Latest / Giving Pain Purpose with Lyndsay Soprano / Romance Fraud: Exposing a Predator with Heather Rovet

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Romance Fraud: Exposing a Predator with Heather Rovet · Giving Pain Purpose with Lyndsay Soprano

• Lyndsay Soprano (00:01.684) Oh my gosh, dating my holy hell. I am so incredibly grateful that I don't have to worry about dating in this day and age. Let me tell you. And honestly, I was thinking about this when I was putting this episode together. If I didn't have my sweetie of a husband, I don't think I would even date again. Like they make us messy anyways, but I kind of feel like I just wouldn't. I don't know if I'd want to jump in and do it again or just be married to myself. I don't know. But seriously, dating in this day and age is fucking scary. And with my history of trauma and abuse, safety issues, safety is already a major concern of mine. And dating in a swipe-first, social media-fueled world often feels more about disposable choices than authentic human connection, right? Like we're all just disposable, not seen. And I don't want to be disposable. I don't want to be something or someone that you're shopping for. that you're swiping so quickly left and right, making just these quick judgments based on what we look like. It's so sad at the same time, right? And we have documentary after documentary that show us about online dating and dating apps and how they defraud women with romance scams. Like we've all heard about the Tinder Swindler and LoveCon Revenge, Match with a Predator. There's a bunch of them. And today we're gonna be talking about an Amazon Prime documentary. called RomCon, Who the Fuck is Jason Porter? And you guys know that the F word is one of my favorite words, so I might use it more than one time today. So today we're gonna talk a little bit about emotional and psychological predators, weaponizing trust, catfishing and digital impersonation, romance, fraud and betrayal, trauma, I mean, the list goes on and on, seeking justice and the criminal justice system, how our mental and physical health are affected. and so much more. So without further ado, I would like to introduce you to my hotty toddy little guest, Heather Rovet, like Corvette. Hello, darling. You got the chit. Hi. It is so good to have you here. Oh, my gosh. Heather is a Toronto based real estate professional whose life imploded in 2021 after becoming entangled with a calculated con artist. Horrified to discover the trail of deception, shattered lives and stolen fortunes, he left behind Heather Rovet (02:03.054) Hi! I just got shivers. Hi! Lyndsay Soprano (02:24.862) which she pieced together the stories of the women that he conned. And one chilling truth became clear. She may be the only one who could stop him and expose the predator hiding behind his charming facade. So instead of retreating, she stepped into advocacy and we're gonna talk about it today. So I'm rolling out the red carpet for you, babe. And I would like to start, if you could just give us a brief timeline of like when and how you met this quote unquote Jace. And then let's take it from there. Heather Rovet (02:52.782) Absolutely. it was July 9th. I will never forget the day. July 9th, 2018. And I had renovated my condo in Toronto. And I had used this company before and I used them for this renovation. And they had hired Jace as their service guy. I think Jace came to them through like a work placement thing. Now I know all this, but Jace came to them through like a work placement thing for people who probably have been incarcerated or back out. But when I met him, he made it seem like he was friends with the owners and he, he was taking a break from the corporate world and that's why he was there. But I literally woke up to a text message at around 7 30 AM on that Monday morning to him saying, good morning, Heather. This is Jace from the kitchen cabinet company and Sorry for the early slash late message, but I was hoping to come by today to do the outstanding work. And literally two hours later, I opened my door and there's this really cute, very cute, ruggedly cute guy standing there. had just like, I always say he had a little bit of salt and pepper scruff, more pepper than salt, and this cute little gap between his teeth. And he just was not what I normally would think of cute, but he was very masculine. Lyndsay Soprano (04:21.298) Yeah, was a manly dude, yeah. Yeah, yeah. And he was good looking. I mean, I've watched the documentary. He's not a terrible looking guy, but as the minutes go by, it's amazing how ugly somebody that's good looking, not unlike a Kardashian. Heather Rovet (04:23.392) Manly dude. Yeah. Yeah. Heather Rovet (04:38.168) I look at him now with disgust. I actually can't believe that I was attracted to him, but I do think I got him at a good point in his life where it was summer and he was working out and probably also injecting anabolic steroids at that point. So he was beefy and tanned and just, he was cute. He looked good in jeans and a t-shirt. Lyndsay Soprano (04:40.637) Yeah. Lyndsay Soprano (05:03.366) Yeah. So he shows up at your house and he's there to do some work for you. And then what happens from there? Like now you're hanging up my curtain rods in my bathroom and... Heather Rovet (05:13.006) Right. So he fixed everything he had to do. I had a whole bunch of little odd jobs to do. Like I really did need to just hire a proper handyman. But I figured, well, I've already paid this company so much money. Let me just see if he'll help me out. So he helped me hang some towel bars and we got the first one done, no problem. And then we were doing the second one in my second bathroom, which was a lot smaller. And I remember standing in the walk-in shower doorway, sort of leaning against the wall. And he was literally sitting on the toilet, putting on the bar. And we just got to talking and he was telling me little bits of this and that. And we're talking about music and summer. And then his phone was ringing. He was like, my gosh, I'm so sorry. I have to go. Like I really, I shouldn't have, I should have been out of here an hour ago. So he left. he hadn't quite finished. So he was like, do you have this? I'm like, yeah, I've got it. I've got it. I'll finish it. No problem. How hard can it be? So he left. And then I realized that you know, when I finished putting it up, but it was ever so slightly on an angle and I was like, God, what did I do? So I ran around the corner to the hardware store to try and get some of those hook things to drag it down and fix it. But I think they're called anchors actually those things that go in the dry wall to hold the screw. anyway, I noticed when I came back from the hardware store that he'd left his honkin contractor grade measuring tape, cause I've liked the little girly one. had like the big one and I was like, so I've Lyndsay Soprano (06:23.86) Correct. Lyndsay Soprano (06:35.814) Yes. Heather Rovet (06:38.542) I actually called him and I just said, you left your measuring tape here, but I think I actually made a mess of it. And he was laughing and he's like, know what, I'm literally 10 minutes away. I'll pop back over. So he came over, boom, boom, boom, fixes it. And then I said to him, look, let me, what are you doing for the rest of the afternoon? He's like, well, I was thinking of getting some lunch. I'm like, me too. I'm gonna go get some lunch. Like, let me, there was a place right across the street. I'm like, let me take you out for lunch as a thank you. So we went out for lunch and we talked a bit more. think we had a beer, had beers and burgers. And I was like, this is so chill. And I divulged some more about myself to him and he shared a little bit more about him. And the whole time I was thinking like, this guy's really cute, but I knew he was going through a breakup. He told me he was separated from. a woman he had a child with and that's about all I really learned. In my mind, I kept thinking, so at the time I would have been 45, I guess, or 46 when I met him, and I know I look a little young for my age, so I thought like, and I figured we were about the same age based on our looks, and I figured that if he knew my age, he probably wouldn't be interested in me, because in my mind, I think all 40-somethings want to date 10 years younger and hotter, but. Lyndsay Soprano (07:59.236) Right, right, right. Heather Rovet (08:01.806) That wasn't the case at all. anyway, we had a great lunch. I walked him back to his SUV and found myself just kind of skipping to the beat going, oh, was I just flirting? Like, he's so cute. I had a really good time. then, and we exchanged, obviously I had his number and he had mine and he did say, you know, if you need any more help, feel free to reach out. I'm like, cool. That would be great. He ended up picking up the lunch tab too, by the way, even though I tried to. And Later that night, I was trying to do some more of the little things around my condo. And I was looking for my screwdriver and I call it like the quintessential single girls toolkit, which was like a hammer that one screwdriver with all the bits, you know, a measuring tape, which was this big. And then I didn't even have a proper leveler. had the app on my phone. So that's about the extent of my toolkit. And I couldn't find the screwdriver anywhere, but I know I had had it out earlier in the day. I messaged Jason. just said, Hey, like, Lyndsay Soprano (08:45.569) yeah, yeah, we all have them. Heather Rovet (09:00.78) You didn't happen to see my screwdriver on screen and he wrote back. was like, you know, what can I say? It was one of those WTF days where business turned personal and I'm just like, yeah, I have your screwdriver. I wasn't sure if I should return it or hold it hostage. And that turned into about two weeks of constant text banter at a level I'd never experienced with like just this element of flirtation. which turned into a phone call, which turned into a proper date, and that proper date quickly turned into a full-blown relationship. Lyndsay Soprano (09:41.906) And so now you're in a relationship with somebody that has a large measuring tape. And it seems to be fairly handy as kind of a man's man takes you out as flirty. Of course you're gonna feel good. And this isn't even from like an online dating app, particularly for you, but we find out later that it's all over the place with this dude. But how long did it take for you to start feeling like something's just not quite right here? Cause you guys got. Heather Rovet (09:47.022) Hahaha! Heather Rovet (10:02.647) Yes. Lyndsay Soprano (10:10.58) pretty heavily into it pretty swiftly and it lasted for a couple years. Heather Rovet (10:18.446) We were together by the time my life imploded. It was just over three years or it was almost exactly at our three year anniversary point when things started to go sideways badly. But it wouldn't be for like another six weeks after that, that then it really like I discovered the truth. But to be honest, you know, Whenever I had any issues with Jace, like the biggest