, my name is Heather Rovette, and I live in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. I am a real estate broker.
I love Toronto. It's a pretty neat city.
I have an older brother and a younger sister. I love dogs.

Speaker 10 I have my little rescue pup, Tommy, who came from Cairo, Egypt. My previous dog, Baxter, is in a lot of the documentary.
And sadly, I had to put him to sleep last summer.

Speaker 10 You know, I have to say, Baxter was a huge part in definitely the healing, but just also surviving. When you have a dog, it forces you to get up and walk the dog.

Speaker 10 And so even though there were some days where I honestly felt paralyzed, I was just experiencing so much anguish and I didn't know what to do. The one thing I knew that I had to do was walk Baxter.

Speaker 10 We were already so close to start with, but he was just my saving grace through that whole time. Dogs are incredible.

Speaker 4 So can you give us a little snapshot of what was going on in your life with you personally, professionally, before you met the con artist in question?

Speaker 10 Before I met Chase, I had a life. I have a lot of friends.
I have a career as a real estate broker. I was quite busy.

Speaker 10 I had recently renovated my condo and was so enjoying the process of furnishing it and picking out light fixtures and was really proud of the transformation I created.

Speaker 10 One thing that doesn't get talked about in the documentary, but before I met Jace, I was actually the victim of a financial con or a scam. I had invested $130,000

Speaker 10 with a financial investors person. You know, he showed me every quarter we would meet and he would show me how my money was doing.

Speaker 10 But in the fall of 2017, I started to say, hey, I'm starting this renovation. I need my money or some of my investment back.

Speaker 10 It just turned into what most people who have been victims of financial fraud, you know, dodging my calls. And eventually he ended up disappearing and going on the run.

Speaker 10 And I filed a police report and I also was trying to sue him civilly. And it wouldn't be for probably

Speaker 10 about six months later. And I still hadn't met Jace at this point, that he was actually caught and arrested.
And there were a few victims.

Speaker 5 Heather was granted a restitution order of $127,000, but to this day has never seen a dime. In 2020, she even hired a firm to track down Mr.

Speaker 5 Simon Halfun, aka Hal Fun, aka Valen Peterson, but they were unsuccessful. This was a big hit to her financially, but still Heather figured out a way to move forward with the renovation.

Speaker 5 And so in May of 2018, she moved back into her beautiful, newly renovated condo. This was a fresh start.

Speaker 10 And I'm settling back in and I started to notice that there were some certain things in the kitchen that weren't quite right.

Speaker 10 Like there was, you know, one of the cupboard doors didn't quite shut properly and same with a drawer. So I had the people from the kitchen cabinet company come and look at everything.

Speaker 10 And they were like, oh, okay, well, we have a new service guy. We'll get him to contact you and he'll come and fix everything.
And I was like, great. I didn't think much about it.

Speaker 10 A couple weeks later, it's Monday, July 9th. I'll never forget the day.
Monday, July 9th, 2018. And it's probably about seven in the morning.
And my phone. pings that I have a text message.

Speaker 10 And I thought, oh, who's messaging me so early on a Monday? Because I'm not a super early morning person. He said something like,

Speaker 10 good morning, Heather. Sorry for the early slash late note.
I was hoping I could come by today and fix the things that need fixing. And I replied about half an hour later.

Speaker 10 And I was like, yeah, sure, come by. This is my address.
And

Speaker 10 I rolled out of bed and took the dog for a walk and told my concierge that I'm expecting somebody from the kitchen cabinet company and she could just send him up. No need to call me.

Speaker 10 And by 9.30 in the morning, I heard a knock, knock, knock at the door and Baxi gave a little woof.

Speaker 10 And I was very taken aback when I opened the front door. And there was this pretty cute guy, very cute guy, I'll say, standing in front of me.

Speaker 10 He was tanned and he had a little scruff on his face with just like a little bit of a hint of salt, but more pepper.

Speaker 10 And he just had this cute grin. And I probably for a minute just...
got lost in taking in this nice looking guy. And so I let him in and he got to work.
I showed him what needed to be done.

Speaker 10 And I found myself hovering around him because I just was curious. And, you know, when you live in a condo, there's only so much space.
So I was just being nice and friendly.

Speaker 10 And in the back of my mind, too, I kept thinking, I should ask this guy when he's done to help me do a couple other things because I knew I had to hire a handyman to put up the towel racks and the hooks in the bathroom.

Speaker 10 So when he finished, I asked him very quitely if he wouldn't mind helping me, please. And he smiled and he said, sure, no problem.

Speaker 10 And I guess we got so lost in talking when he was doing the second one that by the time he left and he didn't quite finish it, he asked me if I'd be okay finishing it.

Speaker 10 And I was like, oh yeah, how hard can it be? I realized after he left that the whole thing was on a slight angle. And I think it was because we were so caught up in chatting.

Speaker 10 And the whole time we were chatting, it wasn't a very big bathroom. He was sitting on the toilet hanging the towel bar and I was leaning in.
It was a walk-in shower.

Speaker 10 I was leaning in the door jamb of the shower talking to him.

Speaker 5 Can I ask you, what did you guys talk about? Like, how much did you both share when he's there, you know, working on in the shower?

Speaker 10 Yeah,

Speaker 10 in the shower. Um, nothing too, too personal.
I definitely, before he left, had learned that he really was, according to him, a software engineer.

Speaker 10 That he had gone to the University of Waterloo, which in Canada is the equivalent. It's like our MIT.

Speaker 10 It's where you have to be very smart to go there, especially for engineering and computer sciences. I learned that he

Speaker 10 had a

Speaker 10 little son, but him and the mom had separated and he made it seem like it was an amical separation, but they were going through the family court just to figure out parenting time and custody and all that stuff.

Speaker 10 But at that moment, I didn't know the gravity of the situation. He at some point said something like, blah, blah, blah, and he dropped what I would call a hun.
He was like, okay, hun.

Speaker 10 And I must have given him a bit of a look. And he said, oh, sorry, I just spent the weekend at my family cottage with my aunt and my female cousins, like a lot of estrogen.
Sorry about that.

Speaker 10 And I kind of giggled and was like, haha, no worries. So I learned that he had a family cottage.

Speaker 10 And in Ontario, in the summer, you know, especially if you live in a big city, it's so nice to get out of the city and go up and spend time on the lake. So I was like, oh, that's nice.

Speaker 10 Like him, like, it's nice to have cottages. My family, we grew up going to a cottage.
We had a cottage.

Speaker 10 And when I was probably first year at university, my parents sold the cottage and they ended up buying a more of a country property. We called it a farm.

Speaker 5 The charming and good-looking handyman introduced himself to Heather as Jace Peretti. His story was unexpected and they had instant chemistry.

Speaker 5 Heather felt like the universe was balancing the scales after she'd endured this massive financial fraud. Jace spoke Italian, a nod to his heritage, and their banter felt both easy and electric.

Speaker 5 Time flew and soon he had to rush out, but they'd been so caught up in conversation that he'd actually left the towel rack slightly unfinished and managed to forget his tape measure.

Speaker 5 But in the moment when Heather realized, she felt lucky. This was a door opening, a chance for her to reach out.
Maybe she hadn't seen the last of Jace Peretti.

Speaker 5 So Heather sent him a text and let him know he'd forgotten his tape measure and asked if he might be able to help her with the towel rack.

