The daughter of San Francisco radio legend Ronn Owens appeared in court once again over claims she faked a pregnancy with The Bachelor star Clayton Echard.
Laura Owens, 35, arrived to court in Arizona on Tuesday appearing incredibly thin as lawyers for her and the State determined a change of plea court date.
Owens, who had returned from two weeks of out-of-state travel approved by a judge on April 9, was indicted last May on felony charges of fraud, forgery and perjury after allegedly falsifying a pregnancy with Echard.
In August 2023, Owens had filed a paternity petition in court in Phoenix accusing Echard of fathering her twins during a one-night stand.
Echard denied fathering any children with Owens, claiming that the pair did not have intercourse, the Daily Mail previously reported.
That November, Owens testified in court that she was 24 weeks pregnant with twins.
Shortly after, she dropped the lawsuit saying she must have miscarried as she realized she was no longer expecting.
However, in a criminal case prosecutors claimed she had doctored a sonogram and pregnancy video and lied under oath when she accused Echard of fathering her ‘twins.’ She pleaded not guilty.
Laura Owens, 35, arrived to court in Arizona on Tuesday appearing incredibly thin as lawyers for her and the State determined a change of plea court date
Owens, daughter of radio hosts Ronn Owens and Jan Black, filed a paternity petition in court in Phoenix in August 2023 accusing Echard of fathering her twins during a one-night stand
Former Bachelor star Clayton Echard denied fathering any child with Owens, claiming that the pair did not have intercourse
As she appeared in court on Tuesday, state attorneys and Owens’s lawyers set a complex case management/change of plea conference for June 29, 12 News reported.
Owens’s lawyers said they would have everything prepared for that date, according to the outlet.
Echard previously told the Daily Mail that their one night stand and Owens’s pregnancy claims turned his life upside down.
He claimed that she immediately became ‘obsessed’ with him after he dumped her and then falsified the pregnancy.
Echard, who was ‘The Bachelor’ on Season 26 of the hit ABC dating show and who now works as a realtor in Scottsdale, said he felt ‘vindicated’ when prosecutors charged her last May.
He told the Daily Mail in October that he believed Owens’s mother, former radio reporter Jan Black was the driving force behind her daughter’s legal problems. However, she denied that accusation. Prosecutors simply listed an unnamed ‘accomplice’ in court documents.
‘I don’t even really blame Laura,’ he said. ‘I think her mom has enabled and encouraged her daughter and Laura doesn’t even realize it.’
Black, however, insisted that her daughter’s pregnancy was real and said Laura has been ‘tormented’ online, hounded by ‘men’s rights podcasters’ and prosecuted selectively by the state of Arizona.
Black said that the toll of her legal battles caused Owens to lose a dramatic amount of weight, and told the Daily Mail in October that she was just 84 pounds at 5 foot 4 inches
Laura Owens submitted a picture she said was her baby bump to the court, claiming Echard was the father
Laura’s mugshot was taken after she was booked by the Maricopa County Sheriff’s Office in May following her indictment on seven felony charges stemming from her paternity claim against Echard
‘I genuinely didn’t think something like this could happen in this country,’ Black told the Daily Mail in her first extensive interview.
‘It’s absolutely mind-boggling. Apparently, it’s the only time there’s been a paternity case like this prosecuted.’
According to Black, Laura had ‘begged the court’ to seal the record.
‘She wanted this to be private. The prosecutor seems to be saying she wanted notoriety. She begged not to have notoriety.’
The toll on their family has been devastating, Black said.
Black said the SWAT team raided their home in January looking for ‘prosthetic baby bumps’ and pregnancy hormones.
‘Twelve to fifteen guys, guns drawn,’ Black said. ‘You send a SWAT team for that?’
Laura weighed just 84 pounds at 5 foot 4 inches, her mother said last October.
Echard claims Laura’s mother ‘is the driving force’ behind her daughter’s legal troubles, while Black insists the pregnancy was real and says Laura has been ‘tormented’ by an online mob
Owens’s case has been amplified online because she previously sought protective orders against at least two other men. She accused Greg Gillespie of ‘abortion coercion’ in Arizona and got a restraining order against Michael Marraccini in California
‘It’s horrific what it’s done to her,’ she said. ‘She’s been suicidal off and on.’
Laura, however, sounded cheerful when Daily Mail reached her by phone in Arizona at the time.
‘I can’t tell you how much I wish I could make a statement to you,’ she said. ‘And I would be happy to once the criminal side of things is over.
