Laura Owens, the daughter of Bay Area radio personalities Ronn Owens and Jan Black, pleaded guilty this summer to four counts including pregnancy frauds involving two Arizona men, and she's now been sentenced to jail time.
An entire mini-cottage industry has arisen around the fairly diabolical tale of Laura Owens, the daughter of retired longtime Bay Area radio personality Ronn Owens and fellow broadcaster Jan Black, with multiple podcasts and online content creators closely following each twist in her multiple legal cases.
All of that drama finally reached a conclusion — one hopes — on Friday when Owens appeared in an Arizona court to be sentenced. Owens, 36, pleaded guilty in August to two counts of fraudulent schemes and artifices, one count of perjury, and one count of taking the identity of another, after she had been indicted on fourteen criminal counts earlier this year.
On Friday, as we noted briefly in Day Around the Bay, Owens was sentenced to 30 days in jail and seven years probation in a Scottsdale, Arizona court.
Laura Owens's legal jeopardy all stemmed from schemes involving two men, one named Greg Gillespie and the other being former Bachelor star Clayton Echard. As painstakingly detailed on the podcast Love Trapped, Owens contacted Echard through LinkedIn in May 2023, claiming to be interested in services as a realtor. The two ended up hooking up once — during which encounter, Echard says, they only had oral sex — and 11 days later Owens claimed she was pregnant with Echard's twins.
Subsequent pregnancy tests seemed to confirm this, however those tests may have been manipulated through the use of medications, and the court found that an ultrasound that Owens showed in court in a paternity lawsuit was faked, using an ultrasound found on the internet — this is what led to the charge of taking an identity of another.
Owens had taken Echard to court after first trying to manipulate him into dating her, promising that she would get an abortion if he would agree to date her.
After Echard went to the police, a subsequent investigation found that Owens had engaged in a similar pregnancy fraud with Gillespie two years earlier — and, as the podcast detailed, she also continued to file restraining orders under apparently false pretenses against a boyfriend she had years earlier in San Francisco, with whom she had also claimed to be pregnant.
Referring to Echard and Gillespie, Owens said in court Friday, per Page Six, "I pleaded guilty to four felonies, and I am profoundly, profoundly sorry for the pain, distress and expense that I’ve caused them."
In addition to the jail time and probation, Gillespie also filed a victim impact statement seeking $300,000 in restitution.
Ronn Owens and Jan Black reportedly gave statements seeking leniency for their daughter on Friday, while Echard gave a statement urging the judge to impose the harshest possible sentence. During the preceding, per Court TV, Echard pointed to the teary Owens and said, "Her tears aren’t from empathy. They’re not. She doesn’t feel sorry. She’s just sorry she got caught."
The lead detective on the case also spoke at the sentencing, per Court TV, telling the judge, "She’s relentless. Her attacks become more threatening with resistance from victims. She begins with a proclamation of love. However, when rejected, she contrives a pregnancy and begins a barrage of text messages and emails. She attempts to guilt her victims into submission. She becomes relentless in her quest and demands constant contact and reassurance from her victims."
Echard gave a statement through his attorney Greg Woodnick following the sentencing, as the Chronicle reports, saying, "While Laura Owen’s jail sentence is less than the State and the victims requested, a dangerous person left the court in handcuffs."
Woodnick added that her sentencing was likely lenient because she "presented as unwell" in court.
The Owens family's financial situation, which has likely been impacted by Laura's ongoing legal troubles now going back more than five years, was brought to light via the broadcast of a bankruptcy proceeding, with a federal auditor finding that a GoFundMe posted ostensibly to help with Ronn Owens's medical expenses being used instead to pay family credit cards and other bills.
Throughout the proceedings, the parents have seemed to be in denial, at least publicly, about their daughter's activities. When asked by an investigator if she ever thought it was strange that her daughter was involved in so many pregnancy dramas, lost pregnancies, and paternity suits, Black said no, she didn't.
The family continues to live in a home in Scottsdale, Arizona, with Laura living in a casita on the property, where a foreclosure may be pending due to nonpayment of the mortgage.
