I was a cop. My brother is accused of swindling friends and family of nearly $150 million

My brother told me I had great legs.

What incenses me more than the fact he said it, is the fact that I thought it was appropriate commentary, a fair evaluation of my physical attributes. I was 22 years old, he was 28. The thought never dawned on me that eldest brothers shouldn’t think of their sisters in that way.

How did I know Steve and I were different? And I don’t mean different in the typical sense, like how all people are different some way or another. I mean fundamentally different — our values, our ethics, our morals, all the true substances of what makes people who they are. There were countless ways our differences clashed over the years, usually in dramatic fashion.

In university, I was captivated by the study of psychology. Specifically, the hidden workings of the mind and the tangled motivations behind society’s outcasts and broken souls. There was something thrilling about chasing the “why” of human behaviour, like solving a puzzle no one else could see.

In 2002, criminal psychology and profiling were only just emerging, not yet the cultural obsession they’d become. Now, every tipsy undergrad on a Friday night fancies themselves a true-crime armchair detective.

To get my degree, I took courses in my final year that taught me the basics of criminal profiling. I couldn’t get enough. I sought out books to read outside of the curriculum. I watched movies about criminal behaviour. I was bitten by the crime-solving bug.

It stood to reason, then, that policing was a good fit. I expected that it would throw me into a world where my job would be to study and understand criminals. So I applied, navigated the interviews, and found myself face-to-face with a veteran at the police service. He had a presence that reminded me of Gene Hackman in his prime — magnetic, masculine, alluring, with a gaze that seemed to peel back one’s thoughts.

His voice, rough from what I imagined were nights of bourbon and cigars, carried a quiet authority. He moved with a swagger that made me slow my own steps to match his, hyperaware that any haste might betray my nerves.

When we stood to end the meeting, I discreetly wiped my sweaty palm on my pants, hoping he wouldn’t notice. His handshake was firm, his skin calloused, like he spent weekends swinging a hammer. Then, in a move that closed the professional distance between us, he cupped my elbow, pulled me close and whispered in my ear.

“You smell so f–king good.”

Releasing me with a wink, he raised his voice for the benefit of anyone nearby.

“Welcome to the police service, my dear. We’re happy to have you.”

This was the kind of world that allowed my brother Steve to shine; where men were born with worth and women had to earn it. Driving home in my beat-up silver Honda, with its manual windows and no air conditioning, this is it, I thought. Real life, here I come.

I burst through the door of my parents’ house, where I still lived, practically vibrating with excitement, waving my job contract like a victory flag. Steve was there, sharing beers with our dad at the kitchen table. He looked up, one eyebrow raised, and gave me that classic Steve once-over, eyeing me from head to toe. I had become accustomed to this appraisal; it was always how he greeted me, like a hunter eyeing up his prey, weighing how best to slay me.

It wasn’t until more than a decade later that I came to know this was uncommon. All eldest brothers didn’t look at their sisters with such contempt and disgust. Just mine did.

“You’re gonna be a cop? Really? A pig? You sure about that?” he said, pausing for effect. “You’ve got great legs. You could be a great secretary,” taking a swig from his beer.

You’ve got great legs. Four words. It took only seconds for those four tiny words to have an immeasurable impact, to sear themselves into my psyche, forever lodged there.

According to Steve, I would never excel at anything. I would never keep pace with a man. A man like Steve. Or so he wanted me to believe. I laughed it off, too proud to let him see how much his chauvinistic trope stung.

I can’t recall if Dad said anything. Truthfully, I’m not sure whether he was even there to hear that comment. But it didn’t matter, because Steve said s–t like that all the time. It was 2002. The patriarchy reigned supreme.

How ironic then, when I was a detective and Steve was pulled over by one of my policing colleagues after running a red light when he left the strip club in Guelph.

“I know you guys,” he said, as my colleague approached the driver’s side window.

“Excuse me?” was the officer’s response.

“Yeah. My sister, Julie Meier, she works with you.”

By this time, I was deliberately estranged from my eldest brother. Our relationship had long been strained and was ripe for an abrupt ending. That came in December 2014, after an extravagant Christmas party held at his home attended by family, friends and business associates. The night started out as a party, but ended with me having no doubt the relationship must end.

Not being aware of the estrangement between my brother and I, my colleague let him off with a warning. My colleague relayed the story to me the next day. He was confused about the fact that I was annoyed. It was a courtesy of the policing family — if possible, family members of fellow cops wouldn’t get tickets. An unwritten perk of the job, I suppose, except it was usually reserved for family members who weren’t estranged.

