Smiling 'psychopath' Pickleball swindler scammed us out of $50M, wealthy retirees say - who claim his 'satanic' response when they finally confronted him left them speechless

It is fair to say Oklahoma pickleball referee Ron Ponder has changed his opinion of Rodney 'Rocket' Grubbs quite dramatically in recent years.

When the pair first met at a tournament in Italy in 2018, Grubbs was a 'really nice guy' and 'very outgoing'.

Now, Ponder describes his erstwhile friend as an 'a**hole' and a 'psychopath'.

He is not the only one.

Grubbs, of Brookville, Indiana, allegedly ensnared hundreds of people and many of his close friends in an $47.5million fraud in which he lured investors into pumping hundreds of thousands of dollars into his pickleball business.

The man once dubbed the sport's 'ultimate ambassador' travelled to tournaments across the world touting Pickleball Rocks as 'the world's most recognized pickleball apparel brand'.

But authorities say he was issuing promissory notes to people across the country - usually for $25,000 at 12 percent interest over 18 months - that were rarely fulfilled.

The scandal has caused shockwaves across the genteel world of pickleball - a game better known for its friendly face than the big money antics of other established sports.

As Grubbs' victims demand their former friend be slung in jail, they are left wondering how a retired AT&T worker with an affable, bumbling and God-fearing demeanor could have pulled off such an extraordinary ruse.

The rise

'It is a crazy situation we have found ourselves in,' says Melody Woodsum, a 65-year-old pickleball referee from Cape Coral, Florida.

Melody, also a pickleball official, and her husband Greg, 66, piled around $200,000 into Pickleball Rocks over several years.

They say they have not received a penny back - and are owed more than double that when interest and late-payment penalties are accounted for.

The Woodsums first met Grubbs, 68, and his wife at a pickleball tournament in Naples, Florida, in 2016.

Melody remembers him as a 'very friendly person' and the two couples would go out for dinner whenever they were at an event together.

The families became such close friends that the Woodsums even stayed at the home of Grubbs' son, Josh, when they took part in one of his pickleball clinics.

Having established this bond, Grubbs hit Melody and Greg with his pitch in October 2017.

They would be one of five or six people investing in his pickleball apparel company, but swore them to secrecy so his competitors wouldn't know the source of his funding.

For the Woodsums, it felt like a calculated gamble.

'We knew there was a risk in it, but we also knew the pickleball industry was growing and tournaments were expanding,' Melody says. 'We felt it was all within reason.'

Regardless, they were certain Grubbs would make good on his promises.

'They [his family] are faithful people,' Melody adds. 'They would always pray at the dinner table before the meal. So you have this picture of a man who is very honest. A God-fearing family man and businessman.'

Grubbs, who was a property investor following his retirement, also had a set play for enticing further capital.

He would claim one of his investors was cashing out and he needed replacement funding - or that his business was expanding to include nets, balls and paddles, allowing Pickleball Rocks to target schools and colleges, according to a 19-page complaint from the Indiana Secretary State.

It is echoed by other friends and investors, including Walt Hooker and Ponder, who put in $25,000 and $65,000 respectively.

Instead of paying the money back when it was due, they say Grubbs would make excuses - often to do with the pandemic - and offer to roll the money over into the next investment.

The fall

The game of pickleball might be expanding, but it is still a relatively small world inhabited by players who bump into familiar faces at various tournaments across the US.

Soon, the secret began to leak.

Ponder says he raised an eyebrow when another player told him he hoped Grubbs would make loads of money selling his T-shirts because he was an investor.

Then, at a tournament in Holly Hill, Florida, in December 2022, it all came spilling out.

Teri Siewert, 67, who had invested $25,000 in 2019, had started to suspect something was up after Grubbs missed yet another payment deadline in September that year.

She began asking other players about him. The first person she asked, Teri says, burst into tears when she claimed Grubbs had taken her money and wouldn't give it back.

Teri started a Facebook group called 'From Pickleball Rocks to Prison Rocks' and soon hundreds of similar tales started pouring in.

Shortly after the group was founded, Teri received a wire transfer from Grubbs of more than $50,000 - accounting for their $25,000 investment plus accrued penalties and interest.

The following day, Teri contacted Matt Foster, an Indianapolis attorney. Foster now represents more than 300 clients with claims against Grubbs going back to the early 2000s.

The one-time 'pickleball ambassador' owes a total of $47.5million to more than 500 creditors across more than 30 states and several countries for pickleball and real estate investments, court filings claim.

No one knows where the money has gone. His friends say he never lived a lavish lifestyle.

The securities division of Indiana's secretary of state issued a cease-and-desist order banning Grubbs from issuing further notes, alleging he was breaking state securities laws.

He was forced into involuntary bankruptcy earlier this year after a group of creditors confronted him during a court hearing in Indianapolis.

Pickleball Rocks has closed and Grubbs has disappeared from the tournament circuit.

In court filings, he claimed assets of $1.6million.

The aftermath

Grubbs hasn't been charged with a crime, much to his creditors' frustration.

Teri says it is 'mind boggling' he hasn't been arrested, while Melody believes he 'should be in jail'.

Grubbs, for his part, has said he never issued a loan he didn't intend to repay.

In a written response filed in the bankruptcy case in January, Grubbs claimed the name Pickleball Rocks had been 'greatly diminished' by gossip and 'coordinated' social media attacks by investors.

He said the business could 'continue to grow' with good management.

Grubbs even told Ron in text messages, seen by DailyMail.com, that the series of events that had led to his downfall were the work of Satan.

Some of his creditors, including Teri and Walt, managed to claim back what was owed to them, largely through sheer persistence.

Most, however, like Ron and Melody, have not been so lucky.

Social media has not been so sympathetic to their woes, claiming such wealthy, intelligent people should have known better than to fall for such high rates of return on an unsecured item.

But Ron points out that 12 percent was not that much of a bump on the 8 percent his money was making elsewhere, so felt plausible.

'People say I should have done my due diligence,' he says. 'But I don't know how, plus, I didn't think I needed to, it was Rodney!'

Grubbs also knew how to play the game. He brought in the former president of USA pickleball as an investor and made it public that he had paid him back to boost his credibility.

Melody says the fact that they were under the impression that there was only a small pool of investors made the size of the scheme also feel more realistic.

She and others thought his total debt was only a few thousand dollars, which could be covered by his assets.

'We felt he had the ability to pay it back,' she adds. 'Never in our wildest dreams did we think he owed millions.

'We were betrayed by a friend. I believe people are honest and I trust my friends.'

But Ron no longer believes he was ever a friend. It was 'all an act' he says, a premeditated play to target potentially wealthy retirees with change to spare.

Grubbs may have worked out a canny business, but his 'nice guy' persona was the biggest hook he had.

'You don't loan money to a Soviet assassin,' Ron adds.