The True Story Behind RomCon: Who the F*** is Jason Porter?
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."
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About 70% of leisure and hospitality workers were laid off during the pandemic when hotels and restaurants shut down. Many left town. 'People can't wait around to go back to work, and they didn't,' said city economist Ted Egan. Compounding the problem, those workers, many of them young, tended to be among their industry's most reliable customers. A $20 tip left on the bar at Ocean Ale House near City College may end up at the Royal Cuckoo on Mission Street or Specs in North Beach. 'A huge portion of the business was the service industry. They are gone,' said Blieman of the Entertainment Commission. 'They used to go out, they used to party, they used to spend the tips they just made at your bar after their shift.' Even after the pandemic ended and bars and restaurants reopened, servers in a depressed San Francisco were making a lot less than they had been, which in turn prompted a flight of talent to other markets, Sheehy said. A whole group of Future Bars servers and managers relocated to New York, lured by tales of tips exceeding $400 a night. 'They have created their own ex-pat community of San Francisco hospitality folks in New York,' Sheehy said. 'They have a great lifestyle and make more money. It's hard to blame them.' Despite the unsettling sales and migration data, Gen Z members believe there's hope for the city's nightlife scene — even if they have to look to the daylight hours for inspiration. Recent San Francisco transplants say the statistics don't reflect the vitality of the arts and entertainment scene taking root at places like the Faight Collective in the Lower Haight or Casements in the Mission, or at parties put on by Cave Rave, which recently threw a dance party in the tunnels by Sutro Baths. Velasquez, the party planner, said 'there has been this weird stain' on San Francisco since the pandemic, 'but a new narrative is forming that San Francisco is alive.' Day parties are popular, Velasquez said, explaining that Gen Zers value 'community' and tend to be loyal to particular venues or collectives they feel part of. His generation may be drinking less, he said, but more importantly is 'partying differently.' He has been contacting coffeehouses, asking to put on events at 10 a.m. — and seeing hundreds of people show up. One of the venues that has figured out how to attract Gen Zers, the Faight Collective, is part art gallery, nightclub, retail space, theater, yoga studio, live music venue and recording studio. 'It's the era of community organizers. It's the era of coffee pop-ups and day parties,' said Daniel Bondi, 30, who founded the venue with Andrew Wasilewski in 2023. 'We did a techno brunch where everyone wore black and sunglasses. It was a Berlin club but at 11 o'clock in the morning.' Casements, an LGBTQ-friendly Irish bar in the Mission with a festive beer garden, has cultivated a loyal customer base through a combination of old-school hospitality and curated events. There might be a chicken schnitzel party on a Wednesday and a 'Seanchoíche' — a night of Irish storytelling — the next night. On a recent Saturday, Casements hosted an 11 a.m. Virgo Supperclub Pop-Up followed by a 3 p.m. lesbian and queer friendly wine pop-up hosted by Somebody's Sister followed by a drag bingo. The establishment serves four types of non-alcoholic beers and an extensive list of low-alcohol cocktails. 'We have immersive interactive events because folks are looking for experiences-driven things,' said co-owner Jillian Fitzgerald. She said she has seen more 20-somethings moving to San Francisco primarily for community or culture, rather than just for a high-paying tech job. 'Before the pandemic there were a lot of people here who didn't want to be in San Francisco — they would have much preferred to be in Houston with a big backyard,' she said. 'San Francisco has always been a city of unexpected things and that died for a while. Now it's starting to come back.' Leah Woods, a 28-year-old composer who lives in the Haight, runs the Tuesday night open mic at the Faight. She said the city needs to do a better job promoting itself as a place for artists and musicians. 'S.F. is so casual about the art that comes out of it. It doesn't really care,' she said. 'You drive into the city and every billboard is about AI and you have no idea what any of it means. How about a billboard promoting a frickin show or an artist's new single or a performance in the park?' While the Faight still generates revenue selling drinks and tickets, Wasilewski and Bondi emphasized that the Gen Z audience responds well to 'layering,' an array of activities like crocheting or watercolor painting that 'calm the nerves' and can appeal to people not used to socializing with strangers. One recent Faight open mic participant was Elijah Milak, a 24-year-old guitarist and singer who moved to San Francisco in 2021 after graduating from Howard University. 'When I got here nightlife was pretty dead,' he said. 'Now it feels like the city has come out of its shell. You can come to a community like the Faight and there is a genuine energy. ' At the entertainment commission summit, Faight co-founder Wasilewski said that venues, instead of guessing what customers in their 20s are looking for, should empower the next generation by bringing in young promoters or collectives who know what their contemporaries want. 'Give them the freedom to come in and take over the space to do their thing,' Wasilewski said. 'Get creative. Don't be cheap. Don't be lazy. Give people good non-alcoholic options. People want to enjoy having a good-looking drink in their hands. It doesn't have to be alcohol.'