Steve leveraged his biological connection to me to escape accountability for running a red light. Funny how the man who shamed my choice of career was unapologetically grateful in that instance that his sister was a “pig.” After all, having a cop in the family would surely help to divert attention from his fraudulent activities. I’m convinced he was already scamming people even back then, because let’s face it, one of Ontario’s biggest alleged Ponzi schemers wasn’t born overnight.

It just took until 2023 for the world to find out that my brother’s name, Stephen Heimbecker, would be synonymous with greed and manipulation, and that he would be accused of swindling well in excess of $100 million from people.

It was November 2023 when I learned that my eldest brother was a suspected fraudster. I didn’t learn it all at once, it came to me piecemeal. I think piecemeal was the only way that I could have absorbed it, given the sheer magnitude of his alleged Ponzi scheme involving his mortgage broker business.

Steve and his former business, Nestig Inc., are currently named in more than a dozen civil court cases in Ontario, accused of fraudulently using investors’ funds. He has been found to have committed fraud in one of those cases , and orders have been made against him in seven of the civil suits. The other cases have not been tested in court.

Charges have not been laid in a criminal investigation by the Waterloo Regional Police, but police spokesman Const. Brad Hickey confirmed the investigation is ongoing.

I believe my parents are fairly typical of two 80-year-olds. Our lives are interwoven due to our shared proximity and the many family meals, birthday celebrations and my kids’ sports games that we share together.

But beyond these conveniences lies a deeper rhythm from the ease with which I can check on them. Now into their “golden years,” a sense of responsibility weighs gently but insistently on me. It’s a duty I embrace gladly, stopping over unannounced more often and lingering longer than planned. I am offered endless cups of coffee or tea when I arrive, a small ritual of connection.

One visit, in late November 2023, felt like any other. I stepped through the unlocked double doors, framed by matching urns of holly and cedar, and found them nestled close in the kitchen, focused on a pot simmering on the stove. Dad, peering over his reading glasses, nodded a quiet greeting when I made my presence known.

Growing up, our fridge had always been a tactile map of our lives, at its centre a hanging paper wall calendar, its little squares filled with appointments scribbled in handwriting. The current view of their fridge was the same, so familiar to me from my memories,

Among the usual clutter, a small, tattered newspaper clipping caught my eye, nestled between the calendar and a brochure for an author signing. I had to read it twice, the words blurring at first as my mind struggled to grasp their meaning. A boxy advertisement, three-inches square, the bolded letters screamed their message: Legal Notice – in the matter of the bankruptcy of Stephen Lee Heimbecker. My eldest brother, my parents’ first-born child.

Steve was bankrupt? A man who used private jets on a whim to escape to luxurious sunny destinations, and who gifted his wife jewelry worth more than my house? A man who had a vacation home in a gated Florida community, and a farm used to train the racehorses he owned ? How was this real? My brother was publicly admitting defeat, for all to see.

I had long been suspicious that a man who ran a mortgage broker business could plausibly afford such an ostentatious lifestyle. I assumed that his interests in horse racing may have supplemented his income, though I was still skeptical, believing that gambling rarely earned anyone such consistent opulence. The math never made sense to me.

A tremor stirred deep within me, a sensation that bubbled up and grew as I glanced at Dad. His blank stare met my own, waiting for my response. And then, it burst forth, a raw, uncontrollable laughter. My brother, the one who bragged about making more money in a month than I did in a whole year? The one who poked fun at my clothing when I didn’t wear $500 jeans? He was bankrupt?

My parents gaped at me, unsure how to respond to my outburst of laughter. “Don’t you get it?” I asked.

“Get what?” Mom asked, looking at Dad.

“I knew it would eventually blow up in his face. Something wasn’t right with him for years,” I said.

The validation that tiny scrap of ripped-out newsprint brought me was unexpected. I didn’t know how his kingdom would fall, but I guessed that at some point, it would. He couldn’t keep up with the charade forever, all these people thinking he was such a “great guy.” It was only a matter of time before they saw what I had known for years — that he was a liar and a cheat.

“Does Brad know?” I asked, remembering an agreement I had made with my other brother, the middle child between Steve and me.