Speaker 10 And he said, hey, I'm about 10 minutes away. Why don't I come back and I'll fix it? And I was like, great.
Thank you. Thank you.
Again, knock on the door.

Speaker 10 He comes in and within five minutes, it's boom, boom, boom, all fixed straight. It must have been about 1.30 in the afternoon at this point, going on two o'clock.

Speaker 10 And I asked him, I was like, so what are you doing for the rest of the day? And he said, well, I was thinking of getting some lunch. I was like, oh, I need to eat some lunch.

Speaker 10 I said, let me as a thank you for for doing this. Can I take you out for lunch? There's a place just across the street.
And he said, sure. So we ended up going out for lunch that day.

Speaker 10 And over

Speaker 10 lunch, I'm pretty sure,

Speaker 10 I'm very sure

Speaker 10 that I did tell him about the financial fraud and that it had made the renovation a lot more stressful than it had to be.

Speaker 5 So right there, he's hearing that you have savings.

Speaker 5 Like that that you are someone who has money in the bank.

Speaker 10 Well, and I think you can also tell just by the condo itself. Yeah.
It's in a very nice part of the city.

Speaker 10 And the renovation I did, it was beautiful. Like I really transformed the space with like really nice finishes and marble.
And, you know, he worked at the cabinet company.

Speaker 10 He could see just how nice it was. He asked me about, you know, did you grow up in Toronto? Where did you go to school? And I remember telling him, yes, you know, I went here.

Speaker 10 I had gone to an all-girls private school here in Toronto. And he said, oh my gosh, I went to the boys' school.
I was like, you did? And he goes, yes, I only, but I only went to the junior school.

Speaker 10 Like, I was done by the time I was in grade seven. I was like, oh, so we would have totally missed each other.

Speaker 5 It's like such a whirlwind first day. Like you meet someone, instant chemistry, he leaves his tape measure, you go to lunch.
And so

Speaker 5 how quickly, you know, does it progress from that to let's go on like a proper date?

Speaker 10 It probably took us about two weeks, but in between

Speaker 10 that first day we met and our first date, there was a lot of back and forth, back and forth, flirtatious text banter.

Speaker 10 And I had never in my 40-some odd years ever experienced that kind of banter with somebody, that kind of fun, light, flirty communication at all. Like I'd never experienced that before.

Speaker 10 So I was really already getting swept in.

Speaker 10 And I think we had one quick phone conversation. And then he had left me a couple messages too.

Speaker 10 And then

Speaker 10 we ended up going on our first date and he showed up on his motorcycle. And I thought, that's really quite hot and sexy.
And he came up so he could leave his motorcycle helmet in his backpack.

Speaker 10 And we went out for dinner to a really cute Italian place just around the corner.

Speaker 10 I was definitely rusty on first dates, but because I don't find it hard to talk to people, it was easy to keep the conversation going. There was never really a lull.

Speaker 10 And I felt over dinner he shared some more big things with me, including he told me the story of his mom dying and he alluded a little bit more to the situation, you know, with the family court.

Speaker 10 And I was very taken by the fact that I felt this guy was just being being so vulnerable with me and so honest and so

Speaker 10 sincere. I remember asking him, you know, how do you deal with that kind of loss? You know, you lost your mom and you've gone through this now and that.
And he said, I put everything in boxes.

Speaker 10 So he said, that's how he copes is he just puts things in boxes. And when he needs to deal with it, he'll pull out the box and deal with it.

Speaker 10 And I also thought that was pretty insightful that he had that self-awareness.

Speaker 5 Not only did Heather feel this intense chemistry, but Jace's openness really drew her in.

Speaker 5 He shared with Heather that he had been a successful software engineer, and in fact, he owned his own software company, which he'd only recently sold to his partner.

Speaker 5 He said he wanted to get away from that part of the world and have a change of lifestyle. He really liked working with his hands.
So it was all making sense, even though it was a little unusual.

Speaker 5 But in hindsight, Heather can see the red flags that she missed. As Jonathan Walton notes in Anatomy of a Con Artist, revealing intimate details too soon is a classic manipulation tactic.

Speaker 5 It's an easy way to fast-track trust. Most people instinctively respond to vulnerability, but the danger comes when those so-called confessions are built on lies.

Speaker 5 On their very first date, Jace shared what sounded like raw vulnerability, the story of his own mother's death.

Speaker 5 He then went on to explain that his modest lifestyle, working as a repairman, living in this small apartment, it was all by design.

Speaker 5 He claimed he had to appear broke on paper because his vindictive ex was trying to bleed him dry in the midst of a brutal custody battle.

Speaker 10 He had gone to a lawyer and the lawyer said, dumb yourself down. Like literally get rid of your credit cards, go rent something that's not a lot of money, take a lesser job.

Speaker 10 And that's what he was doing.

Speaker 10 And the way he told the story, he told it in in such a way that you're like oh that's like you know good for you you know i never felt like he was trying to be a bad person or cheat the system or anything i just felt like yeah you know you're right like or he would say things like he didn't think it was fair that he had to pay that much child support when his son was only also so little

Speaker 10 it didn't make sense he's like a three-year-old doesn't cost that much money like i i don't feel i should have to pay that and especially because she was fighting him for custody he would have had to pay a lot more child support he was saying.

Speaker 10 And as somebody who's never gone through the family court system and I never had kids, I just took him at his word.

Speaker 10 I have some girlfriends that have gone through some pretty high-profile, intense divorces, and I know they drag out and they drag out and they drag out.

Speaker 10 So I didn't really have any personal experience. So I just took him at his word.

Speaker 5 Heather and Jace start dating in 2018. And in 2019, he moves into her condo.
Things were going really well. Heather's parents met Jace and everyone got along.
Her mom actually loved him.

Speaker 5 Heather's dad was a little less certain, but we could all chalk that up to most dads are. He felt like Jace told a lot of tall tales.

Speaker 5 Then in the fall of 2019, the first incident occurred that made Heather realize looking back, this was all sinister.

Speaker 10 At that point, my mom thought he was incredible.

Speaker 10 My dad, in the first year or so, still liked him like he thought he was interesting he just had tall tales of living in china and living in japan and his italian grandfathers who both fought in world war ii for the allies and he just had some crazy big stories and he always seemed to want to you know engage my dad and try and be helpful in some way shape or form so my parents come into the city and my mom goes off to get her nails done and she messages me and she said, have you seen my engagement ring, my diamond ring?

Speaker 10 And I was like, no, I haven't. She goes, it's interesting.
Cause when she goes away for a weekend, she'll just throw some of her jewelry in one of those little Tiffany blue sash bags.

Speaker 10 She goes, well, the bag's there, but there's no ring there. She goes, I just, I don't know.
I don't know where it is. And they ended up going to the wedding.
They left.

Speaker 10 And when they left, Jason and I literally like tore the condo apart, like. looked under the sofa, looked under the bed, looking for this ring.

Speaker 10 And I was like, God, I hope it didn't fall down the drain. Like then it would be long gone.

Speaker 10 So my mom chopped up that missing ring to a loss and she ended up going through her insurance and getting, you know, whatever, some insurance money, but nobody really thought twice about it.

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Speaker 5 Jace confided in Heather about how distraught he was over this ongoing custody battle and how little he got to see his son.

Speaker 5 Heather watched him leave the house twice a week for supervised visitation with his son, who she was really eager to meet, but it just never seemed like the right time.

