Arizona woman charged after faking pregnancy with ‘Bachelor' star Clayton Echard
An Arizona woman is facing charges after allegedly faking a pregnancy with 'The Bachelor' star Clayton Echard.
Laura Michelle Owens, 34, was indicted this week for making false testimony in a paternity suit she filed against Echard that included a fake ultrasound image and a 'fabricated pregnancy video.'
Owens is the daughter of Bay Area radio personality Ronn Owens.
Between May 2023 and June 2024, she also allegedly lied under oath multiple times, according to the Maricopa County Attorney's Office.
She filed the paternity suit in 2023, alleging she was pregnant with twins. Echard denied the two had had intercourse.
'Owens originally filed a lawsuit seeking child support from Echard, then dropped her claim, alleging she'd had a miscarriage,' the attorney's office said.
A grand jury handed down a multipart felony indictment on Tuesday charging Owens with one count of fraudulent schemes and artifices, one count of forgery, four counts of perjury and one count of tampering with physical evidence.
Echard, who starred on the 26th season of 'The Bachelor' in 2022, posted a a video to social media reacting to the news of the charges against Owens.
'This nightmare is over,' he said. 'I am so ready to not have to think about this anymore.'
'We are so, so thankful, and thank you all for your support,' he added, 'I have not been this happy. This is a weight of two years lifted off my shoulders.'
___
© 2025 New York Daily News.
Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.
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Globe staff #mc_embed_signup{background:#fff; clear:left; font:14px Helvetica,Arial,sans-serif; } /* Add your own Mailchimp form style overrides in your site stylesheet or in this style block. We recommend moving this block and the preceding CSS link to the HEAD of your HTML file. */ Subscribe * indicates required E-mail * You went to business school at Harvard. What took you down this road? Books have been the throughline of my own story forever. I fell in love with reading with 'Charlotte's Web.' I started to cry and was forever hooked on reading as the way to think and feel and cry and laugh. You probably know this from your sons, and I know from my kids: You can develop a love of reading, but some people are just born readers. I was just one of those born book lovers. I had my first miniature book published when I was 9 by my grandparents. One of the essays was 'Finders Keepers, Losers Weepers,' about a set of twins in a haunted house. 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