Because he lived hours out of town, Brad and I agreed to keep each other in the loop about things happening in the family. Any flow of information about Steve and his family had stopped completely after Steve had cut our mom and dad from his life almost a year prior, and I had lost all contact with Steve many years before, vowing to never speak with him again. Brad agreed to keep us abreast of anything newsworthy. He still maintained an active relationship with Steve and his family, visiting during holidays and talking occasionally over the phone.

“We’re not sure. We didn’t mention it to him,” my mother replied.

“Didn’t mention it? Don’t you think that’s somewhat significant?” I asked, incredulous.

“Well, I guess we don’t really know what to think. They’re both adults, though. I’m sure they can sort it out themselves. If Steve wants Brad to know, he will tell him.”

Nodding, I said, “I’m definitely calling Brad.”

“We’ll leave it to you to decide,” Mom said abruptly. She was letting me know that the conversation was over.

I left shortly after. Sitting in my car in their driveway, I dialed Brad’s number.

“I know we agreed to keep each other in the loop on big things …” I started.

“Oh, no. What’s happened? Are Mom and Dad OK?”

“Yes, yes, sorry, everyone’s fine. I didn’t want to alarm you. I am calling to let you know that there was a notice in the newspaper here about Steve. He’s claiming bankruptcy. I don’t know any of the details, it just announced a date and time for a meeting, but the public is allowed. Dad is going to request to attend, maybe get some details about what’s happened.”

“Oh, yeah, that. I already knew that. Steve told me that was happening. He’s been having some financial difficulties recently, I guess.”

My stomach dropped, and his words replayed in my mind. I was certain I misunderstood him, so I asked him to repeat himself.

“You knew?”

“Yeah, he told me he had to claim bankruptcy. Is everything OK? You sound upset.”

“Why didn’t you tell me? Keep an open path of communication, remember? That’s what we agreed when it came to family stuff.”

“In fairness, I didn’t tell you because you’ve told me before that you didn’t care to hear about Steve and his family. That you didn’t want me to talk about it.”

A quiet pause filled the air between us.

“Do you know any other details?”

“I guess he has a meeting soon, he told me. I guess we’ll find out more then, right?”

By late 2023, I had become adept at navigating online meetings and video conferences, a skill honed during the COVID-19 pandemic. But my parents weren’t so comfortable with the technology. They occasionally ventured online, but had never witnessed a bankruptcy hearing, let alone one conducted virtually.

As I entered their home that day, I felt the weight of their eldest son’s impending public bankruptcy announcement hanging heavily between them, filling the room with silent anxiety and making them apprehensive about logging in correctly.

We gathered in their rustic home office, a cosy space bathed in sunlight streaming through the large window beside the broad oak desk nestled in the corner. The desk was cluttered with scraps of paper scrawled with websites and passwords, crossed out and rewritten repeatedly, a testament to my parents’ forgetfulness and their relentless effort to create new passwords.

I was eager to watch the video conference unfold. Mom pulled up a kitchen chair for me beside Dad, who settled into their faux-leather rolling desk chair directly in front of the screen, positioning himself so his face would be visible if needed. Mom chose the plush chaise in the corner, but she couldn’t stay still. She stood, paced in and out of the room, then sat again like a Jack-in-the-box, wringing her hands in restless tension.

Right on time, I clicked the link provided by the bankruptcy trustee. The camera’s birds-eye view from its high perch in a corner took a moment to focus before revealing a dark wood boardroom table dominating the centre of the room. Black office chairs with armrests crowded around it, some seats hidden from view. Something felt off. I wondered if we’d clicked the wrong link, because every seat was taken. People stood along the windows, stacked two deep in one corner, with more still entering.

As I leaned forward, I recognized the daughter of my mom’s best friend, grown since the last time I’d seen her as a 20-something, our families having shared Christmases and vacations together. Some attendees wore pristine business attire, others sported hoodies and track pants. As it turned out, many people in that room were not strangers to my family: friends, relatives, social acquaintances and community members.

Then Steve entered. He looked the same as I remembered him. Tall, wearing a button-down shirt, carrying a satchel over his shoulder. He had glasses on, perched below the bridge of his nose, making him appear older than my memory of him. The room fell silent as he slid into the last empty chair, reserved just for him, next to the bankruptcy trustee leading the meeting.

My stomach sank. We had the right link. We were in the right meeting. The room was full. In that instant, I knew Steve’s bankruptcy claim was much more involved than I imagined.