Speaker 5 Then in November November of 2019, Jace had even more bad news. He said that he and his ex could not come to an agreement, and now their custody battle was headed to trial.
Heather stepped in to help.

Speaker 10 And I was like, this is terrible. You need to lawyer up because he didn't have a lawyer at this point.
He had fired the other one allegedly. And I was like, you know what? I'm going to ask my friend.

Speaker 10 knowing that his ex

Speaker 10 had a very prominent family lawyer who some of my girlfriends had used, and he's a shark. So I'm like, we have to get you a lawyer.
So

Speaker 10 I arranged for him to meet with a family lawyer in January of 2020. And I went to that meeting and asked a whole bunch of questions.

Speaker 10 And Jace told her what was going on. We know now he was sitting there lying to everyone, but the lawyer that day said, you've planted distrust in the other side.

Speaker 10 You know, you've got this big degree and you've got all this like corporate experience. And now you're working at a kitchen cabinet company.

Speaker 10 She's like, yeah, you need to like get back into the real world if you want to get this. So it's going to be balanced.
She goes, that's the first thing you need to do.

Speaker 10 She's like, you need to go find a real job. And he was like, oh, okay.
And then I asked her about me meeting his son because I hadn't met his son yet. And she said, you know what?

Speaker 10 Jace, you have every right to introduce your son to Heather. The proper way to do it is to tell.
your son's mom that you're in a relationship. And if she wants to meet Heather, I would encourage that.

Speaker 10 But she did say, seeing as the trial is just a couple months away, maybe it's best we just keep it as is and not rock the boat.

Speaker 10 She goes, in my opinion, I have seen women who can go hysterical over these things. So let's just keep it as is.

Speaker 10 And once we have the decision, then, you know, Heather, if you're okay waiting, I would suggest you wait. And I was like, okay, yeah, it's cool.
It's just a little couple months away.

Speaker 10 So then about a week later, I'm getting a blowout and I get a text message from Jace while I'm getting my blowout that he quit his kitchen job. I was like, Great.

Speaker 10 The lawyer's name happened to be Heather as well. I said, Well, that's what Heather told you to do.
So, great, start working, start looking for a job. So,

Speaker 10 you know, it looked like he was working his connections and whatever. And he started apparently going for interviews.
And probably

Speaker 10 by

Speaker 10 sometime in March, end of March, maybe he had gotten an offer and he was going to start working for Oracle.

Speaker 5 Jace landing this new job at Oracle made perfect sense. He had a prestigious education and a background as a software engineer.
His new job felt like a win for both of them.

Speaker 5 And they started planning an international vacation.

Speaker 10 We were going on a trip to Dominican Republic. I had booked us a holiday.
I'd used all my MX travel points and I'd booked us this holiday. We were supposed to be leaving on a Saturday.

Speaker 10 And Friday, I'm down, this is around Valentine's Day in February. So just a few weeks after the lawyer, I'm downtown showing condos.

Speaker 10 And he calls and I send him to voicemail and he's like, call me as soon as you can.

Speaker 10 And so as soon as I was finished with my clients, I called him and he said, babe, you're never going to believe what happened. My passport hasn't arrived and it's not at the passport office.

Speaker 10 And I'm like, what? What are you saying? He's saying, I don't have a passport. I ended up going on this all-inclusive, romantic getaway to an adults-only resort by myself.
I was so upset.

Speaker 10 It was awful.

Speaker 5 I do love that you still went.

Speaker 10 Yeah. Well, because I didn't read, you know, typical of me, I didn't read the fine print and it was non-transferable and non-refundable.

Speaker 10 And half the time we were down there, he was apparently like trying to book another flight.

Speaker 10 And he sent me a picture of him waiting at the passport office, which for some reason, probably even just as early as like a year ago, I was like, I should put this through Google Image.

Speaker 10 And I put the passport picture office through Google Image. And would you know it's a stock photo? So all of that was lies.

Speaker 5 Yes, Heather knows now that this was all lies. None of it was true.
But at the time, she believed Jace's story about his passport just not showing up.

Speaker 5 It was hugely disappointing, but what could she do? So, this was the spring of 2019. Heather was happy.

Speaker 5 She believed that Jace had this great job at Oracle and that eventually everything would be resolved with the custody of his son.

Speaker 5 She had visions of getting married and being a stepmom, but the custody situation just continued to drag on with no resolution in sight.

Speaker 10 For my birthday in 2019, which is in October, he gave me plane tickets for Italy. We were going to go to Italy in early March of 2020.
I was so excited.

Speaker 10 I was like, oh my God, I can't imagine a better person to go to Italy with than you. Like, this is going to be amazing.
So life is really good. As far as I'm concerned, I'm in love.

Speaker 10 I'm living my best life with him.

Speaker 10 things are amazing to back it up to march 2019 when the trial was supposed to happen for his family court stuff something happened and it got pushed and this would be the thing in our relationship that we really only thought about was the family court because it just seemed like it was always getting delayed and pushed and delayed and pushed or they'd have a date and something would happen and then they were going to meet again in two months and i was like this is like

Speaker 10 crazy

Speaker 10 and i

Speaker 10 like I said didn't have anything to compare it to because I've never gone through family court so finally

Speaker 10 it looks like we're heading towards the end of 2019 and he gets his next trial date which is supposed to be in January of 2020 and then of course something happens in January 2020 and it gets pushed again and he's waiting to get the new date in early February he came home one day from his visit with his son and he was really upset.

Speaker 10 And he said, oh my gosh, I'm so sorry. Like I just found out that the trial has been pushed to March 8th.
And I'm thinking, we're supposed to be in Italy then. So how's that going to work?

Speaker 10 And I was like, oh, gosh, that sucks. But of course, at this point, I'm so invested in the family court.
I'm like, don't worry about it. I'll cancel the hotel reservation that I've made.

Speaker 10 We'll go to Italy another time. Like, it's far more important that you get this sorted out with family court.
So he goes to family court early March and he comes home and he seems a little optimistic.

Speaker 10 And he's like, I think things are good. We have to go back in two weeks and the judge is going to make her decision and I'll know like exactly where things stand.
I'm like, that's amazing. Well,

Speaker 10 in that two-week window, COVID happened. And so the whole world got shut down.

Speaker 10 If COVID hadn't have happened, I think we probably would have perhaps broken up sooner because I don't know if I could have kept living that way because it was a real problem for me.

Speaker 10 Like I felt on one hand, awful for him that he wasn't getting to be the father that he claimed he wanted to be, but I just felt that while that was so unresolved, it was really hindering us from moving forward and living our best life.

Speaker 10 But COVID happened. Family court gets indefinitely delayed.
We are living in this condo and the walls start to feel like they're closing in.

Speaker 10 And he's pretty much his entire time working for Oracle, worked a lot from home because apparently they didn't have room at Oracle for him and his team. And I believed that.

Speaker 10 And they were looking for exterior office space. I sold the condo in, I think, May or June of 2020.
And we decided we were going to rent.

Speaker 10 And I agreed to try living outside of the city so he could be closer to his son.

Speaker 10 And so when this adorable house came up for lease in Aurora, which is about 45 minutes north of Toronto, I was like, this is our house.

Speaker 10 I just knew it right away, this was going to be our house because

Speaker 10 as a city girl, the idea of living in a subdivision where everybody's houses looked the same, I was not going to do that.

Speaker 10 But I was okay living outside of the city if it was a bit more rural-ish, more country-like, more like the farm. And this house came up for lease and it was on five acres of property.