obstacle in our three years together turned out to be, in my opinion, I mean, he's not here to speak for his opinion, but he did have the opportunity twice to speak about this, once in the magazine article and then in the documentary, and he denied them both. But there was the ongoing story about his son. So the woman he was with before me. Lyndsay Soprano (11:14.536) Yes. Heather Rovet (11:17.056) he had a son with. And he made it seem like they were embroiled in this family court battle over custody and some financial stuff, but mainly it was like the custody of the kid. And when I met him, he told me that because he was born in, this is like, now that I say it out loud, I can hear it that it is a little far fetched, but. He said because he was born in Italy, although he also was Canadian, he was dual citizen and he had an Italian passport, he could travel back to Italy with his son without a passport because his kid would travel under his passport. And her lawyer put the fear in her that he was going to abscond the kid and go live in Italy and then they'd have to go whatever. I was like, that's crazy. When he told us something, but that's crazy. Like, why would you do that? Your life is here and you you've been, he said, I know, but her side has that doubt. And now the family court judge has decided that until we can resolve all this, that she gets to have our son all the time. And I can only see him two times a week supervised. So I don't kidnap him. I'm like, that just, that's crazy. Like my heart actually broke for him in a way because Lyndsay Soprano (12:43.348) I mean, I'm sitting here thinking I'm sitting in your place going that would absolutely Heartbreak me and I would want to be like doing my own research I would like want to figure out what the hell I could do to help like that is that Because that's the kind of people that we are I know you're an empath I am as well like we want to like be like well shit This doesn't seem right. This chick is totally screwing you out of your kid Yeah Heather Rovet (12:47.874) Wow. Heather Rovet (13:03.458) Right. Yeah. And he told me who her lawyer, what lawyer she was using and was like, I know that's a really like a good one when you need a good lawyer, but you don't want to go up against him. Like I've had girlfriends who have gone through some pretty big divorces and use this lawyer and he's a shark. And I was like, my gosh. And at that point, Jace didn't. Lyndsay Soprano (13:15.718) Yeah, yeah, yeah. Lyndsay Soprano (13:25.225) Yeah. Heather Rovet (13:29.102) have a lawyer. He had had one, he said, and he fired him. The stories just kept going on and on. in the three years we were really together, I never met his son because twice a week supervised visits continued through the whole thing because every time it seemed like they were making some progress in court, something got happened, that it would get delayed or it would get adjourned or they got a new judge or this or that. that was going on and on and on until finally when It really, I thought they were starting the trial for good and he came back home one day and he was like, he apparently had been in court all day and he was like, yeah, we have a two week adjournment, we're going back. And I don't know if this guy was on the dark web and had intel that the average person didn't have, but within that two week period, the whole world shut down. then COVID. Lyndsay Soprano (14:21.917) Ugh. Heather Rovet (14:22.83) Courts, as we know, like a lot of courts for the first little while everything shut down while they quickly pivoted. again, as somebody who's like, was married in my 20s and I got divorced by the time I was 28. Like we had the easy like sign the papers, we don't own anything like still love you but this. Lyndsay Soprano (14:26.319) Yeah, yeah. Lyndsay Soprano (14:35.86) Right, right, right, right. You didn't have kids and all that stuff. Yeah, just as long as I get my dog, I'm good. That was my divorce. Heather Rovet (14:42.05) Exactly. So I've you know, I've never gone through the court system, but I've heard from friends who have been heavy duty divorced, I guess you could say how awful it can be. And, you know, and then with COVID happening, just got, it just seemed worse. And he said to me at one point in early lockdown, he said, you know, I'm just lucky she's still letting me have the two visits a week because a lot of parents who are in this situation, they're not even letting Lyndsay Soprano (14:53.102) Yeah, well said. Heather Rovet (15:11.598) the kids see the other parent because they don't want jobs going back and forth from house to house. I was like, oh my God. So COVID bought him even more time. So by the summer of 2021, when we were at our three-year anniversary mark and I still hadn't met the kid and we moved to be closer to him and I had a bedroom for the kid and clothes and toys and books and everything you could ever want and still not having met him, we were starting to fight a lot about it. And so I guess that was probably the biggest red flag, but he always had a reason. He always had excuses. Another story he had was that he had a family cottage on his mom's side and his mom had passed away. Her portion of the cottage had been divided between him and his brother, but they shared it with her brothers. I don't know in California, but in Canada, especially in Ontario, you want to go to the cottage in the summer, but they can come with a lot of family politics. And every summer would come and I'd be like, can we go to the cottage? Like, what's the deal with your family cottage? Like, why can't we go? Why? You know, and he would have some, he would, he would turn it around to the point where I didn't know what was happening at the time. I now know that is gaslighting, but he would make me feel bad for asking him about it. And I would walk away going, I'm so sorry. I'm sorry. Feeling bad about myself for asking him. Lyndsay Soprano (16:29.703) Right, right. Heather Rovet (16:35.948) Why can't we go and have fun at the cottage? So there were those kinds of red flags, but I guess the other two big ones would be in the three years we were together, I never really, he never had friends. I had lots of friends and my friends would become his friends. we had, you know, my two of my really good friends who are a couple became our go-to double date couple friends and they, everybody seemed to really like him. So. Lyndsay Soprano (16:54.633) Right, right. Heather Rovet (17:04.174) That didn't raise the red flag at the time, but I always thought it was kind of weird. when I would again ask him, like, why don't you have friends? He's like, well, you know, when, so when the mother of my son and I split up, like everyone took her side. And before that, you know, I was living in China for years and I was like, oh, okay. okay. Like everything was reasonable. So these red flags weren't like, you know, sparkler things. They weren't flares. They were just like little embery things that he would quickly put out. Lyndsay Soprano (17:16.414) sure. Heather Rovet (17:33.486) And the other one that was just very odd to me was that for a guy who, after he left the kitchen cabinet company, apparently got hired at Oracle and had a pretty big job. But when push came to shove and we moved from the city to this big house in Aurora that we were renting, because I sold my condo. And I said, okay, like I need your, and as a real estate agent, I did the lease for us. And I'm like, I need, you know, I need your first and last month's. half like half of the money and he was like, I don't have it. He was like, I didn't know I needed that kind of money. I'm like, what? And it wasn't even that and but Lizzie, it wasn't even it was like that much money. Like it was like, I was so shocked at how inexpensive the rent was for this whole house. So I was like, okay, like I covered it. Because that's thing I always seem to be the one covering for money. But one thing for me that I never wanted to Lyndsay Soprano (18:08.488) Have you ever moved into a home before? Lyndsay Soprano (18:19.028) Yeah. Heather Rovet (18:28.834) fight over with anybody I'm with is money. And I feel like, you know, what's mine is ours, in a way. And you know, we're in this, we're in this together. So okay, like, I've got you. like, but it did become harder once we moved out of my condo into this bigger house, for him to hide that he like, he just never seemed to have extra money. And it was hard. And then all of a sudden, you know, in 2020, bought this furniture and decor business. And I had all this inventory and I turned the entire lower level of the house into this really cool looking furniture showroom because it was so big with those 3000 square feet with 14 foot ceilings and it looked very industrial. So it was like, now I've got a showroom like, and I was like, it's a new concept kind of store and it's going to be online and people can come by appointment and Lyndsay Soprano (19:15.944) Yeah. Heather Rovet (19:24.702) When I took over this business because of COVID, he did some research and he got some immediate government assistance funds quickly thrown into it. They were giving out money to businesses to keep them alive. when I eventually, months, months later, sat down and looked at the bank statements for the company, he was spending every cent that came in. between the government loans and any sale. was like as quickly as it came in, it was going out. But he also was doing things like paying his portion of the rent through the business, sending child support through the business, buying groceries through the business. And I was like, why? And when I did question him on it, his excuse was, well, according to my lawyer, it looks better for court, you know, if the business is covering more of the expenses. And I was like. And that's when I was kind of like, Lyndsay Soprano (20:17.101) Such bullshit. I'm like come on Yeah Heather Rovet (20:20.844) What? Really? like, what? What? But again, I've never had to fight in family court for a child. So I was like... Okay, like, okay, okay, like, I guess so, like, okay, I guess so, like, sure. You know? Lyndsay Soprano (20:36.4) And I think maybe some of the listeners might be wondering, is this kid actually for real? Yeah. Which is insane. Which is insane to me. Heather Rovet (20:41.742) Yes. Yeah. Yeah. The kid is for real. The kid is real. I feel, I will say this. So I never did meet him. I did early on in the relationship. Sometimes when Jace was on his visits, they would FaceTime me, but he was so shy and he was so young then. He was only like three and then he would be four. Now he's 10 years old, this little boy, you know? if there's any collateral damage from me, Lyndsay Soprano (20:50.962) I was just gonna ask, yeah. Lyndsay Soprano (21:01.095) Yeah. Yeah. Heather Rovet (21:10.456) going public with my story, it probably is him, you know, and I feel terrible that me speaking out about who his dad really is might cause this kid some pain. Like that was never my intention, but the truth is I feel like the mother of that boy should