The paternity case that is still ongoing in the Laura Ownes v. Clayton Echard affair is, without doubt, the most dramatic rose ceremony in the history of ABC's "The Bachelor," except there are no roses, and Owens wasn't cast to fall in love with the ex-football player— though no casting director could have dreamed up a better villain than Owens.
To get caught up on the underlying case, read my reporting here and here. But for the TLDR version: last June, former "The Bachelor" contestant Clayton Echard takes a THC gummy, invites a chick he just met (while showing her properties she said she wanted to buy) over to his house for some oral activities, and eleven days later, she says she's pregnant and will only abort if he signs a contract agreeing to date her. He refuses, and she drags him to court to establish "paternity" of what Echard's lawyer describes as "fictitious twins."
After court last Wednesday, when the judge ordered the case to move forward despite Owens' desperate attempt to have the case dismissed as she is "no longer pregnant," the judge required Owens to sign a HIPAA release so her medical records could be given to Echard's legal team. Her deposition was scheduled again for this Friday. Until that hearing, Owens had not turned over any discovery or shown up to a deposition. Owens took all of one day before sending an outrageous letter, without informing her lawyer, to Echard's lawyer Gregg Woodnick, threatening to sue Echard for real estate fraud if he did not drop the current paternity action she filed. Echard's attorney filed to continue the legal action to prove that not only is he not the father of her alleged twins but that the pregnancy itself was a scam.
The only reason Owens is in court right now is that she brought the paternity suit against a man she was trying to coerce into a relationship. Because she is losing badly and about to be exposed as a fake on the stand, she is returning to the old habits she has used against many others. Lawfare.
In the letter, Owens accused Echard of failing his fiduciary duty as a realtor. Echard explained the real estate aspect of their relationship on a podcast, and you can hear his story here. It's frightening. While he was trying to extricate himself from the professional relationship they had, he broke a few rules. Owens reported him to the board of professional responsibility. Echard admitted what he did, and the board declined to take his license or any other action because he sent them the evidence of Owens' coercion and harassment via emails and text messages. Echard was granted a protection order against Owens last November.
The letter that Owens sent says that Echard can resolve this new threat of a $1.3 million suit by dropping the current action and promising not to sue her for anything else forever.
The Fetal Attraction case just keeps getting worse. #LauraOwens sent a threatening letter ex-parte to #ClaytonEchard's lawyer demanding he drop the action SHE WANTED or she will sue for 1.2 mil. pic.twitter.com/VvYZgQswQu
— Megan Fox (@MeganFoxWriter) February 29, 2024
"Dear Mr. Echard," wrote Owens. "I write to you with a matter of utmost legal gravity and urgency, pursuant to the breaches of contractual obligations, fiduciary duties, negligence, fraudulent misrepresentation, and professional misconduct as verified by the Arizona Department of Real Estate (ADRE)."
Owens claims that "the compensatory damages sought, $1,368,936.80, is meticulously calculated." This is what Owens thinks she's owed because she did not get to purchase two properties that were listed for that price because of the fallout with Echard. It's a mystery how she sustained "damages" by not paying any money for the properties. She didn't lose any money. Echard just declined to work with her as her agent and wouldn't put her offers in due to her strange and obsessive behavior. But the real reason for the threat of a new suit seems to be because she wants the current litigation that will prove she was never pregnant to go away.
In a paragraph named "Stipulated Conditions for Resolution," Owens wrote in her usual ChatGPT-meets-high-school-diary style, "In lieu of immediate litigation, I propose an alternative resolution contingent upon your stipulation to dismiss [the current case] Owens v. Echard forthwith and to mutually agree to forebear [sic] from any future legal actions against each other for any claims."
This sure seems like extortion. According to Arizona law, it is unclear if it would rise to a criminal level. Maybe Arizona lawmakers should clear that up. A person who threatens million-dollar lawsuits to get out of being exposed as a fraud in other litigation she brought should not go unpunished. Owens, however, could not have expected the response that Gregg Woodnick, attorney for Clayton Echard, would give. She probably thought that her letter would be safe from the press because the judge ordered that neither party should give any information to the media that was produced in discovery. But Owens isn't the legal eagle she thinks she is. Her ex-parte communication is not part of discovery, and any response to it is also not subject to the judge's order. Woodnick's response let the world know the one thing everyone has been waiting to hear.
Addressed to Owens' latest attorney, Cory Keith, who is one of a long string of attorneys she goes through like Kleenex, Woodnick wrote:
Gregg Woodnick's response to #LauraOwens threat letter has SHOCKING new info. There are no medical records for Owens at the doctors she's been claiming saw her for her "high-risk pregnancy." pic.twitter.com/nvwoZuKM5M
— Megan Fox (@MeganFoxWriter) February 29, 2024
Cory,
1. Your client emailed me directly tonight (below). I am sure you did not approve or even know about this as it is so woefully inappropriate. Of course, I did not respond.
2. This will be an exhibit at trial. You can also expect my client may release this to the media as exposing Laura's overt and nonsensical extortion does the world good and nothing contained in her "notice" is private information.
3. I have more witnesses stepping forward regarding your client's pattern of faking pregnancies and using this disturbing narrative to somehow extort relationships.
4. I trust you already saw that three (3) providers your client claimed were providing services have indicated they have no medical records for her in their system.
Writing the letter backfired on Owens spectacularly. If she had been planning on skipping out of the deposition again, it is now known that everything she claimed about being seen by several OBGYN doctors for her "high-risk" pregnancy was untrue. This will be devastating in front of the judge who just told the parties she would be watching previous hearings where Owens testified that she was "100% pregnant" and had just seen her doctor the previous Friday. That doctor has no records of her as a patient.
Journalists who have been covering the story have finally gotten the confirmation of what was long suspected about the tale of the fictitious twins. Dave Neal released a video breaking the story.
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