Speaker 10 And it was just so private and special and affordable. And I was like, this is our house.
This is the one.

Speaker 5 While Jace had been living with Heather in her condo, he'd been paying her $1,400 a month, which was only a small fraction of her mortgage, but Heather didn't necessarily need the money.

Speaker 5 She also knew that Jace was going through an expensive legal battle with his ex. So in the spring of 2020, they decided to move into this charming country home and put both their names on the lease.

Speaker 5 Jace told Heather at that point that he wanted an additional job just to get out of the house.

Speaker 5 So he got a job in construction, which he worked during the day and then did his work for Oracle at night. Everything was fine until Heather got an alarming message from a trusted friend of hers.

Speaker 10 Around May 2020, when we're in lockdown and he's moonlighting, one day I get a phone call from a girlfriend and she was like, Heather, I have to tell you something. And I'm like, what?

Speaker 10 She goes, I just saw Jason Bumble.

Speaker 10 I saw his picture on Bumble with a profile, but he's not using his name. He's using a different different name.
I was like, what? That's impossible. Like he's with me all the time.

Speaker 10 Like I'm the love of his life. Like I'm so confident in my relationship.
I said, send me the pictures. And she sent me the pictures.
I'm like, well, yeah, that is him.

Speaker 10 But like, as somebody who has been catfished, I was like, this is impossible. And so right away, I get off the phone with her and I send the screenshots to Jace.
And I'm like, what the fuck is this?

Speaker 10 And of course, it was. probably the worst thing I could have done.
I probably should have calmed down and like thought about it. But he right away calls me and he's like, I'm coming home.

Speaker 10 I'm like, Well, it's only like one in the afternoon, don't bother. Like, it's not a big deal.
Like, we'll talk about it tonight. He's like, No, no, no, I'm coming home.

Speaker 10 And he was like, It's not me. Like, you've got to know it's not me.
He goes, I know who's doing this to me. I'm like, Okay.

Speaker 10 And he claimed it was his ex's brother-in-law that was probably doing this to fuck up family court.

Speaker 10 And of course, you know, when I say it now, it sounds so trite and stupid, but I believed him at the time.

Speaker 10 But at the same time, that friend, I guess she did a reverse image search of Jace, and she did find some stuff from way back. And she sent me this email.

Speaker 10 And I opened one of the attachments she sent me, and it was a family court document from his divorce with his first wife, which had a different name. It was Jason Porter.

Speaker 10 And so I asked, like, that was one of the things. I'm like, I don't understand what this doc, this family court document is, Jace.
Like, first of all, it says you're Jason.

Speaker 10 And second of all, it says you have two kids. And he said,

Speaker 10 those aren't my kids. When I met her, she already had them and I adopted them as my own.
That's what that's referring to.

Speaker 10 And he said, yes, my name legally is Jace Parati, but it really is meant to be Paretti. When my parents came over from Italy, immigration messed up the spelling.

Speaker 10 And that's why it's like that on my ID in their system. But I really am a Paretti, not a Parati.
I was like, okay, but what about Porter?

Speaker 10 He said, when I was going through the corporate world, I just wanted a very Anglo name. Does that make sense to you? And I was like, I guess so.
I mean, people change their names all the time.

Speaker 10 Look at Hollywood, right? Like, I was like, okay,

Speaker 10 again, it's 2020, and I'm just so into my life with him and my relationship. Of course, he's become my world and I'm being unbeknownst to me, emotionally abused.
So I just, I took him at his word.

Speaker 5 When do things really start going sideways?

Speaker 10 Things really started going sideways around

Speaker 10 July 2021. But there were a couple of things that led up to that.
Around April of 2021, my mom would call and ask me, you know, have you seen this bracelet? Have you seen this necklace?

Speaker 10 Did you borrow it? I'm like, no. She goes, oh, maybe I left it at the condo.
My grandmother, my mom's mom died of dementia.

Speaker 10 And while my mom is a child psychologist, neuroscientist, and she's very smart and very alert, I was like, oh gosh, I wonder if my mom's starting to get dementia because she seems really forgetful.

Speaker 10 Like, how can she be misplacing all her things?

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Speaker 5 By the summer of 2021, the world was starting to open back up after the COVID-19 lockdowns. And Heather said Jace was gone a lot.

Speaker 5 Mostly, he said he was in Toronto working, which was about a 45-minute drive away from their rural home in Aurora. In July, it would be their three-year anniversary.

Speaker 5 Heather said Jace came home from his construction job to celebrate, but had to go right back to work afterwards. It wasn't exactly romantic.

Speaker 10 And so we went out that afternoon. He came home a bit early.
We went out. We took the car to get it washed.
He got a haircut. You know, he came home.

Speaker 10 He took a bath and I helped him pick out like a nice outfit to go meet these people and off he goes. And he doesn't end up coming home till really, really late.
I'm already asleep.

Speaker 10 And so then the next day we're having this conversation. And I was trying to get him to commit to something the following weekend.

Speaker 10 My cousins, whose dad actually lives in Aurora, they were having a pool of barbecue. And I was like, what time do you think you'll be finished with your son?

Speaker 10 So I can let them know when we're going to come. And I just couldn't get a straight answer out of him.
And he said, I don't know. I don't know.

Speaker 10 And I guess I just must have at this point, you know, the world's opening up. He's never home.

Speaker 10 When he is home, I I feel like we're not doing anything. Like I just was starting to feel very isolated,

Speaker 10 very alone, bored.

Speaker 10 You know, I was trying to get him to talk about rebooking Italy. The family court still hadn't been decided.
And

Speaker 10 I just said something to the effect of, you know what, don't worry about it, Jace. You do your family.
I'll do mine.

Speaker 10 And he used that comment essentially to provoke an even bigger fight with me, which led to us taking a little bit of space apart.

Speaker 10 I went down to the city for a week and then I came home and then I went the next week to go visit a friend.

Speaker 10 But I will say this, that Friday night he came home from quoting the job, that was the last night we ever slept in the same bed.

Speaker 10 So August is here and he's barely around and barely communicating with me. He did agree to go to couples therapy and we went to a couple two-hour therapy sessions that I paid for with this therapist.

Speaker 10 I think he is a good therapist. I think it's just impossible.
He didn't even know the length of what was happening. Nobody did.
And then I just, I remember talking to a couple of friends.

Speaker 10 And one of my friends, when I was telling her what was going on, she said, Honey, it sounds like he's gaslighting you. I didn't know what that word was.
She goes, Look it up when we're off the phone.

Speaker 10 And I look it up and I'm like, oh, like, oh my gosh, like, yes, this is how I feel. I feel like I'm kind of spinning my wheels and going crazy and that everything's my fault.

Speaker 10 And one day I just decided to try and crack the code to his computer. We shared a computer.
We had a big desktop Mac that I had bought for us and he was the primary user.

Speaker 10 And I asked him what his password was because we shared everything and he told me what it was and it wouldn't work.

Speaker 10 Then I was on my computer and I went to a website and it said, do you want to save this password? I said, okay. And then this whole other sheet pops up and I didn't really pay attention.

Speaker 10 I'm not super computer savvy, but I guess Chrome saves all your passwords. So I went in and he was always using my computer.
And so I found a theme in his password.

Speaker 10 So I typed it into the desktop Mac and boom, I'm in. And I get in the computer and I'm like, oh my God, what am I seeing? Like it was just so.
crazy.