have fought harder to keep Jace away in the first place and not. Lyndsay Soprano (21:32.532) I mean, did she even know either? I mean, you think about, she did? Jesus. Well, you know, he does all of these elaborate fake emergencies. He does all of these elaborate everything. What's so unbelievable to me is we've all lied. Every single one of us that's listening right now, Heather and Lindsay, we all have lied at some point in our lives. Like, give me a break. I don't know how you can keep track. Heather Rovet (21:35.95) No, she knew. She knew. Heather Rovet (21:44.941) Yeah. Lyndsay Soprano (22:01.318) of this amount of lying that he does, because this was not just with you. And so I'm thinking about like all these different stories you have to keep up with. It's like, that's right. I didn't tell Heather that I told Lisa that, or I told Tati that. It's like, shit, it's like, how many people can you keep juggling back and forth, even if you're in this long-term relationship? How is that, I'd like to move into a little bit about how we. how he ended up getting, you ended up finding out legitimately going, I have been, there are some things that he's doing to me that are making me feel scared, that are making me feel really vulnerable, that are making me wanna call the cops. There's all of that that starts to happen. When does that start to happen? Heather Rovet (22:48.012) that so That wouldn't have been, here's what happened. Let me set this up so I tell the story best and most. When you, as you know, when you've gone through something so crazy to try and condense it so people can follow it. And there's so many of this and that. But okay, so essentially what happened in the spring of 2020. Lyndsay Soprano (23:07.013) Right, right, right. Heather Rovet (23:18.176) A girlfriend of mine called me and she's like, Hattie, I have to talk to you. And I was like, what? She goes, I was just on Bumble and I saw Jace, but it's not Jace. He's going by a different name. And I was like, what? I'm like, that's impossible. Like we're together. Why would he be online? I'm the love of his life. We're together all the time. And she was like, no, like, like, you know, she goes, yeah, I'll send you. Yeah, it's him. I'll send you the screenshots. And so she did. And I was like, well, yeah, I guess that's it. It is him. Like, there's no doubting it's him. But I'm like, Lyndsay Soprano (23:27.764) What? Lyndsay Soprano (23:39.506) This is him. Yeah, yeah. Heather Rovet (23:47.97) I'm pretty sure those are just pictures that are on his social media anyway. So I called Jace right away and I was like, what the fuck is going on? Like, and I sent him the screenshots. I'm like, can you explain? And his story was that he goes, it's, he goes, are you kidding me, baby? Like, I love you. He's like, I'm coming right. He came home right away and he was like, you know, showed me that he'd already like message Bumble about it. And they took down the profile, which now I realize he would have had to have had access to the profile for them to take it down. Lyndsay Soprano (23:54.067) Yeah. Lyndsay Soprano (24:17.342) Correct. Heather Rovet (24:17.88) But as somebody who doesn't online date, I didn't think of that then actually. he told me that he was pretty sure he was being catfished and that it probably most likely was his ex's brother-in-law doing it to, know, fuck up family court because he knew that his brother-in-law, like the brother-in-law had had an affair and Lyndsay Soprano (24:20.626) Right. Yeah. Heather Rovet (24:47.658) he could blackmail him. So he had this whole thing, like, I'm pretty sure they're doing it. So they keep me quiet and they're getting back at me. So I don't use that. And, you know, they just want to use this against me in family court. And I was like, like, okay, but it was down. And in my mind, Lindsay, I was like, we're, it's locked down. Like we're together all the time. So there's no way he's cheating on me. Like he tells me he loves me 20 million times a day. Like I felt loved at the time. So I believed him. Lyndsay Soprano (25:05.63) Right. Heather Rovet (25:17.202) I believed him and you know, with the beauty of everything I know now, I probably should have listened more to that friend at this period of time. And she did on her own do some more deep diving and she sent me an email with some other things that I didn't look at it at the time. I was just like, I can't deal with this. I, you know, I, I don't, right. So I put that. Lyndsay Soprano (25:26.888) Yeah. Lyndsay Soprano (25:37.844) Well, yeah, because he's love bombing the hell out of you. Yeah. And you're like, wait a second, none of this is adding up, but then there's still stuff that's stuck in the back of your mind. You're like, okay, the money stuff starts happening, the kid stuff, like, give me a break. Heather Rovet (25:46.198) Yeah. Yeah. So. So then what happened was in fast, you know, like we get through that. We're like, I think we're in love. I'm living this great life. We're living in this beautiful house outside of the city on five acres of property. And I bought this business and I'm still doing my real estate and he's still working at Oracle allegedly. And he's doing more side contracting jobs. And meanwhile, like I'm building this furniture into core business out. And I would joke that, you know, we're going to be the trifecta. Lyndsay Soprano (26:00.638) Mm-hmm. Heather Rovet (26:21.026) Like we're gonna help people buy the property, you're gonna design it for them, and then I'm gonna furnish it, and then we're gonna build this empire, and we're gonna leave it all for your son. Like that's how I thought, I thought big. I was like, this is gonna be amazing, and I'm gonna like, you know, build up the social media, and we're gonna be like, what was that couple, McGee, me and McGee or something, like this husband wife team on Instagram, I'm like, that's gonna be us. Like that was the vision I had, and it was a good vision, right? Like I thought it was, right. Lyndsay Soprano (26:47.284) It is a good vision because you're a badass babe that wants to take over. And we all have these like really big robust visions for ourselves and our lives. when I mean things some in every relationship there's always a little like really? But when it starts happening like where you're self doubting, that's the part that really gets me is when you start to kind of go, a second, this is my fault. This is me. I made the decision. I've been trusting and it just weaponizes. Heather Rovet (27:15.478) Yeah. So. Lyndsay Soprano (27:16.628) and makes you feel like you're the bad guy in the situation. Yeah. Yeah. What am I doing wrong? Heather Rovet (27:19.854) Yeah. Yeah. Oh my God. I was, I realized many, many, many, many months later, like after like everything blew up and then when the dust started to settle, I realized like, for so long in that relationship, I constantly second guessed myself and felt bad and blamed myself and apologized and none of that was my fault. But essentially what happened, it was mid-July and cousins of mine the following weekend were having a barbecue pool party and I was trying to just find out from him when he would be finished with his son on the weekend so I could let them know what time we were going to come and I just couldn't get a straight answer from him and he said to me, I said to him, you know what, don't worry about it Jace, like you do your family, I'll do mine. And Coupled with that, I was also starting to feel very isolated in Aurora because I didn't have any friends there. you know, the world was just sort of opening up from COVID a little bit more and a little bit more. And they didn't, you know, I felt myself almost being trapped in my house a lot of the time. And he was gone more and more and more and more. And, and, Heather Rovet (28:46.52) So that night when I said that, used that as, know, kind of again, he gaslit me and he turned it around and he was like, like he picked a fight essentially. And he was like, I'm so upset with you. Like I'm going to sleep on the couch tonight. And I was like, what? And we never slept in the same bed ever again after that. the next, yeah, like, so the night actually, I should back this up. There's one little part I left out. That was a Saturday on the Friday. Lyndsay Soprano (29:08.5) Whoa. Heather Rovet (29:16.556) of this weekend. Again, this is why I was like at home all week and I was like wanting to go out and do stuff this weekend. he came home early from a contracting job that he had been working on in the city. And we went and we took the car and got the car wash and he got a haircut because he was supposedly that night going to give a quote for a new job, like a new construction a job, renovation job. And I was, you know, he came home and he took a Lyndsay Soprano (29:39.867) Yeah, yeah. Heather Rovet (29:45.696) and he got all groomed and I was like, you look good. And I helped him pick out his outfit and off he goes. And a few hours later, he texts me like, this is going really well. And he sent me a picture of the kitchen that looked like it was almost ready for a renovation. And he said, they're going to hire us and they want to meet with you, Heather, to do furniture. And I was like, I'm so proud of you. And this is great. And I'm just like, when are you going to be home? He's like, I'm leaving soon. It was about 10 o'clock. And then about another, then all of sudden I looked at my watch, it was 1130 and he still wasn't home and I messaged him. I'm like, you know, hello. And he's like, oh my gosh, I had some beers with John and the husband and you know, I'll be home soon, I'll be home soon. And I ended up going to bed and he came home and I think he was a bit hungover the next day and then he went to see his son and then he came home and that's when that fight happened. And then the next, sorry, he didn't see his son that day. just stayed on the couch all day. And I was like, do you wanna go do something? Like it's summer, like let's go do this. And he was like, he was, cause he was hungover. Then the next day he went to go see his son on the Sunday. And while he was gone, I was like, my God, like I'm, I felt like I was going, the walls were closing in. Like I just felt so alone and so isolated and it's summer and I should be out having fun. But like, what am I getting? Like, you know, it's still like COVID and I was feeling detached from my favorite friends and. Lyndsay Soprano (30:49.938) Yeah. Heather Rovet (31:16.274) And, you know, as people are at their cottage and he got back from his visit with his son and he's like, I'm going to go for a motorcycle ride now. I was like, okay, great. I'll come with you. got my, you know, I got my motorcycle license for you. I bought this new... Lyndsay Soprano (31:27.686) Yeah. Do we need a manscape to take a motorcycle ride as well? She says this guy, I want to drown him. Heather Rovet (31:34.21) Like I, and he just, I know, and he said, he was like, no, I just, he goes, I need some more space. I'm just, need to clear my head. So he went off for another like two hours