he sold $250,000 of them for $38,000. he kept the money? and kept the money. of course, rowe split town soon enough. leaving his friend and surrogate father bankrupt. very worst thing that s ever happened to me in my life. i about lost my wife and my family. it s devastating. so, when ron nelson saw the man that ruined his life plastered all over the front of the seattle newspaper under the name of steve heitman, he was eager to tell the world the mystery man s real name. and when evelyn heitman heard that name, something finally clicked. i recognized the name. so i got the yearbooks out. she found him there, jim rowe, a classmate of her long lost son steve. to work his big seattle scheme, the con man had stolen the identity of a dead high school buddy. i don t think he feels bad. doesn t have a conscience? i don t think he does. coming up falling in love with the con man. he used to take me out in the
in seattle, steve heitman without spendi a dime of his own money. he had two microsoft millionaires in the palm of his hand. they even bought into an exotic car dealership. and before long, that business was wallowing in debt, too. and then, one day we were going to meet and ride motorcycles and calling and calling and calling, nope, nobody answers. and what happened to him? disappeared. straight up disappeared. what did you think? i laughed. i just i spent i spent 15 minutes just just laughing. but the microsoft guys weren t laughing. because when heitman skipped town they claim, he took more than $1 million with him. and he left them with two businesses founded with their
what they began to hear. this is seattle, a ski shop where a man named heitman applied for a salesman job back in 1998. the owner found him impressive. the store owner found him charming and impressive. 20 years in the military, been through all the ranks and traveled all over the world. now that he was going to be getting out of the military, wanted to do something that he liked and enjoyed. what he wanted to do is sell skis, and he was a natural. so no one paid much attention to one odd little thing. when he came to work for us, he came to us and said, hi, i m bob heitman. so, fine. he was bob. and interestingly enough, his id that he showed us said that he was steve heitman. steve or bob loved to talk about his military background. which at times seemed somewhat flexible. at first it was the army. and then i believe it was the rangers. and then it was a navy s.e.a.l. so, you know, i never did figure that one out. according to the military discharge papers he showed, his
did you trust him? not really. in february 1999, the local newspaper did a business feature on the new ski shop in town. steve heitman was interviewed, and his resume expanded to fill the space provided. he said he d served in germany in the army, studied at the university of heidelberg, and of course, was an expert skier from an early age and had worked for the skimakers atomic and head as a designer and field tester. did you ever see him ski? no. nobody had seen him ski. steve worked his people hard, but the rewards could be huge. for instance, during a big ski show in las vegas, he took six employees to a nascar race by helicopter. that little field trip cost about ten grand. it may seem like a lot to you, but it was nothing to steve heitman. handed me a fanny pack one time, and i go what s in this? he goes, my money.
hang on to it. i m like, well, how much money? probably about $200,000, $300,000. the ski shop manager who hired and fired steve heitman watched her new competitor spend and spend and scratched her head. i hate to tell you it s not a ski industry. we don t make millions of dollars so that really sent up tons of red flags. but apparently it did not send up tons of red flags for the money man, dale from microsoft. even when weird things began to happen. when i started to question things, was he asked me to get cell phones for the company. what happened when you got cell phones? the credit check came back as steve heitman being deceased. i went to him immediately and said you re coming back dead. as usual, steve had an answer. when i was in the military in europe, you know, i didn t have to file taxes, and my social security number basically went dormant. soon, nordic sports haus grew to a chain of five shops with locations all around the seattle area. steve married a