A sentence of 30 days and seven years of supervision
Laura Owens, 36, will serve 30 days in jail followed by seven years of supervised probation, Maricopa County Superior Court Judge Jeffrey Rueter decided last week. Prosecutors had sought more than a decade behind bars. The judge said he weighed whether Owens was a calculated swindler or a troubled person making bad decisions, and concluded the second description fit better, describing her conduct as attention-seeking behavior rooted in mental health problems.[S1]
In a Maricopa County court this August, Owens admitted guilt to two fraudulent scheme charges, one identity theft count and one perjury count. Her parents are both prominent Bay Area broadcasters: Ronn Owens, who hosted at KGO for years, and Jan Black, a drivetime news anchor at KCBS. Her mother says Owens resides in a small casita located on her parents' Arizona property.[S1]
How the accusations against Echard unfolded
Owens and Clayton Echard met in 2023, about a year after he appeared as the lead of ABC's long-running reality show The Bachelor. Echard said he was starting a career in Phoenix real estate and that Owens contacted him professionally, presenting herself as an investor in short-term rentals. They went on one date, and Echard said he told her he did not want a relationship.[S1]
Soon afterward, Echard said, he was served with a paternity lawsuit. Owens asserted that a one-night encounter had left her pregnant with twins and asked for child support; later, as the case moved forward, she said she had suffered a miscarriage. In May 2025 the Maricopa County Attorney's Office announced her indictment, saying an investigation had begun during the paternity proceedings after she gave several inconsistent statements in a hearing involving a former contestant on The Bachelor.[S1]
Prosecutors said Owens also fabricated a pregnancy video, altered an ultrasound image and repeatedly lied under oath. In November 2025 the office announced further charges involving a second man, who had dated Owens briefly in 2021 and was told she was carrying his child; that pregnancy, prosecutors said, was also invented. Owens initially vowed to fight the case, saying she would defend herself fully and relentlessly at every stage, before changing course and entering her guilty plea.[S1]
Victims and family speak before sentencing
Victim impact statements were read in court before the sentence was imposed. The woman whose ultrasound image Owens used told the court that the picture was the only one she would ever have of her twins together, because she later lost one of them. Both men targeted in the fabricated pregnancy schemes said they had spent years trying to repair their reputations in court and in public opinion.[S1]
Ronn Owens, now 81, has Parkinson's disease and cancer and needs daily care from his daughter, Jan Owens told the court while asking for leniency. She said the family had been told three years earlier that he had only six months to a year to live, and argued that jailing Laura would in practice punish her parents too. Jan Owens also maintained that her daughter had verified medical proof of pregnancy and had been abused by several partners.[S1]
Speaking to the judge, Laura Owens appeared to contradict that account, saying she wanted the rest of her life, and not only her words that day, to demonstrate how deeply sorry she was to everyone she had hurt. Echard told the court that Owens had been running such tactics for at least a decade and was not remorseful, only sorry about being caught.[S1][S2][S3]