Speaker 10 I in one of his several Gmail accounts and it's like, you're a match, you're a match, you're a match, you're a match. I'm like, what?

Speaker 5 So you're logging on. You're now on the desktop that you guys share under his username.

Speaker 5 You're seeing many Gmail accounts and many emails that you can tell are from online dating websites.

Speaker 10 Well, yeah, I clicked them and I went and I went right to the dating site. It takes you right there.
And so I'm in his profile on this one. I think it was Badu, B-A-D-O-O.
I don't know why.

Speaker 10 I know the big ones, even though, you know, I know Tinder, Bumble, Match. Yeah.
I'm like, badu, what's badu? And I'm in there. And it's not like he's talking to a handful of women.

Speaker 10 There's hundreds of women he's talking to. And I'm like, what?

Speaker 10 I'd asked him like a couple weeks prior. I'm like, are you cheating on me? And he would say things like, how dare you say that to me?

Speaker 10 Like, you think in my state of mind right now, I could be with anyone. Like, I'm better off just being alone.
Like, no.

Speaker 10 And then this one time, the first time I ever asked him, he actually said to me, and I say this in the documentary, he's like, do you want to smell my dick?

Speaker 10 And I was like, I don't want to smell your dick. Like, gross.
He just made me so confused all the time. And he made me feel like it was all in my head and it was all my fault.

Speaker 10 But now I'm in the computer and I'm seeing he's on every dating platform there is. And it's not like this just started.
It went back and it went back and it went back. And I was like, holy shit.

Speaker 4 And what kind of messages were you seeing? Were you seeing like chat boxes or like messages between him and other women?

Speaker 10 Yes. And some of them, they were exchanging photos and some were like, here's my number.
Here's my number. Let's take this offline.

Speaker 10 I remember there was ones from Valentine's Day where he was sending messages to some women just saying how he wishes he had somebody he could kiss. Meanwhile, he's so creepy.

Speaker 10 I'm sound asleep in the bed with like a silk eye mask and Baxter by my side. And he comes and he puts a single rose and my Valentine's Day card on the pillow beside me and takes a picture of it.

Speaker 5 Well, he's messaging all of these other women on all of these other apps.

Speaker 10 Yes. Or it's Christmas, and he's saying to women how he just spent, you know, Christmas with his family at the family farm.
I'm like, that's my family. That's my family farm.

Speaker 10 He even sent messages to a woman in French, in Italian, and they were all filled with lies. They were all filled with lies, these messages.
And

Speaker 10 I don't know. There was that portion of the emails.
And then I just kept scrolling and scrolling through the emails. And then I started seeing things like Tiffany necklace for sale.
I'm like, oh my

Speaker 10 God,

Speaker 10 That's my mom's necklace.

Speaker 18 Wow.

Speaker 10 When I first got into the computer, it's like my stomach came up to my throat and then my throat went back to my stomach. And like, I think at that point, the room was almost kind of spinning.

Speaker 10 And I'm sure that's like the early stages of some sort of shock because I just honestly really couldn't make sense of what I was dealing with, like what I was looking at. This was just crazy.

Speaker 4 I mean, that makes so much sense.

Speaker 4 It's so much information that you're trying to take in in a matter of moments that's very contradictory to all of the information that you've had over the past three years about who you thought he was and all of the ways that he reinforced that idea that he was this really nice guy, that in fact, you know, he was going to take you to Italy someday.

Speaker 4 He was going to, you know, you talked in the dock about you were going to get married, like you weren't engaged, but you talked about that. You know, you believed that this was your life partner.

Speaker 4 And obviously things had started to go downhill, but I think that's really strong and that there's so much time and so much evidence in your life that shows you that he is this good person.

Speaker 4 And even though that's eroding, it still must be incredibly shocking to suddenly have all this evidence in front of your face that actually, oh my gosh, he's been.

Speaker 4 talking with all these other women the whole time. And not only that, but he's stolen your mother's jewelry, even though he helped you look for your mother's jewelry.

Speaker 4 And you guys had talked about that so many times.

Speaker 4 I mean, i don't know how a person takes in that information and is able to process it what are those some of the first things that you learn about jace that come out right away as far as like who he is or what lies he's told to you

Speaker 10 i'm in the computer and i go back and open that friend's email because i'm like oh shit what did i miss like what did i not look at

Speaker 10 and then i googled jason porter and if you google Jason Porter, Toronto, fraud, because they're the, it's a pretty common name, right?

Speaker 10 Sad to say, there's actually a couple really bad Jason Porters out there in the world, but I googled Jason Porter, Toronto. I didn't even Google fraud at that point.

Speaker 10 I just Googled Jason Porter, Toronto, and up comes

Speaker 10 all these. It's like Jace was all over the six o'clock news because there was a warrant out for his arrest in 2011, citing, you know, online Romeo.

Speaker 5 At this point, Heather had known the name Jason Porter for about six months since her friend had tipped her off. But until this moment, she had trusted him, so she'd never Googled his name.

Speaker 5 When she finally did, his face appeared in old news reports going all the way back to 2012.

Speaker 5 Jason Porter, dubbed the online Romeo, had been sentenced to 30 months in prison after pleading guilty to 15 different criminal charges. The stories, though, all sounded eerily familiar.

Speaker 5 Women who'd met him on dating sites, one off off of Plenty of Fish in 2010, described how he'd move in under the pretense of finding his own place and then defraud them.

Speaker 5 Allegations including stolen credit cards and identity theft. It turns out Jason Porter had served his time and then gotten right back to his old tricks.

Speaker 10 He was doing things like taking out credit cards in their name. He would like go on a date with them and I guess steal their ID or take pictures of their ID.
So he was able to open these accounts.

Speaker 10 One woman, he just all right out stole from her. He stole a car.
He did some breaking. Like he had all these charges, but they were all little amounts.
They were in Canada.

Speaker 10 It's like there's zero to 5,000 is one kind of level of crime. And then 5,000 and above is more serious.
So there were all these charges for things under $5,000. So

Speaker 10 he was caught in late 2011. And there were a couple news articles and even like an interview with the woman who came forward, although she's blacked out, like her face is all fogged out.

Speaker 10 And I'm just like, oh my God. And he ended up doing a plea deal.
So he gets out of federal prison in 2014 and starts all over again.

Speaker 10 And that's where he met this woman who ended up becoming the mother of his child. He met her on match.com.

Speaker 18 Wow.

Speaker 4 You're finding this out. Like, he's not at home.
You have logged in, you've figured out his password. And now there's just like a series of things that you're finding out.

Speaker 4 And then you Google him and you find out his criminal history as well.

Speaker 5 Yeah.

Speaker 10 Yeah. I start looking through all this and I'm just like, oh my God.
But the crazy thing is when I first, first, first got in and I started seeing all these, you're a match, you're a match.

Speaker 10 And I'm taking screen, I'm taking hundreds of screenshots.

Speaker 10 The very first thing I did was I actually called him because I couldn't believe what I was seeing. And I was like, this is impossible.
And I called him and he didn't answer. And hours went by.

Speaker 10 And I just kept taking screenshot after screenshot after screenshot. I did manage to get a whole bunch off on a little thumb drive thing.

Speaker 10 But then my friend Kristen called me probably around eight on Friday. And I don't even know how to begin explaining what is going on.

