Laura Owens receives prison sentence for pregnancy fraud

Laura Owens will spend 30 days in jail for faking a pregnancy with several men, including the “Bachelor” star, a judge ruled last week. Owens, 36, is the daughter of two Bay Area media legends: KGO host Ronn Owens and KCBS news anchor Jan Black.

“Laura has been doing these tactics for at least 10 years,” “Bachelor” executive Clayton Echard said in court Friday. “She’s not sorry. She’s sorry she got caught.”

Owens and Echard met in 2023. It had been a year since Echard last starred on “Bachelor,” ABC’s long-running reality show, and he was looking to start a career in the Phoenix real estate market. Owens contacted him in a professional capacity, telling him she was investing in short-term rentals, Echard said. The two met for a date, but Echard said he told Owens he was not interested in pursuing a relationship.

Shortly afterward, Echard was shocked to learn that he had been the subject of a paternity suit. Owens claimed Echard got her pregnant with twins after a one-night stand and she was seeking child support. As the trial progressed, Owens testified that she had suffered a miscarriage.

In May 2025, the narrative changed dramatically when the Maricopa County Attorney’s Office announced that Owens had been indicted on fraud charges. The attorney’s office opened an investigation into his paternity trial after Owens made “several inconsistent statements during a paternity hearing involving a former contestant on the television show ‘The Bachelor,'” the office said in a news release.

In addition to lying about her pregnancy, the office said, she faked a pregnancy video, lied under oath multiple times and “altered an ultrasound image.” In November 2025, they announced additional charges on behalf of a second alleged victim. That man had briefly dated Owens 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 said she would fight the charges. “I will fully and relentlessly defend myself every step of the way in this process,” she said in a statement. But in August, Owens pleaded guilty in a Maricopa County court to two counts of fraudulent schemes, one count of identity theft and one count of perjury.

The victim’s impact statements were read to the court before his sentencing last week. One was from the woman whose ultrasound image Owens had stolen. The woman ended up losing one of her twins. “This is the only photo I will have of my twins together,” she said. The two men who were targeted by Owens in fake pregnancy plans said they spent years trying to repair their reputations, both in court and in public opinion.

Jan and Ronn Owens also appeared in court to ask for leniency for their daughter, who they say lives in a casita on their Arizona property. Ronn Owens, now 81, suffers from Parkinson’s disease and cancer, Jan Owens said, and requires Laura’s daily care.

“Three years ago we were told Ronn only had six months to a year to live,” Jan Owens told the court. “And while, fortunately, he survived that prognosis, a prison sentence for Laura would, in reality, be a punitive sentence for us too.”

Jan Owens continued to defend her daughter, telling the court that Laura “had verified medical proof of pregnancy” and that she had been “abused” by multiple partners.

His daughter, however, appeared to refute this claim when she addressed the judge. “I want the rest of my life, not just my words today, to show how completely and terribly sorry I am to everyone I have hurt,” Laura Owens said.

Owens had to spend more than a decade behind bars, but Maricopa County Superior Court Judge Jeffrey Rueter imposed a sentence of 30 days in jail, plus seven years of supervised probation. Rueter said he had to decide whether Owens was a “sophisticated and conniving” con artist or a “very sad individual making bad choices.”

“Obviously, I think it’s the latter,” Rueter said, adding that Owens was “probably engaging in some really poorly thought out attention-seeking behavior due to mental health issues.”