The True Story Behind RomCon: Who the F*** is Jason Porter?

Time​ Magazine

16 hours ago

RomCon: Who the F*** is Jason Porter?, a docu-series out on Prime Video June 13, tells the sad story of a Toronto woman whose relationship with a repairman broke apart after she discovered his extensive lies.
Heather Rovet met Jason 'Jace' Porter in 2018 when he was a handyman who came to her condo to fulfill a maintenance request. In 2021, she discovered that throughout their three-year relationship, he lied to her repeatedly, went on wild spending sprees with her money, and stole Tiffany jewelry from her family. She found a new life's purpose in exposing his frauds—and the series is a product of that.
Over two episodes, the docu-series follows Rovet's story of falling in love and then finding out that the man she'd been living with was not who he said he was. RomCon also features other women who were wooed by Porter who say, that like with Rovet, he would pursue them actively at first, and then cool off. These women had reached out to Rovet after journalist Jane Gerster's wrote a Toronto Life exposé on her ordeal.
Rovet's hope is that the series will have a far reach on Prime Video, not only to other potential victims of Porter's deceptive schemes, but also to warn viewers about scams. According to the Federal Trade Commission, victims of such scams lost $1.14 billion in 2023.
Here's a look at Rovet's quest to expose the wrongs of the man she initially thought was her Mr. Right.
Warning signs
At first, the relationship with Porter—who introduced himself as "Jace Peretti"—was a dream come true to Rovet, who was 46 years old at the time she met him. He was a great kisser, and they went on motorcycle rides together. Porter had also hit it off with her mother. Within weeks, Porter had told her she was the love of his life.
However, her father, Ernest, had a bad feeling about Porter from the get-go. In the series, he says he regrets that he didn't speak up about it earlier. After the relationship was over, Rovet says he told her that he thought Porter "sounded like a thug—very inarticulate, very clipped sentences. He mumbled a lot." And it didn't track with this cosmopolitan lifestyle he claimed to be living.
Likewise, her friend Krystin said Porter had talked about living in China for two years, and because she had also spent a lot of time in China, she asked how much Mandarin he knew. He said he didn't need to learn it and that he didn't travel around the country much, which she found hard to believe given his claims of living there for an extended period of time.
The romantic gestures continued, before petering out. Porter promised her vacations, like a getaway to Rome, but would backed out last-minute, saying he couldn't leave because of an ongoing custody battle with his ex-wife over his son.
Three years into dating Porter, Rovet wondered if she would ever meet this son.
The moment Heather realized Jason Porter was lying
Rovet started to notice peculiar behavior in Porter when he moved into her condo in Toronto at the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020, when they were in close quarters all of the time. Living together, Heather began noticing and growing annoyed that he'd stay up really late, and then take long naps in the afternoon. Though she was a city slicker through-and-through, she agreed to compromise and move out to the Toronto suburb of Aurora so he could be closer to his son.
Meanwhile Rovet's mother discovered she was missing her two wedding bands. When she asked her housekeeper who took it, the housekeeper said Jace took it. When her mother didn't believe her, the housekeeper quit. "I still, to this day, feel terrible for what he took from my mom, because she's never going to get it back," Rovet says. "And it's not about the actual things; it's the sentiment, the memories, that he stole from her."
He was draining their bank account on gas, cigarettes and vaping accessories, they started fighting regularly. After one fight, in which he couldn't commit to attending a BBQ hosted by one of her friends, he said he needed space. He left for five weeks, and she got suspicious about where he was spending his time. He used to use her computer, so she guessed at his password and gained access to his gmail account and several dating apps that he had actively been using while they had been dating.
The more she dug into his background, the more disturbing information she found, including that Porter had been to jail multiple times. While he was out of the house, she went into his workshop and found receipts to pawn shops. In a room in their house that she specifically designed for his son, she found a bag of documents that contained proof that the custody battle had concluded years ago.
As she was sleuthing, Porter called her. Rovet says she told him, 'I feel like I don't even know who you are anymore.' He immediately locked her out of his email accounts.
Who was Jason Porter?
Porter refused to participate in the series, but there are some things Rovet knows for sure about him. His real name was not Jace Peretti, but Jason Porter, and he was not actually Italian in any way like his fake surname implied. While it's true that he was a dad, he was not a software engineer, like he told prospective dates.
The filmmakers wanted to get some shot of him walking into a local courthouse, so Rovet came along to try and confront him. Porter pulled his jacket over his head when he saw her so that cameras can't see his face. In April 2025, he was sentenced to about two years in prison and three years probation for stealing Rovet's mother's jewelry. He was ordered to repay her mother for the stolen jewelry and report any future romantic relationships to his probation officer.
Though justice has been served, there's a lot still unknown about Porter. 'I would love the opportunity to speak to someone in his family to learn more, but I have to let this go," says Rovet. "I can't keep going down the rabbit holes and letting it consume me.'
What Heather Rovet wants other women to know
The series ends with Heather driving around in her car, saying that she wished she had been onto Porter sooner. 'I'm happy, I'm really happy,' she says, noting it's been six years since the saga began, and she's ready to move on.
She reiterates that she's feeling happier in her conversation with TIME. She has started dating again, although she still feels some trepidation about it, 'not so much with trusting other people, but with trusting myself,' she says, 'trusting that I'm making smart decisions around dating and opening myself up again to being in a relationship.'
She hopes the series will spark a conversation around romance scams and romance fraud and lead to more protection for victims. 'Women who have been betrayed or conned or scammed, I don't think they need to feel embarrassed or ashamed," she says. "If it can happen to me, it can happen to anyone."