Speaker 10 And she's like, holy shit. And then we're talking.
I'm like, oh my God, it's him calling. Let me take, I'm going to take his call and I'll call you right back.
There were so many things now.

Speaker 10 If I could travel back in time and redo differently, I would have done things a lot differently. But But anyhow, I end up talking to him and

Speaker 10 I must have in my voice, I don't know, given something away, but I do remember two things from that conversation. I remember hearing crickets in the background.
And he claimed he was in Toronto.

Speaker 10 He had just finished, you know, it's nine o'clock on a Friday of a long weekend. He just finished his kitchen job, this renovation job.
He'd just gotten back to the office.

Speaker 10 And I was like, that's weird. You know, I grew up in Toronto.
Like, I don't ever recall hearing crickets in the city, but whatever.

Speaker 10 And then we talked a bit more about what we were going to do that weekend. And he said he would come by on Sunday and we could have a talk.
And I was like, okay.

Speaker 10 And then I just probably said something like, you know, Jace, I just feel like I don't even know who you are anymore. And he goes, well, what do you mean? And he got defensive.

Speaker 10 And I said, well, you know, I went from spending every day, day in, day out of my life with you, being told I'm the love of your life.

Speaker 10 And now it's like we haven't done anything together in like since July. Like this, I just, I miss my life.

Speaker 10 And he said, oh, don't worry. It'll be over soon.
And I said, over soon, like you're coming home or we're breaking up. And he said, no, no, I'll be home.
Don't worry. I'll come by Sunday.

Speaker 10 We'll, you know, we'll make dinner and we'll talk about stuff. I'm like, okay.

Speaker 10 And then we hung up. And I kid you not, within minutes, I'm still in the dating app site.
And all of a sudden, it pops up on the window. We're sorry to see you go.

Speaker 10 Sorry to see you shut down your profile. And I'm kicked out of all the Gmails.
So he somehow, I don't know.

Speaker 10 Maybe he was able with the dating app to see when he was last logged in or something. And that's how he figured out I wasn't onto him.

Speaker 10 But all of a sudden, I'm like shut out of everything.

Speaker 5 It was almost like this digital game of cat and mouse. The more Heather discovered, the more quickly Jason was working to shut her out of everything.

Speaker 5 Heather's friend Kristen came to stay with her in Aurora and Heather's sister had already planned to come visit her as well.

Speaker 5 So while they were all together, they collectively decided Jason's fraud needed to be reported to authorities.

Speaker 10 So we called 911 and the local police came and I proceeded to tell them basically almost exactly what I've told you.

Speaker 10 And I'm showing them these screenshots and the police look at me and go, oh, what do you want us to do? I'm like, what, what do you mean? What do I want you to do?

Speaker 10 I'm like, I want a restraining order. I don't want this guy ever coming back here again.
They're like, but ma'am, he hasn't hurt you. Or has he hurt you? And I said, do you mean physically?

Speaker 10 And they said, yes. And I was like, well, no, not on purpose.

Speaker 10 At that point, I wasn't even thinking of any of those crazy tickling videos that are throughout the documentary, which he literally used to sit on me, right on my esophagus and torture tickle me.

Speaker 10 And he would always grab my phone and record it.

Speaker 4 Those are so disturbing to watch, really.

Speaker 10 They're so disturbing.

Speaker 4 You can't breathe and like your face is turning red and he's laughing the whole time. Yeah.

Speaker 10 It's so crazy.

Speaker 10 But the truth is,

Speaker 10 even if I told the police, yeah, he was hurting me. Look at these videos.
I don't think that would constitute for abuse.

Speaker 10 So the cops come on Saturday. We tell them everything.

Speaker 10 They just look at me like I'm a crazy girlfriend. And I said, well, what about my mom? Like, she's missing all her jewelry.
And I can show you he like, this is her jewelry.

Speaker 10 And they said, well, she'll have to go to her own police station because that's how it works here. Like you go to your local police station.
I was like, okay, well, you know, he hasn't been here.

Speaker 10 He hasn't slept in this house in like over a month. I'm going to change all the locks.
And they're like, ma'am, you really shouldn't do that. He is your co-tenant.
And I was like, is he though?

Speaker 10 Like, his name's not real. And the name he signed on the lease isn't real.
And they're like, we can't tell you what to do in that respect. Do what you want.
So they left. A locksmith comes.

Speaker 10 I changed the lock. And there must have been at least 12 of them at that house.
It was so big. I was like, well, what if he shows up? Like, what do I do?

Speaker 10 They're like, well, if he shows up and you feel scared or unsafe, just call 911 and we'll come over.

Speaker 10 So

Speaker 10 they leave. I'm just distraught.
And I look at my sister and I'm like, Jenny, you have to tell mom. Like, I can't tell her.
I can't tell her it's Jace that's stolen all her stuff. Like, oh my God.

Speaker 10 My sister calls my mom, and my mom, who is so compassionate, she hops in her car and comes and drives. It's almost an hour drive from her house to my house.

Speaker 10 And I'm at that point, I think, lying down in bed because I just don't know what to do. And she crawls into bed and just holds me.
And I start bawling. And

Speaker 10 it's just my whole family is kind of now in this chaos.

Speaker 5 The very next day, Heather's parents filed a police report for the missing jewelry with the Ontario Provincial Police.

Speaker 5 Jace had also been driving Heather's dad's car, a Mercedes SUV, but Jace had never paid for it or bothered to transfer the title.

Speaker 5 No one knew exactly how Jace would react, but Heather's dad was advised to still go ahead and ask for the car to be returned.

Speaker 10 Send him a message and say you want your car back by such and such a date and time. And if you don't get it back, you're going to call the police.
So my dad sends that note to Jace.

Speaker 10 And right away, Jace messages me. And keep in mind, he said he was supposed to be coming home Sunday night for a visit.
It's now Sunday night and he hasn't called or anything.

Speaker 10 I get this text message from him saying, like, what the hell's going on? I'll be home in 20 minutes.

Speaker 5 Heather and her friend Kristen are terrified. Jace has a lot to lose by being exposed.

Speaker 5 Heather and Kristen race through the house, locking every window, every door, and then they go and hide in the closet and call 911. The call is in the documentary.
Heather's voice is frantic.

Speaker 5 She sounds genuinely afraid for her safety. The man with complete access to her life isn't who he said he was, and he's angry that Heather knows it.

Speaker 5 The only thing bringing Heather any sense of safety in this moment is that she'd had the locks changed.

Speaker 10 At this point, I don't know what he's capable of. And we all know you hear those awful stories, like you push somebody just one step too far and you don't know.

Speaker 10 And in the 911 call she at one point asked us like does he have weapons and we're like how the fuck are we supposed to know like we are freaking out and where I lived in Aurora it was semi-rural my next door neighbors were another five acre piece of property right so if if I were to stand on my front door and scream as loud as I could scream no one's going to hear me And I'm feeling okay because I know I've changed the locks, like he can't get in.

Speaker 10 So we hear him pull up and he goes to the door closest to the garage that leads into the mud room. And I can hear him putting his key in and it's not working.
I've also double bolted the locks.

Speaker 10 And then I hear him come to the front door and hear the key going in and he can't get in. And next thing I know, he's come in through a window.
Somehow he managed to pry open

Speaker 10 one of those crank windows that cranks from the inside. I don't know how he did it because everything was locked down.
So he's coming in through the window and I'm, I'm not even on the phone.

