A mugshot of Laura Owens, provided by the Maricopa County Sheriff's Office.
A mugshot of Laura Owens, provided by the Maricopa County Sheriff's Office.
Laura Owens, the daughter of two Bay Area radio legends, faces over a decade in prison after pleading guilty to faking a pregnancy with a “Bachelor” lead.
Owens, 36, met Clayton Echard in 2023. It had been a year since Echard starred as the “Bachelor,” ABC’s long-running reality show, and he was looking to start a career in the Phoenix real estate market. Owens reached out to him in a professional capacity, saying she was investing in short-term rentals, Echard said. The pair met for one date, but Echard said he told Owens he wasn’t interested in pursuing a relationship.
Not long after, Echard was shocked to learn he’d been served with a paternity lawsuit. Owens claimed Echard had gotten her pregnant with twins after a one-night stand, and she was seeking child support. As the lawsuit progressed, Owens said she had miscarried.
Due to Echard’s fame — and interviews done by Owens when the news broke — the case became a media sensation. For his part, though, Echard said he’d never had intercourse with Owens, vehemently denying she could be pregnant with his child at all.
In May 2025, the narrative changed dramatically when the Maricopa County Attorney’s Office announced Owens had been indicted for fraud. The attorney’s office launched an investigation during her paternity lawsuit after Owens made “several inconsistent statements during a paternity hearing involving a former contestant on the television program, ‘The Bachelor,’” the office said in a press release.
FILE: Clayton Echard attends Netflix Summer Break at Santa Monica Pier on July 17, 2025.
FILE: Clayton Echard attends Netflix Summer Break at Santa Monica Pier on July 17, 2025.
In addition to lying about being pregnant, the office said, she faked a pregnancy video, lied under oath repeatedly and “altered an ultrasound image.” In November 2025, they announced additional charges on behalf of a second alleged victim. That man had dated Owens briefly in 2021 and was also told she was pregnant with his child, the office said. That pregnancy was also fictitious, according to prosecutors.
Owens initially declared she would fight the charges. “I will defend myself, fully and relentlessly, through every step of this process,” she said in a statement. But on Friday, Owens pleaded guilty in a Maricopa County courtroom to two counts of fraudulent schemes, one count of identity theft and one count of perjury. County court records show she is due back in court for sentencing in late September; she faces up to 12.5 years in prison.
"It's been a lot of years of watching Laura do a lot of damage to a lot of men," Echard's attorney Gregg Woodnick told FOX10. "She faked medical records. She fakes medical conditions. She's faking pregnancy. She faked twin pregnancies multiple times, and it finally caught up to her."
Owens is the daughter of KGO host Ronn Owens and KCBS drivetime news anchor Jan Black. She grew up in the Bay Area, where she was in the local equestrian scene. The Mercury News reported that the couple sold their Sea Cliff home in 2020 and moved to Arizona, accompanied by their daughter.
Ronn Owens has been vocal in his support of his daughter, saying the charges against her “greatly mischaracterize who she is and what she stands for.” In a public Facebook post, he also decried the “devastating online smear campaign against our family.”
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