and I was like messaging him going, are you okay? Like that's a long motorcycle ride. So then he came back and then what happened was that turned into a pretty big fight and he ended up leaving the house saying he needed some, like he didn't want to be around me. He just, he needed to clear his head and he was afraid. Like he was afraid that I was going to like physically attack him or something. I was like, are you crazy? Fine, go. I cried myself to sleep. The next day he came home, he slept on the couch that night. And then by the Tuesday, I was like, you know what? need to, I need to do something different. So I went down to the city and I wrote him a long note apologizing. And I came, I remember Friday talking to him on the phone and I just said, I'm I'm going come home today." And he was like, could I have one more night? Do you think? I was like, sure, fine. So the next day, Saturday, I'm coming home and I call him from the car. I'm on the highway. He's like, I'm just about to go tee off. I'm like, excuse me, you're going golfing? Like, first of all, we've done nothing together in weeks and now you're telling me you're going golfing? Lyndsay Soprano (32:51.922) Right, right. Well, and I think we all understand, I mean, the entire globe was affected by COVID. And I think we all can identify with the feeling of like the walls closing in on us, not being able to see the people that we wanna see, all these things, and this guy's out like just randomly going out and seeing quote unquote, going to these different things for jobs. And now I'm going on a motorcycle ride. It all seems a little bit fishy. Heather Rovet (32:53.784) So. Heather Rovet (33:00.749) Yeah. Lyndsay Soprano (33:21.46) And at this point, you're already, why are you apologizing so much? That's the shit that drives me nuts. And a lot of this is a chick thing. A lot of this is a chick thing because we're so used to, no matter what, we're always gonna be not as good as a man, right? So we have to work triply, quadruply hard to be good at what we do, be as strong of a woman as we need to be. fight for ourselves and when you finally find somebody that you think that's good enough for you and then you are legitimately fraud, fraud, frauded? No, that's not a word. Frauded. From, yeah, defrauded. See, this is what we do here. We teach grammar on this show as well. But just the outright, just unbelievable, like I said, I'm gonna circle back to the fact that how many lies could this guy keep doing? And I wanna get into Heather Rovet (33:58.062) defrauded. Heather Rovet (34:03.0) Hahaha Lyndsay Soprano (34:16.136) finish this part of it, but I do want to get into the manipulation that brought into your family members and how you ended up starting to connect the dots and find other women. Yeah. Heather Rovet (34:24.262) Mm-mm. So long story short, so that, I get home that night, he's off golfing, he comes back finally and we're trying to, you know, I remember so clearly he was lying on the couch in the office and I was sitting on the floor in the doorway and he's like, I know you want to talk about this. I know you want to talk this through, but I'm just, I'm not ready to forgive you yet, Heather. And I went to bed crying and the more I cried, the angrier he got. I know. Lyndsay Soprano (34:50.782) Give you for what? Yeah, exactly. I am so mad right now. Heather Rovet (34:53.666) I know. And so the next morning, that was a Saturday, and then the next day he's going off to visit his son. And while he was gone, I was like, you know what, fuck this. Like, I'm gonna go visit a friend. So I got in the car and drove up to visit a girlfriend who lives in a small town a couple hours north and stayed away for like another week. essentially he just, Lindsay, he stopped coming home. Like he never slept in the house again. Lyndsay Soprano (35:16.923) Rya. Heather Rovet (35:19.854) And he was telling me he was sleeping either in the car or at the office in Toronto. And when you go from living with somebody who loves you every day, you know, when he would leave the house before all this happened, he would right away, call me, text me, call me, text me, call me, text me. And when communication starts going from everything to like, literally like I'd get a message from him once every three or four days, once every, and sometimes then he would come by the house. And the first couple of weeks of it, I was like, Lyndsay Soprano (35:20.916) Crazy. Lyndsay Soprano (35:43.858) Yeah. Heather Rovet (35:49.826) I'm holding the space for us like I know this is just a path, like a growing thing and we're going to get through it. And he agreed to go to therapy with me. And we even had in the month of August two, two, two hour long therapy sessions that I paid for that ended up going nowhere. You know, I just was going, literally crying myself to sleep every night for a month, going crazy, feeling scared in this big house by myself and not knowing what. Lyndsay Soprano (35:55.309) Yeah, we're going through a thing right now. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Lyndsay Soprano (36:08.83) you did. Heather Rovet (36:17.826) where he was or what was going on. And every time I tried to talk to him, he just would turn it around and like make me feel worse. Like I remember the one, this one time in that month he came to the house and he said, I wouldn't be this mad at you Heather if I'd walked in and caught you fucking somebody in our bed. I was like, how dare you say that to me? And this is all going to come make sense in a second. So. Lyndsay Soprano (36:36.596) you Heather Rovet (36:42.636) Long, long story, sorry. I, cause it's in the documentary, I buy, it's now we've gone through all of August, it's September, it's Labor Day weekend and he's like missed our last therapy appointment and came by the house to talk to me, but was like left again. And I'm just so alone and so confused. And I'm like, this is like, what is going on? And I was in my computer on a website and it said, do you want us to save the password? I was like, sure. And then all of this like, I didn't realize. Every time we go to like the different website, it's getting saved in Chrome. And this list of passwords came up and he used my computer a lot. So I saw a pattern with his password. So I run to the office and get on, I'd bought us to share a huge desktop computer. And I, you know, sit down, his username, password, boom, I'm in. And I start just going through his emails. And first thing I see is like, Lyndsay Soprano (37:15.945) Yes. Heather Rovet (37:40.524) you know, this dating app, that dating app, you're a match, you're a match, da da da, da da. And then I would click on those and it would take me to the actual dating app. And it's not like he was talking to a few women. He was talking to hundreds and this went back more and more. like, I'm looking at all these emails and all these messages and it's like, he was doing this our entire relationship. then I'm scrolling through more emails and I start seeing you know, Tiffany bracelet for sale on the equivalent of Craigslist in Canada is called Kijiji and you know, this necklace for sale. And my mom for months had been saying, I'm missing this thing. Did I lend it to you? Did you borrow it? And I'm like, no. And I would get off the phone. I would get off the phone and I'd look at Jay. So I'm like, I think my mom's starting to become a bit forgetful, which is a little worrying because my grandmother had. Lyndsay Soprano (38:24.66) I was gonna ask you about the mom thing. Heather Rovet (38:37.912) passed away from dementia. And I was like, I hope she's okay. you know, I don't know. I was like, she's probably just misplaced it. Or maybe it's at her, you know, they had their city condo and then they had their country house. And because it was COVID, they were at the country house. I'm like, maybe it's in the city. And this just kept going on and on. And I, you know, it wasn't like it happened all at once with my mom. would be like. little by little, she was like, have you seen this? you seen this? And I was like, no, no. And you know, the world was so topsy turvy. And it wouldn't be until I think around June of 2021, when she finally opened her in the documentary, they make it seem like it was like a big safe. was actually like this. It's like a big heavy lunchbox about this bank. Yeah. And it's not a, my dad actually said something like he was always forgetting the code. Well, the truth is there was no code. It was a key. And my mom Lyndsay Soprano (39:18.942) Yeah. Yeah. Like a caboodle. Heather Rovet (39:32.598) My mom hid the key in her underwear drawer. It's like a little diary key. And she hid it in her underwear drawer. And one day she opened, she goes and opens her lock box and she realizes, holy shit, it's pretty much all gone. All the little bags and boxes were there, but they were all empty. And you know, Lyndsay Soprano (39:33.593) Like our little direkis when we were little girls. Heather Rovet (39:57.166) So when I get in the computer in September, realize it's not the cleaning She blamed the cleaning lady. It wasn't the cleaning lady. It was Jace. It was Jace who was doing it. Not all at once, but little bit by little bit by little bit. Like every time I guess we'd go. Lyndsay Soprano (40:09.4) Because that that's exactly what you would do if you were gonna steal a little you would do a little bit here And a little bit there so it would make somebody else feel like they're fucking losing their minds Heather Rovet (40:13.484) Yeah, yeah. No red flags. Yeah. Yeah, yeah. Like he basically gaslit my mom too, now that I think about it. So. Lyndsay Soprano (40:22.45) Yeah. Well, and your mom, and I remember in the documentary how your mom, how emotional she got about even when we get to the trial, which I want to talk about too, but how she was so upset about not so much the jewelry, but as so much about like this, this person has been in my home. This person is with my daughter living together. They're talking about getting married together and all these things. And how could this guy be in our home? Heather Rovet (40:27.502) Ugh. Heather Rovet (40:33.026) Yeah. Lyndsay Soprano (40:50.654) who we've welcomed here, who we've embraced as family, and the entire time has been lying and stealing from us. Heather Rovet (40:52.364) Yeah. Yeah. Heather Rovet (40:57.39) Yeah. So I'm going through all these emails and then it's like, I remembered from the year before when my girlfriend sent me this email with some attachments, I was like, oh shit, what did she send me? And so I was like, oh, Heather, what did you ignore? And I opened her email and there, I guess she had managed to figure out, I should ask her because I still don't know how she did it. But you know, maybe reverse image search, but she figured out that my Jace Paredi, who also went online as Jace Parati, was in fact Jason Porter. And Jason Porter in 2012 was all over the news as online Romeo. And in 2012, Jason Porter had been arrested for many charges of fraud and theft and break and enter. And he was sentenced to, I think