Speaker 10 I think Kristen's in the closet still giving the play-by-play. And I go running out of the bedroom hysterical.
Like I'm in full surging adrenaline terror.

Speaker 10 And you hear a little bit in the 911 call, like you can hear the screaming. And I'm basically, I think, screaming at him saying, I know everything.
I know you're Jason Porter.

Speaker 10 I know what you've been doing. Da, da, da, da, da, da, da.
And he looks at me and is like, so, and goes and makes a coffee. And he makes himself a coffee.

Speaker 10 And I'm like, the cops are going to be here any minute. So the cops come.
It's a male cop and a female cop. And the male cop takes Jace outside.
And the female cop talks to me. And I'm hysteric.

Speaker 10 Like, I'm out of my mind. And I'm trying to like, just like, tell her what's going on.
I'm like, you guys were here yesterday. Just read the report.
Read the report. He's Jason Porter.

Speaker 10 And next thing I know, the two cops are talking. He's outside still.
I'm inside. Kristen and I are both freaking out.

Speaker 10 And the female cop comes back in and she's like, We're just waiting for the sergeant. I'm like, oh, he was here yesterday.
Great. He knows exactly what's going on.

Speaker 10 And she's like, well, no, Jace is now saying you assaulted him. That's why he hasn't been coming home.
I'm like, what? I'm like, am I getting a rest? Like this, it was so. crazy.

Speaker 10 So now, you know, Kristen's off 911, but she's on the phone with my parents. She's giving them a play-by-play.
And they're like, what the F is, this is crazy. So

Speaker 10 I don't know. Within five minutes, somehow I'm now talking to a criminal lawyer because thanks to my family being, you know, my dad was a lawyer, my cousin, we have lawyers in the family.

Speaker 10 We were able to get a criminal lawyer on the phone on a Sunday night of a long weekend. And I'm talking to the lawyer and like none of this is making sense.

Speaker 10 Like the fact that the cops were even thinking of pressing charges against me, apparently he had some sort of evidence, but we all know that Jace is a master at Photoshopping and editing.

Speaker 10 So, who knows what he had concocted and probably had

Speaker 10 thought this through at some point in time and had this already ready to go.

Speaker 5 Heather and Jace both spoke to the cop separately. And ultimately, the cop decided that because Jace's name was on the lease, he was allowed to re-enter the house.

Speaker 5 And Jace said, as long as Heather gave him a key, he wouldn't press charges. Heather was afraid of him, and she had good reason to be.

Speaker 5 She'd found a document from his criminal past that had even shown he'd once been physically aggressive.

Speaker 10 When I said, I can't stay here, I don't feel safe. They said, ma'am, if you don't feel safe, we suggest you leave.
And I'm like, but why should I leave? Like, I'm the one who's been paying the rent.

Speaker 10 If not me, it's my company that's paying the rent. My business is downstairs and there's about $300,000 worth of furniture down there that I'm trying to sell.

Speaker 10 Like, How am I supposed to, if I leave, feel safe that he's not going to pull up with a U-Haul truck and just rob me blind?

Speaker 10 And the sergeant said, you can only take in and out of the house what is yours. And I was like, what?

Speaker 10 Anyway, I had to give him a key to the house. And he said he'd be back the next day, but the cops leave.
They don't even ask him about my dad's car. And then the cops leave.

Speaker 10 And within minutes of them leaving, Jace goes into the front room, which was an office again closes the two French doors takes a phone cord wraps it around so i can't get in and he proceeds to erase the computer.

Speaker 10 And I hadn't gotten all the screenshots off yet. So the computer's erased.
The cops are gone. And then he just looks at me and he's like, I'll be back tomorrow early and leaves.

Speaker 10 So that night I stayed up all night and packed as much as I could into boxes and suitcases and like loaded it into my car and

Speaker 10 left. Like I'm just in this state of shock.
And a couple days later, I talked to the detective who was assigned to my case. And I said, I really want a restraining order.
Like this is, this is crazy.

Speaker 10 Meanwhile, the OPP for my mom's stuff feels comfortable that there's enough stuff that he can arrest Jace. So within a week of all this, Jace is arrested for stealing my mom's stuff.

Speaker 10 But because he erased all those screenshots, I'll say like 20 things were stolen from her. And we only had evidence for two.

Speaker 10 So they were able to press charges, but he wasn't kept on, like he didn't have to post bail. He didn't have to do anything, but that would have been around September 13th of 2021.

Speaker 10 And that's when he would begin going through the criminal justice system for my mom.

Speaker 5 The legal battle just to get Jace Peretti, aka Jason Porter, actually prosecuted for stealing Heather's mother's jewelry would be long and it would be draining.

Speaker 5 Today, Heather believes that almost everything Jason Porter told her was a lie. She doesn't believe that he's Italian or that he speaks Italian or that he's ever even been to Italy.

Speaker 5 She doesn't believe he was ever an employee of Oracle and she certainly doesn't believe that he has the prestigious educational pedigree that he claimed to throughout their three-year relationship.

Speaker 5 Jace said he was in the midst of a custody battle. Heather had decorated a room for their home for Jace's son, and after he was arrested, she went back to the house to clear it out.

Speaker 5 Under the bed that she had bought for his son, she found legal documents regarding this parental custody battle, and there was no trial. The custody arrangement had already been settled.

Speaker 5 He'd been lying to her for years. She'd also discovered why he kept delaying the Italy trip and failed to join her on their romantic getaway to the Dominican Republic.

Speaker 10 So hidden under the bed was a plastic bag filled with stuff and then a stack of all these family court documents.

Speaker 10 And one of the things inside the plastic bag was a letter from the Family Responsibility Office basically saying he's denied a passport.

Speaker 10 Because what I didn't know then, though, he was denied his passport because he was behind in child support.

Speaker 10 The fact that for over three years, I thought I was in a loving, committed relationship with Jace Peretti.

Speaker 10 But he really, in fact, was by birth Jason Porter, who, when he got out of federal prison, changed his name. And the name Parati, he literally took his mom's maiden name and added an I.

Speaker 10 Jace is short for Jason.

Speaker 10 It was his first wife's nickname for him, Jace. So he wasn't even that creative.
And I guess he had time in prison to come up with this whole persona.

Speaker 10 He never stopped online dating.

Speaker 10 I think what he realized when he got out of prison is it's great to have a home base and a long-term relationship, which looks to the outside world and his son and his son's mom that you're a decent guy or that you've changed your ways.

Speaker 10 But behind our backs, he never stopped online dating because he was posted in that one Facebook group a few times.

Speaker 4 Did you ever speak with the mother of his son?

Speaker 10 Yes.

Speaker 4 And what, you know, what did you learn?

Speaker 10 She actually knew he was Jason Porter and she had found stolen stuff all through their house. And I think she was in her own state of shock and survival and she had a child to care for.

Speaker 10 So I do remember it was a few weeks after the arrest.

Speaker 10 I messaged her on Facebook and I just said, you know, I don't know what you know about me or my relationship, but I told her a little bit and she's like, I'll call you in an hour.

Speaker 10 So she called me and we talked. And

Speaker 10 she did say to me, we thought he changed with you, which on one hand makes me think when he would show up for his kid visits, he was probably being a great dad because I would make sure he would go off with snacks and like all the things that the lawyer told him to do, like be a good dad.

Speaker 10 And you show up with a a backpack with a change of clothes and snacks and da-da-da.

