{"id":655361,"date":"2026-10-24T02:18:09","date_gmt":"2026-10-24T02:18:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/655361\/"},"modified":"2026-10-24T02:18:09","modified_gmt":"2026-10-24T02:18:09","slug":"woman-who-faked-pregnancies-including-with-bachelor-star-sentenced-to-30-days-arizona","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/655361\/","title":{"rendered":"Woman who faked pregnancies, including with Bachelor star, sentenced to 30 days | Arizona"},"content":{"rendered":"

A woman who admitted to faking pregnancies and fabricating medical records while aiming to prolong relationships with men \u2013 including a star of the reality show The Bachelor \u2013 has been sentenced to 30 days in jail in Arizona<\/a> as well as seven years\u2019 probation.<\/p>\n

Laura Owens, 36, received her punishment on Friday in Maricopa county superior court nearly two months after pleading guilty to felony counts of fraudulent schemes and artifices, perjury and identity theft in a case that has been the subject of multiple true-crime podcasts.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019ve thought about the choices that brought me here every moment of every day, and I wish more than anything I could go back to the moments that I still had the opportunity to make different choices,\u201d Owens said to judge Jeffrey Rueter shortly before he sentenced her. \u201cI genuinely wish I had made better choices and hadn\u2019t panicked.\u201d<\/p>\n

She was thrust under authorities\u2019 scrutiny amid a legal fight with Clayton Echard, who starred in the 26th season of The Bachelor<\/a> in 2022 \u2013 and contested her claim that he had impregnated her with twins after an encounter at his suburban Phoenix home in 2023, as the Arizona Republic<\/a> reported.<\/p>\n

Owens eventually claimed that she had a miscarriage. But the family court judge presiding over that case, Julie Mata, in 2024 determined Owens had falsified sonograms and medical records and lied under oath, according to reporting by the Arizona Republic and the Phoenix news outlet KPNX<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Beside ordering her to pay Echard\u2019s legal fees, Mata referred Owens to prosecutors.<\/p>\n

Prosecutors filed formal criminal charges against Owens in May 2025 in connection with Echard, 33. They then criminally charged her in relation to claims of having become pregnant by another man whom she dated in Scottsdale in 2021, the Arizona<\/a> Republic reported.<\/p>\n

The outlet wrote that prosecutors charged Owens with using forged medical records and misappropriating other women\u2019s identities to buttress her deceptive claims. Both Echard and the second man were represented by the same family law attorney, Gregg Woodnick, who was credited with helping authorities investigating Owens to link the two cases.<\/p>\n

Owens pleaded guilty on 28 August, setting the stage for her sentencing on Friday, which the Phoenix news outlet KSAZ livestreamed<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\u201cI know there are people who have suffered because of decisions that I\u2019ve made, and I want to take accountability for that,\u201d Owens \u2013 the daughter of National Radio Hall of Fame inductee Ronn Owens<\/a> \u2013 said to Rueter. \u201cI am profoundly, profoundly sorry for the pain, distress and expense I\u2019ve caused them and for failing to meet the standard of honesty that this court had every right to [expect] from me.\u201d<\/p>\n

In his own remarks to Rueter, Echard asked the judge to incarcerate Owens, asserting: \u201cShe\u2019s not sorry. She\u2019s sorry she got caught.\u201d<\/p>\n

He also said: \u201cIf you don\u2019t take her out of her environment, she\u2019s going to come back.\u201d<\/p>\n

Rueter concluded Friday\u2019s sentencing by ordering Owens to immediately be jailed until 22 November and then to complete seven years of probation.<\/p>\n

The judge noted that Owens could technically be sentenced to up to 12.5 years in prison if she ultimately fails to complete probation and has it revoked.<\/p>\n

Rueter said he acknowledged Owens had inflicted \u201cemotional and financial harm\u201d to multiple victims, but that he did not think it was \u201cthe right thing\u201d to put \u201ca potentially mentally ill person who has committed a non-violent offense, with no prior criminal history, in prison\u201d.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m not going to do that,\u201d Rueter said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A woman who admitted to faking pregnancies and fabricating medical records while aiming to prolong relationships with men…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":655362,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[29],"tags":[146,85,46,411],"class_list":["post-655361","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-tv","tag-entertainment","tag-il","tag-israel","tag-tv"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/655361","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=655361"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/655361\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/655362"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=655361"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=655361"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=655361"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}