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Laura Owens, the 36-year-old Scottsdale, Arizona, woman who pleaded guilty in August to four felony counts for falsely claiming she was pregnant with former The Bachelor star Clayton Echard’s twins, was sentenced on Friday to one month in jail and seven years of supervised probation.
The Oct. 23 sentencing took place in Maricopa County Superior Court, where Judge Jeffrey Rueter heard Echard’s plea to send Owens to prison. “I believe incarceration is an absolute must, because I know, as well as the other victims know, that Laura will not stop until she is removed from her environment,” Echard said while sharing a victim-impact statement, according to Court TV. “And her environment is the comfort of her parents’ guest house. Her being labeled a felon is not enough.”
Reuter said of his decision to either send Owens to prison for more than a decade or release her on probation, “Nothing makes sense about this. She’s either a sophisticated, conniving, calculating shakedown artist or she’s been engaging in some really poorly thought-out attention-seeking behavior as a result of mental health issues. So which is it? Because one deserves one kind of sentence, one deserves a different kind of sentence.”
If she violates the terms of her probation, Owens could be sent to prison for more than 15 years.
Owens was facing a maximum of 12.5 years in prison at her sentencing, which was live-streamed and covered by local news outlets, as well as on social media by a community that has been tracking the Owens case for years, including Stephani Young, host of the Love Trapped podcast that made Echard’s story a national sensation. (THR has reached out to Echard and his attorney, along with Young, about the sentencing.)
Under an accepted agreement, Owens had pleaded guilty to four felony counts, including two counts of fraudulent schemes and artifices, one count of taking the identity of another and one count of perjury.
Owens also spoke in court on Friday, attending alongside her attorney Christian Lueders. Another man that Owens had similarly made a false pregnancy claim against, Greg Gillespie, had a statement read on his behalf by the prosecution. A third victim, Mike Marraccini, who is not a listed victim in the Arizona prosecution since the alleged fraud involving him occurred in California, was also in attendance, according to on-site reports.
“I pleaded guilty to four felonies, and I am profoundly, profoundly sorry for the pain, distress and expense that I’ve caused them,” Owens said, according to FOX 10 Phoenix.
“Her tears that she brings in each day are going to be because she’s fighting to keep herself from being incarcerated,” Echard said. “Her tears aren’t from empathy, they’re not. She doesn’t feel sorry. She’s just sorry she got caught.”
A letter, written by the woman whose ultrasound image Owens stole, was also read at the sentencing. “I’m terrified of jail,” said Owens. “I’m not going to pretend otherwise. But I’m not afraid of being held accountable and if you allow me to go home today I won’t believe that I’ve escaped the consequences of what I’ve done.”
Owens’ story gained national attention after she attempted to entrap Echard into a relationship by altering an ultrasound image and other medical records, and fabricating a pregnancy video. According to one early ruling, she lied multiple times while under oath during hearings in the paternity and related protective order cases.
Echard, a former NFL athlete, starred on season 26 of ABC’s The Bachelor, which aired in 2022. Soon after finishing his divisive Bachelor turn, he moved to Arizona to begin a career as a real estate broker. That’s when he met Owens and engaged in what he describes as a one-night stand, during which they had oral sex. “Laura initially reached out to me via LinkedIn. If I wasn’t the Bachelor, I don’t think I would have popped on her radar,” he recently told The Hollywood Reporter in a feature about the three-year legal case that spawned Love Trapped, from iHeartPodcasts and Glass Podcasts, which has become one of Apple’s biggest podcasts of 2026 and a hot Hollywood property.
Love Trapped, which expanded from its original series order to track the ongoing investigation and case, released a new episode timed to the sentencing, and will release a final episode to cover the aftermath.
“I was just a catalyst,” he says. “I was just a person who had a public reputation and that was the initial interest. If I didn’t have that, there would have been no community. Now the podcast is a top podcast of 2026. People are listening. I feel like I’ve done something, right?” Echard had told THR ahead of sentencing. (Read the full Love Trapped feature, here.)
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