The trustee’s voice sliced through the stillness, calm and professional, announcing that the meeting was to begin, and explained the rules in basic terms. Steve’s assets would be sold, the profits divided up between the claimants named in the agenda.

The agenda was a document each attendee had received beforehand, a ledger detailing Steve’s tangled web of assets and debts. My dad had handed me this very document just as I’d logged us into the meeting. As I flipped through its pages now, my eyes locked on the list of creditors, a seemingly endless roll of names, each one claiming that Steve owed them money.

Collectively, the sum detailed in this creditor package was approximately $108 million. This included secured and unsecured claims, as well as “contingent claims,” reflecting the claims filed against him in civil courts as of the date of the meeting.

The voice of the trustee through the desktop speakers warned that more claims were yet to be formally submitted, promising that the total debt would climb higher, but to what amount was yet unknown as their office was still fielding calls from would-be claimants.

We would later learn, through a second bankruptcy meeting and other civil actions filed in Ontario courts, that the total claims against him would climb to nearly $150 million .

Steve sat silently beside the trustee, absorbing the weight of the room’s collective shock. Then, breaking the heavy silence, a man unknown to me cleared his throat and raised a hand, pulling a thick leather dossier from the floor. Steve acknowledged him by his first name; obviously, they knew each other. The man flipped through the pages until he found a creased corner and asked bluntly, “Do you have an alcohol addiction, Steve?” No preamble, no softening, just a sharp, raw question.

Steve’s reply was clipped and evasive. “I can’t answer that.” The next question, about having a gambling addiction, met the same deflection. One after another, Steve dodged each query, revealing nothing. Frustrated, the man slammed the dossier down and demanded bitterly, “Where’s the money, Steve?”

My frustration was also mounting. Who was this man speaking? Did he have a formal role in this process? What were the rules of engagement? I felt time slow as the room plunged back into a suffocating silence. I found out later that he was a local businessman, who claims he was owed about $1.6 million by my brother.

Then, a woman who had been silently leaning against the window spoke up, her voice trembling but fierce. “Can you please explain what’s going on here? I only found out about this meeting yesterday from a friend who’s also a victim of Steve’s. We don’t understand this process. We don’t have lawyers. We can’t afford one. Steve, you took everything from us,” she claimed.

Her words were an affirmation that I wasn’t the only person confused about the process, unknowing about the rules. Her voice gained strength as she stood, facing him directly. “You promised us. You said we’d get our money back, with interest … Did you forget about us, Steve?”

Steve’s response was disturbingly casual. “Don’t worry, I’ll get your money back.” I couldn’t tell if he believed these words, but I surely did not.

Tears streamed down her face as she pressed on. “Steve! We lost everything. We lost our house. We’re in a shelter with our kids. We have to tell them there won’t be a Christmas at home this year. What the hell is wrong with you?” Her sobs shattered the room. She collapsed to her knees, her husband holding her tightly.

I pressed the volume button on the keyboard, certain I had misheard what she said, but the volume was already set to maximum. How had she lost her home? What kind of deal did they make with Steve?

I was desperate for details. I took a deep breath to pause the checklist of questions springing to my mind. I was not the detective assigned to this case, I was not in control, I was just like the rest of the group, learning these details in the moment as they were shared.

Across from Steve, an elderly man leaned forward, his voice dripping with scorn. “Do you even care?” He shared his own story: Once Steve’s loyal IT technician, he said he was now unemployed and had lost all his investments. Despite Steve’s shutdown and bankruptcy claims, the gentleman said he had used his own money to keep Steve’s cloud account alive, safeguarding every file, every email, every digital trace.

His final words hit me like a punch. “I was supposed to retire next year. Forty-five years of work, all my savings. You told me to trust you, Steve. I gave you everything. Now I have nothing. The only thing I can think of … is to kill myself.”

A tear slid down my cheek. How did it come to this? I felt like I was falling, overwhelmed by the flood of information, struggling to piece it all together. Then, a man wearing a baseball hat cut through the tension. “Where is the money, Steve?”

My mother’s ears perked up. She jumped from her chair, her eyes narrowing at the screen. “That’s my nephew,” she whispered. Before she turned to leave, I heard under her breath: “This is too much, I can’t watch.”

I looked to my father. His brow furrowed deeply; he shook his head in disbelief, mouth agape with words he couldn’t find. I grasped his hand, fragile and bony in mine, and promised to help him understand once the meeting ended. I don’t know why I said that, because I didn’t understand what was happening either.