it was like three years in federal prison. So from what I've been able to piece together with the help of the investigative journalist and the documentary was, he was sent off to prison, got out early, because in Canada you never do your whole sentence. it's like as soon as he got out, Lindsay, he just started all over again. And he met the woman who was the mother of a son on match within weeks of being out of prison, got her pregnant and was like, this is a great way to live. Lyndsay Soprano (42:07.697) All over again. Yep. Heather Rovet (42:19.886) I'm going to hide behind the facade that I'm this like great boyfriend, great family guy. So when she finally figured it all out and kicked him to the curb, Leslie had taken them in, who's in the documentary for a little bit. And when, you know, she let, she sort of figured it out. I had already met him and was, you know, didn't know them then. And it wouldn't be for still a little while longer that I connected with both. that the mom of the kid and Leslie. But when I started looking at all this, I was like, my gosh, so my friend Kristen came over to my house in Aurora that Friday night. And then the next day, my sister and boyfriend came over and my sister's boyfriend's like, you need to call the police and tell them, like, this is not good. So I did, I called the police, they came to the house, they took a report. They basically looked at me and said, there's nothing, like, he's committed, as far as we're concerned, ma'am, he's done nothing to you. Like, there's no crime committed here. Lyndsay Soprano (43:07.859) Yeah. Lyndsay Soprano (43:17.875) Right. Heather Rovet (43:19.768) But your mom can go to her local police and report her stuff missing. Lyndsay Soprano (43:24.584) Well, and what a sociopath to, I'm gonna go back to the emails for just a hot minute because what a sociopath to keep all of these emails on a computer that you guys share and keep all of this with all of the social, all of the things, all of the dating apps, all of the Tiffany bracelet sale, all of that stuff is insane to me that he would even keep any of that in the first fucking place. Like what? Heather Rovet (43:37.729) Yeah. Heather Rovet (43:52.172) Yep. Yep. Yep. Lyndsay Soprano (43:53.49) That's insane to me. Like if you're gonna try to lie and cover up your tracks, like at least try a little harder to cover up your tracks. Like give me a break. So most likely kind of like it's a thrill for sure. It's a game, absolutely a game to see how far you can go with somebody else. How much further can I manipulate and steal and weaponize and traumatize and. Heather Rovet (43:59.401) Hahaha. Yeah. Lyndsay Soprano (44:19.812) just be skipping their way out to the next person to do it in the middle of the other ones. It just makes my heart just, I'm so mad. I'm so mad! I know it gets worse, we gotta keep moving on it. Heather Rovet (44:22.594) Yeah. Yeah. So yeah, guess even like, so like, yeah, the cops like the cops left and then it would be like 36 hours later, when my parents filed their report and because he had been driving around in my dad's car all summer. My dad's like, I kind of want my car back. What should I do? And the cop said, send him a message saying you want your car back by such and such a date and time. If not, you're going to call the police and report is stolen. Lyndsay Soprano (44:47.422) Yeah. Lyndsay Soprano (44:56.798) Sure. Heather Rovet (44:56.974) That triggered Jace then coming back to the house. Like he was calling and texting and Kristen and I were terrified and we called 911 because the cops did say, well, if he comes back and you're scared, us. So we called 911 and I changed the locks so he couldn't get in, but he broke in through a dining room window and then made himself a cup of coffee. And then when the cops came, Lyndsay Soprano (45:10.452) You're right, you're right, you're Heather Rovet (45:21.954) He managed to turn it all around and he told the cops the reason he hasn't been staying at the house is because a month earlier I had assaulted him and they almost arrested me that night. And I was like, are you fucking kidding me? Like, how is this my life? Like, I'm like, Like, I just learned that like the love of my life is like this really bad person and now I might be getting arrested. So the cops and their brilliance, whatever. We thank all my family is who we are and like within, you know, 10 minutes of all this happening. Lyndsay Soprano (45:42.697) Yeah. Heather Rovet (45:51.47) Kristen's on the phone with them and they manage on a Sunday night of a long weekend to get a criminal lawyer on the phone talking to me and that criminal lawyer talked to the police and deescalated and the cop said, he's not going to press charges tonight, Heather, but he has decided he wants to come back to the house. He's coming home. I was like, how do I don't feel safe? And they're like, well, if you don't feel safe, you should leave. And I'm like, oh my God, I basically got kicked out my house. Lyndsay Soprano (46:18.836) What do you mean? This is my house. I pay for everything here. Yeah. Heather Rovet (46:23.598) And I even said, how can this be possible? Like our lease is fraudulent because his name isn't Jace Pareti. Like, what are you doing? And they're like, that's between you and your landlord. was like, are you kidding? They wouldn't give me a restraining order. This happened, I'm forced out of my house. So they leave and they leave me there with Jace. And then Jace goes into the office and takes a phone cord and wraps it around the two doors so I can't get in and proceeds to erase the computer. So most of the evidence I'd found is gone. And... I did manage to get some off, which is why he was able to get arrested for my mom's stuff. then that just, once he was arrested for my mom's stuff, the Canadian criminal justice system is so weak that, you know, he was arrested, but let go with, you know, conditions on the arrest. And then what started was almost as long as we were together, a journey through the criminal justice system. And he managed to manipulate. Lyndsay Soprano (47:12.766) Yeah. Heather Rovet (47:16.314) and delay that to his advantage for another three plus years. And he finally, after the trial started for the second time in January, 2025, pled guilty. And I'm happy to say he is in jail. He's only in jail for stealing my mom's stuff. What he did to me is not a crime in Canada. I don't think it's a crime in United States. And it's... Lyndsay Soprano (47:36.5) It doesn't sound like it, because we're not very protected either. One of the things that I don't care for at all is that as women, we always have to fight so much harder to prove what has happened to us. And they make us feel like we're crazy, or they don't believe us. Heather Rovet (47:41.153) Yeah. Lyndsay Soprano (47:58.5) Or, well, I'm sorry, you've been in this for three years. How did you not know this guy was doing it? You think I would still be here with this guy if I knew that this is what was going on? Like, give me a break. But why didn't you see the red flags? Well, I saw a red flag, but it was a little pink. Like, I don't know, I love this dude. He love bombs the hell out of me. We moved in this new place. I mean, I know that there's people that are listening, they're probably like, why the fuck didn't she get out sooner? And it's just not like that. It's like when you're in an abusive marriage and you've got to get yourself set up, you're like, I cannot pull the trigger on this until I know, and I know this from experience that you have to make sure that your bank accounts are set up. You have to make sure that you've got your exit strategy when you're not even 100 % sure why you're even exiting in the first place. some of it, mean, it goes on and on and on. And it makes me very sad that a restraining order does nothing. It does nothing. Heather Rovet (48:23.181) Yeah. Heather Rovet (48:41.101) Yeah. Heather Rovet (48:49.55) Yeah, I mean the cops didn't even, they laughed. Lyndsay Soprano (48:50.798) Absolutely nothing. So it's almost worth, like I literally had police officers say, doesn't even matter. It doesn't even matter if you file. Heather Rovet (48:57.344) Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And I think a guy like Jace, to be honest, I've been asked this question, people are like, is he violent? And I'm like, well, you know, he wasn't really violent with me. But you know, then there's all that fucked up tickling shit. And he was hurting me. Those hurt. Like, it's not like that felt good. But in my emotionally abused brain state when that was happening, I didn't know it was abuse. Lyndsay Soprano (49:12.84) The videos, yes. He was. Heather Rovet (49:26.402) And people can judge all they want, because I've judged myself every which way but sideways. I, you know, when they talk about shame, it's not so much, you know, it's like the embarrassment is like, my friends are going to think I'm a loser because I was got conned. There's that. But the shame is really with myself. It's like, why didn't I want to listen to my friend that day? why, why, why did I believe him over her? Lyndsay Soprano (49:48.082) Yeah. Lyndsay Soprano (49:55.924) Mm-hmm. Heather Rovet (49:56.078) Probably because, you know, I genuinely, like, you know, I've had people ask me, why is he still on your Instagram? And I'm like, yeah, if you go back far enough, you're going to see posts I wrote about us in like, 2020, 2018 even, because I was genuinely happy and in love. And I feel like that was my real state of mind. And that's why this hurts so goddamn much because I really thought Lyndsay Soprano (50:15.144) Yeah. Heather Rovet (50:25.044) I had met the love of my life. thought that I was having, you know, this was it. We were going to have this great life together. And even when there was like the little whispers of like inconsistencies or red flags or, you know, doubt, the love bombing just came on stronger and I'd forget about it. And then when the world shut down, well, to be honest, when we first went into lockdown, I was so excited. was like, my God, we got to spend all our time together. This is going to be great. This is going to be so great. Lyndsay Soprano (50:45.34) Sure, of course. Lyndsay Soprano (50:53.044) And then day two arrives and none of us want to be around our spouses. Heather Rovet (50:56.846) You know, we still managed even up until that fight in July to have good times. it was, you know, we didn't make, it wasn't awful. Like my life with him wasn't awful. It was far from perfect, but I'm a realist. You know, I know Prince Charming really doesn't come on a, you know, a horse with a castle. Like he, he seemed, Lyndsay Soprano (51:13.554) Right. Lyndsay Soprano (51:23.102) Prince Charming doesn't exist, guys, just FYI. Heather Rovet (51:26.358) He doesn't. Lyndsay Soprano (51:27.449) No, fuck you Disney. Heather Rovet (51:31.576) And I think at that point too, there was part of me that was like, I've invested in this. Like I've invested three years of my life. I've invested money into this business, into this, I wouldn't have bought a furniture and decor business if I had known he was a psycho. I wouldn't have signed a two year lease for a house in Aurora. You know, our lives were so enmeshed and it was really hard to disentangle myself. Like I had to get us out of the lease and thank God the landlord, like I was so scared to call the landlord. Lyndsay Soprano (51:43.89) now. Yeah. Heather Rovet (52:01.76) and talk about compassionate, kind people when I finally did call him and tell him what was going on. The first words out of his mouth were, you safe? And I started crying. I was like, my God, like, yeah, I'm okay. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And then poor landlord, Jace ended up staying in the house and like not paying any rent and all the utilities had been cut. Like he left the house and then he did a midnight run, but he left that house in such a state that... Lyndsay Soprano (52:11.22) no kidding. someone actually gives a shit about me. Yeah, yeah. Heather Rovet (52:30.488) the poor guy, but you know, it's hard. you just, you think you're in love and you think you're building a future and then it's all like a lie and you have to make sense of it. Lyndsay Soprano (52:44.468) Yeah, mean, being lied to is incredibly challenging. continuously being lied to, you, the self doubt, you know, go forward on betrayal, thinking that you know somebody, thinking that you know what they're up to, thinking that they, how has that long term affected you? from a mental health and as far as just like your physical health, everything. How has this taken its toll on you? Because you also had to deal with the trial and all of the fricking baloney that he was pulling with that with jury tampering and all the things that he was doing. Heather Rovet (53:12.686) Thank you. Heather Rovet (53:26.508) Yeah. It's like every other woman he's been with gets the suicide attempts, except for me. get the, I get almost arrested. Lyndsay Soprano (53:33.716) Yeah, the what was it the drinking bleach the drinking okay? You have to tell the story really quick because this gen gal right Heather Rovet (53:42.306) Okay, so that brings it full circle. when I got into the computer, I noticed one of the first things I noticed on the screen top was this certificate for a dog going back to the dog breeder. And it was this woman, Jen, I'm not going to say her last name, and her address. And I was like, why does that address look familiar? And then I remembered, in August when he was not coming home, Lyndsay Soprano (53:44.818) Yeah. Heather Rovet (54:11.822) through the company, I got this really large Uber bill for an Uber ride. And when I asked him about it, he said, I was taking an Uber from after visiting my son up to pick up your dad's car because it was that a mechanics up there. I was like, OK, because when I Google when I Google search this address, it looks like it's in the middle of nowhere. Well, it turns out that Jen was the. the next, I don't know, like the reason why it was so easy for him to discard me because he had already set up shop with somebody new because Jace knew we had the shelf life. So he had gone out and found himself a new home with Jen. And that time when I was down in the city giving us space and he was like, can I have one more night? Well, it's because she was in bed. And yeah, so. Lyndsay Soprano (54:48.849) Right, right. Heather Rovet (55:09.006) pieced that part together and I looked her up on Facebook and I was like, we have a mutual friend. like mental note, like reach out to this woman. But there was so much more to do before trying to reach out to her that I sort of put that one to the side. And then about two weeks later, I went to look her up on Facebook again and I was blocked. I couldn't find her. So I guess he must have gone into her phone and her account and blocked me. Lyndsay Soprano (55:19.134) Sure. Heather Rovet (55:33.794) And I'm sure he told her the same story that he told me about the woman he was with before me, that I've got this crazy ex and she's bitter and she's jealous. And yeah, if you get contacted by her, just ignore her because she's just blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. That is a huge narcissistic red flag when they trash talk their exes because there's no need to call your ex a psycho or crazy. you know, that's a red flag. So it wouldn't be until Canadian Thanksgiving, because we have a different Thanksgiving in the States, which would be early October. Lyndsay Soprano (55:38.822) Right, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Heather Rovet (56:02.99) at my parents, I had stopped by the house in Aurora. Jason had been arrested at this point and we still had the house in Aurora and I was trying my best to like pack up my belongings and sell furniture and just make a plan when he wasn't at the house during the day. I went, I stopped by the house on the Friday on my way, or on the Saturday on the way to my parents for Thanksgiving and my key worked fine. And then I was talking to a friend and was first friend I really told what was going on outside of like my super close inner circle. And she was like, my God, this is like crazy. And she was like, what's this woman? Who's this woman? I'll look her up on Facebook. And she looked her up on Facebook and she's like, she's friends with Michelle. I'm like, that's it, our friend Michelle. So we get Michelle on the phone and we're telling Michelle what's happening. Michelle's like, my God, I worked with her ex-husband for 10 years. She's been to my house like several times for dinner parties. This is crazy. So we get the ex-husband on the phone and we tell him what's going on. He's like, my fucking Lord, he's living in my house with my kids. Like, what are you saying? So that's when Des ran the documentary, talked about them having an intervention. her parents, her mom and stepdad who live next door to her, cause she lives in a house that they own in the middle of nowhere. They, you know, got their, Lyndsay Soprano (57:17.0) Yeah. Heather Rovet (57:30.326) wits about them and got gathered all the evidence and then had an intervention with her. So she, she was forced to get him to leave. So where did he go? He went back to the house in Aurora. So when I went the next day, because I had movers coming the next day, I just went to go check on some stuff. All of sudden my key wouldn't because he had done something to the locks. And anyway, we had to get police involved and my lawyer involved. And it was a real, real headache. But yeah, that woman, That's how I found out about that woman. That's how she was warned. But she's, I believe, still dating him after all this. Lyndsay Soprano (58:09.288) Wait, wait, hold on, hold on. So Jen is the one that's still with him right now, and that's the one that did the drinking of the bleach thing. Okay, so. Heather Rovet (58:18.542) Yeah, Did you hear the end of those super fake voice messages? Lyndsay Soprano (58:22.676) Right. Okay. So this is what I was getting at. So this gal Jen so I'm gonna sum this up for you people Okay, so Jace is now with Jen and is playing this whole thing and currently to this day is as we're talking still with her even though she knows everything about him Heather Rovet (58:35.808) I can't say 100 % for sure, but to the best of my knowledge, as of December, she was still going to move with him in jail, so unless something changed. Lyndsay Soprano (58:43.153) Yeah Lyndsay Soprano (58:52.006) Okay, yeah, that's crazy. But he did this whole like break up, quote unquote, break up thing, and he said he was going to drink bleach, and then sent a video to her that he was drinking bleach, and then was going to the ICU and all this bullshit, and he ended up hiring somebody to do voiceover work, pretending to be the stepdad. Which is fucking insane. Heather Rovet (59:12.736) is correct. And yeah, so if she ever did listen to if she did get those as voice messages in her phone, they sound so fake. I don't know. Lyndsay Soprano (59:27.186) They sound like voiceover and I come from a voiceover background. I mean, give me a break. Heather Rovet (59:31.15) Mm-hmm. You know, I guess again, it's like, who am I to judge? Because I know the power of his manipulation, but out of all the women, and there's a lot, you know, people started reaching out to even before, in 2022, there was a magazine article that came out, which led to a lot of victims contacting me. But even before Toronto, Lyndsay Soprano (59:40.734) Sure, sure. Lyndsay Soprano (59:46.185) right. Lyndsay Soprano (59:58.256) Right. That was in what, Toronto Journal or something like that? Heather Rovet (01:00:02.71) Toronto Life Magazine, before that, randomly, I got a few women reaching out to me on Instagram because I think what happened was, you know, on Facebook, it's like people you might know. think they were getting, because they had known him before when he was with the mom of the kid. Lyndsay Soprano (01:00:14.888) Yes. Lyndsay Soprano (01:00:18.644) Yeah. You're mutual friends with Lindsay and Heather. Yeah. Heather Rovet (01:00:24.79) Yeah, so they would know who he was. So they would go check out his profile and see me. And then they would find me and like warn me. And I'm like, too late. Thanks. Too little, too late. And then I was connected with Leslie in the documentary because again, as luck would have it, we had a mutual friend. So she connected us. Lyndsay Soprano (01:00:38.281) Yeah. Heather Rovet (01:00:51.326) And I had, you know, that's the other thing with him. Like he never hid the other, he never lied to me that he had been with Leslie and he never lied to me about the mother of his child. His timelines were just so different. And so in fact, when I started dating him, I knew who the mother of his child was. So I looked her up on Facebook and her and I had a mutual friend. So I was like, hey, to my, the mutual friend, like, how do you know her? And he said, oh, I went to junior school with her. So he messaged her. Lyndsay Soprano (01:01:02.952) Yeah. Heather Rovet (01:01:20.258) And he said, hey, my best friend is dating your ex. Is he a good guy? And she wrote back, I don't want to talk about that man. I'll let the family court decide. And when he showed me that message, it played in so perfectly to his story that she's upset. She didn't want the breakup. But she knew he was Jason Porter. That's why it still to this day kind of gets me like, why didn't she feel the need to kind of warn me that he was so bad? But. Lyndsay Soprano (01:01:33.204) Alright. Lyndsay Soprano (01:01:36.852) Wow. Lyndsay Soprano (01:01:45.958) Hey, hey, woman, let me give you a quick heads up on this dude. Yeah. Yeah. Heather Rovet (01:01:51.968) Yeah, I think she was just so in her own hell and trauma and trying to protect their son as best she could. She just couldn't do what I have done, which is, you know, really, really expose him for all he is. So and, know, I do feel bad for her that they share a son and that she had to see him until he went to jail for the visits. Right. So that's pretty her own karma there. Lyndsay