‘I have lots to say, but I would get in trouble. I can say I am innocent but nothing more for now. It’s best if you go through my mother.’
Black hit back at claims, that had been made both online and by Echard, that she is pulling the strings behind the scenes.
‘If supporting my daughter makes me a puppet master, then fine,’ she said. ‘We’ve really tried to help her through this.’
She said the ordeal bankrupted the family, who moved to Scottsdale from San Francisco several years ago after Ronn Owens, who suffers from health issues including Parkinsons, retired.
Their family has since filed for Chapter 13 bankruptcy.
Owens’s case was amplified online after she previously sought protective orders against at least two other men. She accused Greg Gillespie of ‘abortion coercion’ in Arizona and got a restraining order against Michael Marraccini in California. Both men deny her allegations and stood on the witness stand in January.
Documents and photos between Gillespie and Laura allege a disturbing pattern – including a text thread where she allegedly sent him ultrasounds claiming to be pregnant with twins
Owens’s online critics said that at least three legal disputes in a decade involving romantic partners suggested a suspicious and toxic pattern.
Black, however, refuted that and said that she believes Laura was serially victimized by her lovers – beginning with Marraccini.
She said her husband Ronn also completely supports Laura’s version of events.
As for Echard, Black said the former University of Missouri football star initiated their first meeting – despite texts on LinkedIn seen by Daily Mail that indicate Owens initially contacted Echard.
‘He texted her one night and said, ‘Hey, would you mind coming over to cuddle? I’m lonely.’ And she said, ‘Yeah, but you need to understand, this is not a booty call.’ She texted him that. She said, ‘I’m not coming over to have sex with you.’
Yet, Black alleged that Echard pressured her daughter when she got to his house.
‘He’s admitted they were grinding naked all night long and that he ejaculated twice,’ she claimed.
‘But he wants to make it seem like she just had oral sex with him and she’s made this up.’
When their relationship fell apart, Marraccini claimed on the website that Laura faked a twin pregnancy, another singular pregnancy, multiple miscarriages and several abortions involving him
Echard claims that when he didn’t want to pursue a relationship with Laura, a ‘switch flipped’ and she began sending him positive pregnancy tests
Black said her daughter’s decision to try to make it work with Echard when he wasn’t interested is ‘a pattern you see with a lot of women who are abused’.
‘They don’t want to believe it. And once he became this way, she got frightened. She tried to pull out slowly. There are a lot of guys who, on the surface, look like great guys and then you find out they have another side to them.’
Echard’s version of his hookup with Owens began casually, with no warning signs. He said Owens first reached out to him on LinkedIn in May 2023, asking to contact a brokerage he was part of.
‘I basically said sure and we exchanged cell phone numbers,’ Echard said. ‘She started to text me saying she wanted to see homes, then she started to be flirtatious. She sent me a provocative photo and the mood shifted. I said you should come over.’
‘She was completely normal, which is sad, because she could have had a totally normal life,’ he told Daily Mail.
The trouble began, he said, when he told her he wasn’t interested in pursuing a relationship after their night together.
‘I was under the influence of marijuana that night,’ he said.
‘If I’d been sober, I wouldn’t have asked her to come over. When I woke up the next day, I felt it was a mistake. She started talking as if we were going down a serious path. I just wanted to be blunt and not lead her on.’
Echard claimed Owens began sending him five or six angry emails per day including this one that shows the pregnancy announcement photo that she planned to post if he didn’t unblock her
What happened next, Echard says, ‘was very eerie.’
When he gently told Owens he didn’t want to date her, he said ‘a switch flipped. It wasn’t her there anymore.’
Echard said she began sending him five or six angry emails per day, sent process servers to his workplace and filed to have his Arizona Department of Real Estate license pulled.
At one point he asked her to come to his apartment to take a pregnancy test that turned out to be positive and ‘rattled’ him, he said, until he decided she was taking HCG – a pregnancy hormone sometimes used in equine care – to fake test results.
Prosecutors have not confirmed this accusation and her mother denied it.
Echard said that initially, before he knew if Owens was truly pregnant, ‘I thought she had trapped me’ and felt a ‘harrowing’ fear.
Echard added that he was moving on with his life and focusing on his real estate career and new hobby, dancing, which he showcases on his Instagram account.
‘I totally compartmentalize that experience,’ he says.
‘I feel I happened to stumble across one of the most crazy individuals I’ve ever met. The chances of me stumbling across another one? I’m not going to carry baggage from something previous.’
The Daily Mail reached out to Owens and Echard’s lawyers for comment.