I felt outside myself in that moment, sitting next to my dad, staring into the void of a computer screen, learning for the first time tiny breadcrumbs of the secrets Steve had been harbouring for years.

While I had my suspicions about his wealth, I never contemplated that it was something so sinister.

Inside the dark, icy cocoon of my car, parked in my parents’ driveway, tears stung my eyes. Unlike in the company of my parents during the videoconference, I sat alone, free from the need to hold back, free from the pressure to sort out facts from feelings.

My mind replayed the hours that had led to this moment, each memory dragging slowly, like thick mud oozing. How had I not known? How had all those people not known?

Then, like a sucker punch stealing the air from my lungs, heat surged through me. I sat upright, burning from chest to neck, flames crawling across my cheeks that only moments ago had felt chilled by the cold.

My other brother, Brad, said that he already knew. He said Steve told him of his “financial difficulties recently.”

He knew this and was still associating with Steve? Fury and rage exploded inside me. I grabbed my phone from my jacket pocket, shaking as I tried to dial Brad’s number. Tears streaming down my face, I was fuelled now by my blazing anger.

I told myself it wasn’t a good idea to call right now. Pull yourself together, I urged silently. This was just an investigation, another case like any other. I shoved the phone back into my jacket pocket, grabbed my key from the mat and slammed it into the ignition. The drive home blurred into a haze; I don’t remember a thing.

I kicked off my shoes the moment I stepped into the laundry room, slamming the door so hard the wall shook. My husband stood in the doorway, leaning casually against the frame, eager for the latest scoop on Steve’s downfall.

“What happened?” he asked. When he saw the tears staining my cheeks, he pulled me into a warm embrace, wrapping me tightly in his arms. “Are you OK?” he asked. “Talk to me.”

“Give me a minute, I’ll tell you everything. I just need to talk to Brad first.”

I stepped into my home office and shut the door behind me. I chose not to turn on the light, preferring the darkness. The soft glow from my phone lit up the screen as I began punching in the numbers. Just before entering the last digit, I stopped. I didn’t want to talk to him. Anger churned inside me, making any conversation pointless and unproductive. “Keep it together,” I whispered aloud.

I fired off a text to Brad instead. My fingers flew over the screen, pouring out several paragraphs, filled with raw disdain. I told him that I was disgusted he had known all along and had brushed it off as just a minor financial hiccup, when in reality it was a monstrous tsunami of alleged fraud. I made it clear that under these circumstances, I refused to continue any relationship with him or Steve.

As I hit Send, nausea swept through me like a sudden storm. I never imagined the day would close knowing one brother was accused of ruining lives, taking homes and life savings to fuel his own greed, and another brother would protect him.

A message popped up suddenly, dinging over and over, signalling multiple texts. Brad claimed ignorance, insisting he was just as shocked and disgusted as I was. Steve downplayed his financial troubles to him, admitting only that he owed a few people some money, nothing more complicated.

Then came the last text, the briefest one, and it hit me like a weight, stealing my breath.

“I’m also one of his victims. He owes me a lot of money I only now realize I might never get back.”

Steve was accused of taking money from our own brother.

Julie Meier retired from the Guelph Police Service as a sergeant in 2020 after 18 years, where, as a detective, she investigated sexual assault, homicides and other major crimes. She is now a licenced private investigator and an aspiring author, who has written a memoir about her life with her brother. She encourages victims of fraud to report them to Canada’s fraud reporting website.

EDITORS NOTE: National Post reached out to Stephen Heimbecker for comment on the allegations in this first-person story. This is his statement:

I acknowledge that I have made mistakes in the past, and I am genuinely sorry for the things I did wrong and for the people who were affected by my actions. I take responsibility for my mistakes and deeply regret the consequences they caused.

Over time, I have done a great deal of reflection and have made significant changes in my life. My faith in Jesus Christ has become an important part of that process, and I am committed to living my life differently and moving forward in a positive and honest way.

That said, some of the information contained in your inquiry is not accurate or does not reflect the circumstances as I understand them. Because there is ongoing civil litigation relating to these matters, I do not believe it would be appropriate for me to comment on the specific allegations or underlying facts at this time.

I respect your right to report on matters of public interest, and I appreciate the opportunity to provide this response.

Main image: Julie Meier at her home near Waterloo, Ont. Photo by Peter Power/Postmedia News