Soprano (01:02:15.506) Yeah. Yeah, but that's not on you. And I know it's hard for us, especially like empaths, we like to take it on, we want to fix things, we want to people please, we want to do all of those things that stems from trauma. And so I do want to get back to the fact about like how you've been affected by this from a mental health perspective and from a physical health perspective, because there's no chance that you walk away with something like this without being unscathed. Heather Rovet (01:02:35.725) Yeah. Lyndsay Soprano (01:02:42.996) when it comes to trust and betrayal and being in a new relationship and like how do you move on in the world of trust and but what does that do from like a PTSD perspective? Like what do you, what have you experienced since then and how have you got at least started to get through some of that? Because I know we've talked a little bit about that. Heather Rovet (01:02:43.394) Yeah. Heather Rovet (01:03:05.804) Yeah, so it took me years to want to even be with anybody. I really, try, you know, so the first, like a year later, I met somebody randomly walking my dog and we dated, but we never got intimate at all. So it was kind of nice just to have somebody to like, you know, spend some time with and go out for some nice dinners. And that kind of Lyndsay Soprano (01:03:13.768) Yeah. Lyndsay Soprano (01:03:31.976) Right. Heather Rovet (01:03:35.118) ease me back into the idea that, okay, like, there are good people out there, but I just, couldn't, the idea of being intimate, was like, uh, like, don't touch it. didn't want to. So, you know, he was, I was like, I don't think this is going to work, but we're still friends to this day, that person and I, and then again, randomly, I met another person and I tried dating him, but he just, I, you know, I don't know if it I think it was partly him and I just still wasn't, I knew I wasn't ready. And then the summer of 2024, I was feeling, you know, a little pressure for some people to be like, you know, maybe you want to try dating. Like it's not so bad. And I was like, okay. So I actually decided to give online dating a whirl because I'd never really done it. And I have friends who have met and they seem really happy. So I tried one app, I hated it within a month. I was like off the app. I just couldn't do it. Like I met one guy and I, the reason why I decided to go out with this one guy for a few dates was turned out I went to high school with his cousins so I could connect some dots. And then I realized Lyndsay Soprano (01:04:15.333) my God. Lyndsay Soprano (01:04:23.689) now. Heather Rovet (01:04:34.934) That is very important to me with whoever I am with going forward. He needs to be, he needs a blue check. Like he needs to be verified. Not, yeah, I need people that know him well and big time, but that's just from a relationship point of view. Like I, for the first six months just felt gross. Like I would. Lyndsay Soprano (01:04:43.048) You need vetted, vetted people. Yeah, for sure. Yeah. Heather Rovet (01:05:03.06) the immediate aftermath of everything. Like I would get in the shower and I would take the loofah and scrub until my skin was raw. Cause I just, I wanted everything, him out of like every ounce of my being. I didn't want anything to do with him. And yet my heart's still hurting because my head and my heart and my body, like nothing was aligned. I recognize when I say this, that it sounds not all women. Lyndsay Soprano (01:05:16.308) Yeah, yeah. Lyndsay Soprano (01:05:25.491) Yeah. Heather Rovet (01:05:32.046) will have the luxury of giving themselves this gift. But because I never had children, was able to, I gave myself the gift. I just wanted to go away. turned 50 and I was like, I need to get, I need to give myself a great birthday present and go away. So I went in the winter of 2022, I went to Thailand and part of my trip in Thailand, I spent at a healing retreat. And when I was getting my acupuncture, my acupuncture was like your entire cortisol. like your adrenals are fried, they are fried Heather, like you're holding so much stress in your body and trauma. And so I started just taking care of myself because I realized like the only person who's gonna make me feel better is me with the help of herbs and acupuncture and massage and all this stuff. But right. Lyndsay Soprano (01:06:22.676) EMDR and walks in the woods and a lot of screaming at the trees in the woods. Heather Rovet (01:06:29.102) my god, have you ever done that where you literally like I would take my pillow and just be like Like rage rage Lyndsay Soprano (01:06:35.442) It's so crazy that you say that. My ninth grade in high school, I remember I had all kinds of trauma that stemmed from very early age, but the high school that I was at at the time, my first one year, there was a football field out there and I would ride my bike to the football field and I would scream at the top of my lungs in the middle of a football field when school was out, you know, like on a weekend or whatever. And it's very rewarding. But I've been doing that since I was 14, so I don't know what that says about me and my pathway. Heather Rovet (01:07:01.411) Yeah. Lyndsay Soprano (01:07:05.204) towards health and wellbeing. Heather Rovet (01:07:05.454) But I guess I realized like Lyndsay Soprano (01:07:10.164) I've been doing this for 40 years! Heather Rovet (01:07:13.102) I, so, you know, it's funny, like, in my 20s, I got into Buddhist meditation. And so I had a lot of those, I could say like the tools in my life backpack, like I knew about being kind to myself, like I knew everything I needed to do. I also had a therapist that I was working with before all this, like trauma shit happened. So Lyndsay Soprano (01:07:15.604) Ha! Lyndsay Soprano (01:07:35.924) Mm. Heather Rovet (01:07:39.626) She was with me in the month of August when he wasn't coming home. I was having my sessions and crying to her and she was just like, dude, you know, she didn't know who he was either. So when the truth came out, I feel so grateful that I had somebody, a mental health professional to try and help me. But at the same point, this was over her. She'd never dealt with a betrayal like this either. Not too many people do. So it's not like it all happens at once either, right? You have to do it bit by bit by bit. So it's like, Lyndsay Soprano (01:08:08.017) Yeah, of course. Heather Rovet (01:08:09.738) In the first few months after it happened, just getting up and out of bed and doing something every day to try and shut my life down with him was what I was focusing on. So it wouldn't be, and doing therapy. And thank God I had Baxter, my little adorable dog who was in the documentary. I think having a dog saved me in a way because I had to get up and walk the dog. And anytime I felt like... the walls closing and I'd be like, we're going for a walk back to you. But I would do things like, Lindsay, I'd wake up and have a bubble bath at 10 in the morning. Like I gave myself those kind of little gifts to start healing bit by bit by bit. And then I went to Thailand and then because I knew the story was coming out in the magazine, the more I think started speaking publicly about it, the more... it helped sort of desensitize the story. And then when that article came out and people started messaging me, like telling me their stories or other victims of his, it gave me a little bit more, you know, strength and a little bit more and a little bit more. it just over time, it helped. And I also like, as soon as I was back from Thailand, I rejoined my old gym in Toronto and started working out maybe a bit too much at first. Lyndsay Soprano (01:09:06.921) Mm-hmm. Heather Rovet (01:09:32.184) but it's so true about those endorphins that you get from working out, like the sweat and the high and like that started making me feel good. But the trust was a whole other thing and that took a lot of self-compassion, a lot of sitting in quiet, like just like meditating, just like leaning into all the pain and realizing like once you go in there, it's not so bad and you go a little bit more and a little bit more. Heather Rovet (01:10:09.689) And I'm glad I didn't just like jump into a relationship super quick. Like I'm in one now, but it took over three, well, it would have been close to like, if I met Greg in 2024, at the end of 2024. And again, when I met him, I wasn't looking to meet him. The same person who I tried dating in the summer of 2022, who I made friends with. Lyndsay Soprano (01:10:16.54) Right. Heather Rovet (01:10:38.862) we met through him and it wasn't a setup and he, those two have been friends for 25 years. So here comes a man who's like very highly vetted, you know? And so when I did start dating him, I went to the front, I'm like, is he a good guy? He's like, you couldn't meet a nicer man. And he has shown me that bit by bit. And if Greg were here to speak for himself, he would say it wasn't easy for him in the beginning of our relationship. Cause it'd be one step forward and two steps back because I, Lyndsay Soprano (01:10:49.166) Yeah, yeah, yeah. Lyndsay Soprano (01:10:54.633) Yeah. Lyndsay Soprano (01:11:06.556) Right. Heather Rovet (01:11:07.425) I would freak myself out all the time because I'm like, how can I, I don't know if I can trust you. Like I was putting some of our text message conversations through chat and GBT, like are these red flags? And of course chat GBT is going to be like, well, could be, you know? And then I'd be like, I don't want this. Like I'd convince myself that I'm just like, I'm just going to be alone. I'm just, yeah. Lyndsay Soprano (01:11:25.844) I'm dead. My therapist is ChatGPT. Heather Rovet (01:11:33.07) It's cheaper. But, Lyndsay Soprano (01:11:35.706) It is very cheap! It's free! I'm gonna ask chat GPT today because I've got a lot of things around my mind, so. Heather Rovet (01:11:46.134) Yeah. it's like, just, there were times though where I definitely like that day when the court in the winter went sideways and I almost got arrested for jury tampering, like that sent me back a lot. that, was like, I couldn't almost get out of bed for a day. Like I was just like, I felt so bad. And as you know, or some Lyndsay Soprano (01:11:48.411) my god, that's so funny, honey. Lyndsay Soprano (01:12:03.508) real. Heather Rovet (01:12:15.232) listeners know and I think only people who've gone through this crazy kind of stories know it's not like it's in your bones, you know? And I love the expression like, you know, when something is in your bones, I wish it were all good loving feelings in my bones, but like there is a bit of that trauma that's like, I don't think it ever goes away. I really don't. think that's why they call it triggering. And I think what happens, it's like grief. just... You learn to live with it. if the more you can develop your presence and awareness and self-compassion and grow into like more and more into the best version of yourself. When you have those triggers, they're not so debilitating, but you know, then again, and you know, then my dad died, like through we're going