Laura Owens Lawsuit: Paternity Ruling, Appeal, and Indictments

The Laura Owens lawsuit is a paternity case filed in Maricopa County, Arizona, in August 2023 by Laura Owens against Clayton Echard, the former star of season 26 of ABC’s The Bachelor. Owens claimed Echard had fathered twins she was carrying. A family court judge found no credible evidence she was ever pregnant, ruled for Echard, and referred the matter to prosecutors. Owens now faces 14 felony charges across two indictments and is scheduled for trial in 2026.

The Paternity Petition

Owens filed her Petition to Establish Paternity on August 1, 2023, alleging that a sexual encounter with Echard on May 20, 2023, had resulted in a twin pregnancy.¹ Echard denied ever having intercourse with her.²

Echard paid for a prenatal paternity test and submitted his DNA on September 27, 2023. Results released the next month showed “little to no fetal DNA” in the sample.¹ By December 2023, Owens said she was no longer pregnant. In February 2024, she asked the court to dismiss the case, saying she had lost the pregnancy in “September or October” of 2023. The court refused to dismiss it.³

The Ruling and Fee Award

An evidentiary hearing ran from June 10 through June 18, 2024. Judge Julie Mata granted Echard’s Petition for Non-Paternity, finding that Owens “knowingly presented a false claim” and “knowingly violated a court order compelling disclosure or discovery.”¹

Judge Mata ordered Owens to pay Echard’s attorney fees of $149,219.76 and referred the matter to the Maricopa County Attorney’s Office, citing a “pattern of similar, if not identical behavior.”³ During that same June 10 hearing, Owens accused Echard of rape. The accusation was not substantiated and did not result in charges.¹

The Appeal

Owens appealed the fee award to the Arizona Court of Appeals, Division Two, arguing that Echard had failed to comply with Rule 26 of the Arizona Rules of Family Law Procedure, that the fees were unreasonable, and that the trial court committed “structural error” by conducting a post-trial investigation into case facts.⁴

On March 28, 2025, the appellate court affirmed the ruling in full. It held that the fees had been awarded under separate Arizona statutes governing attorney fees and litigation misconduct, not under Rule 26, so the rule’s safe-harbor requirements did not apply. It also found the fee amount reasonable in light of what actually occurred in the case. Owens filed a Motion to Reconsider in April 2025. That motion was denied.⁴³

The First Indictment

The Maricopa County Attorney’s Office opened its criminal investigation in July 2024 at the referring judge’s request.⁵ Investigators concluded that between May 2023 and June 2024, Owens had altered an ultrasound image, fabricated a pregnancy video, and lied under oath multiple times during the civil case.⁶

On May 6, 2025, a grand jury returned a seven-count indictment:

One count of fraudulent schemes and artifices, a Class 2 felony carrying 3 to 12.5 years
One count of forgery, a Class 4 felony carrying 1.5 to 3 years
Four counts of perjury, each a Class 4 felony carrying up to 3 years
One count of tampering with physical evidence, a Class 6 felony carrying 4 months to 2 years

Consecutive sentences on every count would total up to 29.5 years.⁵⁷

At her May 29, 2025 arraignment, Owens appeared remotely in Maricopa County Superior Court. The judge entered a not-guilty plea on her behalf. She was released on her own recognizance and ordered not to leave Arizona without court permission.⁸

The Second Indictment

On November 6, 2025, prosecutors announced a second indictment adding seven more felony charges tied to a different man, Greg Gillespie.⁹ The counts are:

One count of fraudulent schemes and artifices, a Class 2 felony
Two counts of taking the identity of another, Class 4 felonies
Two counts of forgery, Class 4 felonies
One count of perjury, a Class 4 felony
One count of theft by extortion, accusation of crime, a Class 4 felony

Prosecutors allege Owens falsified documents to support a pregnancy claim against Gillespie after the two dated briefly in 2021.¹⁰

According to Gillespie’s account, the two met on Bumble and went on two dates in late June and early July 2021. He ended things after the second. Roughly two weeks later, Owens told him she was pregnant. She later sent him an ultrasound image that matched a photograph from a 2014 blog post and carried an embedded logo from the freelance marketplace Fiverr. Owens sued Gillespie in August 2021, obtained an order of protection that November, and repeatedly reported him to police for alleged violations, none of which investigators substantiated. The civil case was dismissed in February 2024. Gillespie says he spent about $300,000 on legal fees over four years.¹¹

Alleged Pattern of Conduct

The family court’s “pattern of similar, if not identical behavior” finding pointed beyond the Echard case.¹ Michael Marraccini, who dated Owens from about April 2016 through mid-2017, described a comparable sequence. He said Owens claimed a pregnancy in June 2016 and an abortion in July. Marraccini, his sister, and Owens’s father Ronn Owens have all said Laura later admitted she fabricated the pregnancy to keep Marraccini from leaving. After the breakup, she obtained a domestic violence restraining order against him in San Francisco in January 2018. It was renewed in 2020 for five years and was dismissed in November 2025 when Owens failed to appear at a hearing on making it permanent.¹²

Echard’s attorney, Gregg Woodnick of Woodnick Law, argued in court filings that a 2014 case reflected what he believed was “her first of five feigned pregnancies.” Woodnick also stated in correspondence with Owens’s counsel that three medical providers she claimed to have visited had no record of her as a patient, based on records obtained through a HIPAA release she signed.³

Where the Case Stands Now

Owens faces 14 felony counts in total across the two indictments. Plea negotiations were ongoing as of mid-2026, but Owens had not accepted any offer. Maricopa County Attorney Rachel Mitchell has said publicly that if a plea is not reached, trial is “the next step.” A hearing is set for September 2026.¹³ The criminal trial is listed as scheduled to begin on July 29, 2026.¹¹

Mitchell has cautioned against “trial by media” and said her office’s jurisdiction reaches only allegations that occurred within Maricopa County, which is a boundary worth noting given that some of the alleged prior conduct falls outside Arizona.¹³

Owens maintains her innocence. In a public statement she said, “I intend to meet these accusations head-on — and I will defend myself, fully and relentlessly, through every step of this process.”¹⁴ Echard said the first indictment lifted “a huge weight” from his shoulders and expressed relief that the county attorney’s office had taken over.²

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Muzique Magazine. Facing Up to 29.5 Years Laura Owens Indicted
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