Speaker 10 So I can see where she might have thought he maybe had changed, but the truth is people like him don't change and he never will change and he never did change.

Speaker 10 So when we spoke that fall of 2021, it was a little cathartic because I could tell her what I experienced and she would share with me what she went through.

Speaker 10 And she'd be like, you're just at the beginning. Believe me, like you're still going to learn more.

Speaker 10 And so we were able to kind of give each other a little comfort because the only people who are going to understand what you truly went through are other people.

Speaker 10 But her story, except for the fact that they met on match and it wasn't an organic meetup, just there's a lot of similarities. And it's the same with like Leslie and even Tiffany.

Speaker 10 And it's like he has a playbook. I call it the Jace playbook.
And he knows his moves and he knows his lines and he knows who he can play, who it's going to work on.

Speaker 10 And those are like nice, empathetic, caring women who just want love. And he uses that as a weapon.
He's perfected it. He's done it over and over.

Speaker 5 The criminal proceedings against Jace took about two years and he tried over and over again to delay them even further.

Speaker 5 But eventually, in April of 2025, he was sentenced to almost two years in prison, followed by three years probation after his release.

Speaker 5 Additionally, one of the things that happened is he tried to frame Heather and he placed flyers on the cars belonging to the jurors, but it all came back to him and he was just given an additional charge of jury tampering.

Speaker 10 He ended up getting arrested about, I don't know, five weeks after that for obstruction of justice.

Speaker 10 jury tampering and some other charge, which I'm not exactly sure what it is, but the OPP detective, the same one who my parents went to that first day, said compared to theft and crime, these are very serious charges.

Speaker 10 So

Speaker 10 I hope this is where I feel like I have a little window of opportunity to expose him for the coercion, for that fraudulent behavior, because he lied to a Superior Court judge, a crown attorney.

Speaker 10 that has nothing to do with stealing my mom. Well, it results from stealing her jewelry, but that's pretty twisted criminal behavior.

Speaker 5 And it's like we hear this a lot with victims of scams like this, where they have to go seeking the justice they want through these other sort of,

Speaker 5 you know, maybe more peripherally related wrongdoings or crimes, because

Speaker 5 it's like you're saying, you know, you, you were in an intimate relationship with someone, yeah, but they had lied about every aspect of themselves. So were you? No, not really.

Speaker 5 There needs to be more, more of a place for this in our justice system where we can really name it and call in what it is because we're seeing it all the time.

Speaker 10 It's interesting you say that because my mom, when all this first started happening, she was like, It's kind of like

Speaker 10 in vain.

Speaker 10 And I say this, and I hope it doesn't rub anyone the wrong way, but like when the Me Too light movement came to light and all these women started talking about their experiences, since the documentary came out, I have received, I can't even tell you how many messages through Facebook and Instagram and personal emails from women and men around

Speaker 10 the world sharing stories with me about what they went through. So it's, you're right, it's happening.

Speaker 10 It's like right now, intimate partner violence is very big in the news here and they're passing acts to make it, they're calling it an epidemic. Like it's awful.

Speaker 10 But we need to recognize the coercion and the emotional abuse of all this.

Speaker 10 And, And, you know, I remember so clearly one day in Aurora, you know, every time I had to go back to the house after I was forced out, I had to be escorted in by police. And that was traumatizing.

Speaker 10 But this one cop, he was so nice, actually. And he said, you know, it's just unfortunate, Heather.
It's not against the law to lie and be an asshole.

Speaker 10 You're right.

Speaker 10 And that's essentially what he does, though, right? Like, I guess there is a big difference.

Speaker 10 This is a whole other conversation, but there is a difference between like deception and fraud versus just lying right and his is deception and fraud

Speaker 4 so i first heard heather's story because you recommended this documentary to me I did.

Speaker 5 Yeah. I actually came across it just by chance.
I hadn't heard of it or I didn't read about it. I was just like, ooh, a romance scam documentary.
Yes, I'll absolutely be watching that.

Speaker 5 And I did and I was blown away. And, you know, like documentaries, it's hard to do everything in a matter of two episodes to really fully cover a story.

Speaker 5 And I reached out to Heather because I just had a feeling like we could really dive in. And Heather was gamed to do that.
And I just so enjoyed hearing it directly from her.

Speaker 4 Yeah. And she definitely was able to dive into some more details that they probably just had to cut out of the documentary for the sake of time.
As well as there's more voices in the documentary.

Speaker 4 We don't really talk too much about that in this interview, but there are other women interviewed in the documentary who also were victims of Jace/slash Jason Porter.

Speaker 4 So definitely it's worth going and watching.

Speaker 5 Yeah, totally.

Speaker 5 I mean, one thing that I just kept thinking about learning about Jason Porter, Jace Parati, whatever you prefer to call him, is, you know, this started for him back in, at least I was able to track it from like research back to 2009, where he was dating women and, you know stealing from them and i imagine like when the online dating landscape really took shape it was like this oh wow this aha moment like now i don't have to go on a dozen different coffee dates to like start these new relationships i can just fire off messages and like that had to just really ramp things up Yes.

Speaker 4 Like when Heather said she opened up his email, she said he was chatting with like hundreds of women at the same time.

Speaker 4 Obviously, that's so much easier to do digitally than back in, you know, 2009 when I imagine he was probably just meeting people in person. I don't know exactly how he was, but that would be my guess.

Speaker 4 But also probably easier to be caught nowadays than previously, because there is a digital trail for everything.

Speaker 4 And it's probably easier for like Heather to, one, discover this is happening and also to connect with other victims than maybe it was in the past so it's like both probably easier to perpetuate these crimes and also potentially easier to get caught yeah absolutely so you know he uh maybe got a little too big for his britches yeah and such a bone-chilling moment when she finally confronts him and he just says so and then goes and makes a coffee that just says it all you know it's like, oh, wow, he was playing a part.

Speaker 5 Yeah, so confident, so brazen. And you're just like, oh, that's even scarier that like, you don't care that I know.
You'll just move on to the next person.

Speaker 4 Yeah. And, you know, Heather obviously doesn't understand that yet.

Speaker 4 And so she is reacting like anyone would if you think that you're in a relationship with someone who's like reasonable and has been telling you the truth.

Speaker 4 Like there's that instinct to argue your case and be like, hey, no, no, like this is really wrong. And he is just like, so,

Speaker 4 so wild.

Speaker 5 Yeah, he's just on another planet, like unreachable. Yeah.
Emotionally. Yeah.
So totally recommend this documentary.

Speaker 5 It's called Who the F is Jason Porter, and it's available on Amazon Prime, or at least that's where I watched it. So yeah, great to hear from Heather, and we'll see you guys next week.

Speaker 5 If you have a story for us, we would love to hear it. Our email is theknife at exactlyrightmedia.com, or you can follow us on Instagram at the Knife Podcast or Blue Sky at the Knife Podcast.

Speaker 4 This has been an Exactly Right Production, hosted and produced by me, Hannah Smith, and me, Patia Eaton.

Speaker 5 Our producers are Tom Breifogel and Alexis Samorosi.

Speaker 4 This episode was mixed by Tom Breifogel.

Speaker 5 Our associate producer is Christina Chamberlain.

Speaker 4 Our theme music is by Birds in the Airport.

Speaker 5 Artwork by Vanessa Lilac.

Speaker 4 Executive produced by Karen Kilgareth, Georgia Hardstark, and Danielle Kramer.

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