through all of this. Then my dad dies like that kind of grief. Like that was so hard to do it like. And then I realized like. Lyndsay Soprano (01:13:07.826) Right. Heather Rovet (01:13:14.572) God, I really am resilient. what's that saying? Like, God only gives you what you can handle. Like, I clearly must be a really strong person because I'm still here and I'm still standing and none of it broke me. And the part within that too, it's like, if I did completely fall apart to the point where like I became super ill or had it, know, God forbid, had I like even taken my own life, he would have won. Lyndsay Soprano (01:13:20.627) Yeah. Lyndsay Soprano (01:13:45.054) Yeah. Heather Rovet (01:13:46.26) I don't want him to win because the bully shouldn't win. The bad guy doesn't get to win. It's like the arc of the story. It's like he's Darth Vader and I'm Luke Skywalker, right? The light always wins and he's the dark force and I'm the light force. And somewhere in this whole crazy journey, it's just like the harder it got with the court and the this, it's just the more... Shooting the documentary was so... validating because here's a whole production company with like the sound guy and the makeup person. Well, we only had makeup one day, but the rest of the makeup, but you know, the sound person and the camera operator and the lighting and all these, my story is giving jobs to people and they're all watching and they're like, thank you for sharing your story. Like they all believed in it. And the more that that happened, It was so validating that I realized it's not me. Like he is, it's the problem with him. Like I'm just gonna keep getting stronger and stronger and stronger through this, but I still have to be completely aware and... you know, there are always going to be triggers, right? But Lyndsay Soprano (01:15:06.34) Yeah, I mean, we can't completely avoid life for the rest of our life. Heather Rovet (01:15:10.87) Yeah. But you know, I'm really proud of myself to say that like, the whole time I was going through what I call like the crazies, I didn't go on an antidepressant or an anti anxiety pill. I just did it all like clear headed because I didn't want to have any weird side effects. And in fact, my GP, my family doctor, I was talking to her one day and she tried to get me into a group CBT program. Lyndsay Soprano (01:15:24.553) Yeah. Heather Rovet (01:15:39.66) And so I did their intake assessment for him. So it was so interesting when I did them all. And then I had my follow-up phone call with them and they said, you know what, Heather, it's interesting. Like in terms of depression, mild. You have a little bit of anxiety, that was also, know, anxiety around like the whole time I'm going through this with Jace, there's also the financial shit. Like he left me with a ton of stuff to clean up and. I'm a real estate agent and the market's not so great and I have to be on my best to do sales. like, so that would cause me that kind of anxiety. But they said on the trauma, you're, you're scored very high. But the problem is we can't really accept, we were not going to accept you into our group program because we don't really recognize what you went through as a trauma. to qualify for our program for trauma, you have to have been like in a plane crash or raped. And I'm like, Lyndsay Soprano (01:16:27.944) Holy shit. Lyndsay Soprano (01:16:36.424) Well, that is complete bullshit. Yeah, amen. Amen to that. So whoever the hell said that to you can go bite me, because that is completely horrible. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And we talk about it on the show a little bit here too about little trauma versus big trauma. And I don't care to put a size to trauma because everybody experiences their life differently. Everybody is shattered differently. Heather Rovet (01:16:37.262) Well, fuck you. Yeah, exactly. It's like, yeah. Right? Like, now you're diminishing what trauma, you're deciding what trauma is? Like, my god. Lyndsay Soprano (01:17:03.9) Everybody has gone through different things and experiences and differently women experience things differently than men do. You know, I mean, it can go on and on and on. So I'm glad that you said that because to those of you who have heard this from practitioners and I know that we all have specifically in the pain community where you're dealing with chronic illness and chronic pain that comes from stuff like you've been through. You don't have to be raped and pillaged to live in chronic pain and chronic illness and have mental health problems and all that you don't. have to, this is shattering. And there's a quote that you said actually in, I don't remember if it was in our meet and greet or whether it was in the documentary, but you said specifically, said, my confidence was shattered and my bank accounts were drained. It all took a toll on me. But when my story became public, it validated me. And I think that's a lot of what we do here too on this show is I give a space for people to talk about what's happened to them. and not vilify them, not make them feel like they're, what did you do wrong here? This is your fault. And there might be people that'll be like, what the fuck did she do for three years? Why didn't she see, well, you weren't in that particular spot, right? And then there's others like, my God, I've been through the same thing. Thank God I met you right now and I'm gonna watch your movie, your documentary and now I'm gonna help advocate with you. mean, so you get the full gamut of all of that. And I do love your quote about the bullies shouldn't win and they're not going to win. They're not gonna win on this show, that's for fricking sure. but we are officially done with time right now, love. Wait, yeah, P2, yeah, no, because there's so much to it. And when you're going back through your head and you're like, yeah, let's write a remember about that, you remember these things and all those things, you forget that all of that stuff has been sitting in your body. It's all been sitting there and your body keeps the score. We talk about that book all the time on this show. It's sitting there and PTSD is not just because you're a veteran. Heather Rovet (01:18:37.134) We need a part two. Heather Rovet (01:18:53.24) Yeah. Lyndsay Soprano (01:19:02.578) who was shot in war. is not what, we all experience this in different ways. And so I am encouraging everybody that's listening right now to absolutely watch the documentary. It's wonderful, it's on Amazon, it's called RomCon, like RomCon like they do, you know, like a Bridget Jones diary. It's a little different than Bridget Jones diary. And it is Who the Fuck is Jason Porter and he's had multiple names. Heather Rovet (01:19:05.846) Mm-hmm. Heather Rovet (01:19:22.13) Such a good title. you Lyndsay Soprano (01:19:30.288) and you can Google him and look up all the names. You can look at all the social platforms that he's on, because I think there's something that you said in the documentary about his whack-a-mole. Like no matter what happens, he still fucking shows up somewhere. So watch out. And women, when your girlfriends are getting involved with somebody else, we also have to help look for this red flags because we get blinded by the sweet handsome dude in the jeans. Heather Rovet (01:19:42.38) Yeah. Lyndsay Soprano (01:19:58.056) doing some handyman work in our house. can tell you right now, if a handyman walks through this door, it's hit and miss with my husband and I, because he's not handy. Heather Rovet (01:20:07.502) Everyone needs a friend like a Desiree. Sadly, they're not friends anymore, but I love her to death. She's like incredible. Lyndsay Soprano (01:20:09.34) Yes. Yeah. Lyndsay Soprano (01:20:13.62) Well, I'll tell you all of the women that were in the documentary, and I know there's a plenty that were not in it. They're all, I mean, I give them props for coming forward. They're talking about things that are so incredibly intimate. And when you guys feel the shame and the guilt and the sadness and the going on and on and on to get on and do a documentary and really expose yourself, that is not an easy thing to do. Heather Rovet (01:20:17.358) I love them all. Lyndsay Soprano (01:20:37.588) And I haven't been in a documentary, but this is my own personal documentary doing this show. And I know how hard it is to talk real and open and raw and unfiltered and be a little scared about how people might respond to that. And I just don't give a shit anymore. That's the one thing about getting older that is awesome. Cause you're like, I just don't give a shit. Nope. I'm saying whatever it is that I want to say. Christmas day or not. Heather Rovet (01:21:01.773) So true. And it's so good you have the show. When I was going through it all, I didn't even think to find a podcast. I hope you're right. I hope somebody lands on this who needs to hear it. Lyndsay Soprano (01:21:17.042) Yeah, yeah, I was just gonna say, what do you wanna leave us with? Heather Rovet (01:21:20.696) that. And then I want to come back. I want to come back after I write my book. I'm my book. Yeah. Lyndsay Soprano (01:21:22.28) That's one word. I want to come back. I'm coming back. You can come back anytime you want to. Yeah, because there's many resources that are available to people that might be in a similar situation. So, you know, we can reach out. You can find us everywhere. You guys know how to find me, how you can find Heather. She is at Heather Rovet, like Corvette, but it doesn't have two T's and an E. is H-E-A-T-H-E-R-O, excuse me, R-R-O-V-E-T dot com. I know I came from the automotive industry, so Corvette is easy for me to spell. She's on Facebook. Same thing. Heather Rovet. If you have any questions, please reach out to me. Reach out to Heather. Don't be silent. Don't be silent. If you feel irky about something or your skin starts to crawl, listen to that. They say our guts follow your gut instincts, right? Yeah. Well, we need to be a little bit better about that. Ladies, I know we all do as ladies because we kind of like, he's so warm and fuzzy. We don't need to worry about all that other creepy stuff. And am so glad that you're here and you're here to tell your story and here to help others. And I understand that you're writing a book. You've got all kinds of things coming out. So I can't wait for your book to come out and bring you back on. This has been wonderful. Yeah, thanks so much for your resilience because it's it's we need more people like you out there. You got it. You are exclusively. Heather Rovet (01:22:31.448) Thank you, Lindsay. Heather Rovet (01:22:37.762) Thank you. Same. Lyndsay Soprano (01:22:41.252) Invited to share this healing bit by bit by bit VIP pain journey together Let's get to the heart of how to heal with you by my side Please follow the pain game podcast wherever you digest your podcast content We will be there Heather and I visit us at the pain game podcast comm and follow us on all the socials Thanks for listening. My little VIPs catch you on the other side All right, woman. Heather Rovet (01:23:07.694) was good.