The case of Laura Owens v. Clayton Echard, a former Bachelor on ABC’s hit television show, is far more complicated than it should be due to the ever-changing testimonies of the plaintiff, Laura Owens. Owens claimed Clayton Echard got her pregnant with twins in May 2023, which he disputes. He says there was never any sexual intercourse that could lead to a pregnancy and that Owens faked being pregnant.
Owens took him to court for months and never proved that she was pregnant at all. Owens only produced positive HCG urine tests and one HCG blood test in October that showed no viable pregnancy. Two paternity tests came back with “little to no fetal DNA.” By December, Owens claimed she had miscarried but didn’t know when. She has since provided three different explanations for the miscarriage, including a confusing description of “vanishing twin” syndrome, an early miscarriage in July, or one in October or September.
To date, Owens has not produced even one medical record showing she received any obstetric care, though she claimed she had a "high-risk" pregnancy and was seeing specialists in the field. Despite the alleged miscarriage, however, Owens showed up in court in late October looking heavily pregnant. Echard has alleged that she wore a fake moon bump.
Two other men have come forward, Greg Gillespie and Mike Maraccini, who have given documentation showing they had similar experiences with Owens, who also dragged both of them to court to litigate issues surrounding alleged pregnancies and alleged domestic violence. In Maraccini's case, Owens sent him documents claiming to have had ovarian cancer and one ovary removed, as well as a pregnancy with twins.
She has since claimed those documents were faked (without saying by whom). The public watching the case raised $5,600 in one evening to help Maraccini get his laptop checked by a forensic analyst to prove that Owens sent the documents claiming cancer and pregnancy. The report was released on Tuesday and says Owens sent all the documents to Maraccini.
Marraccini Computer Forensic Report, 5/7/24 #justiceforclayton pic.twitter.com/ENOgGlC92o
— Seeking Justice for Clayton Echard (@ClaytonsJustice) May 7, 2024
There have been many big moments during this paternity battle. I have reported on them here, here, and here. But this new revelation might be the most outrageous yet. Owens not only filed a paternity action in August of 2023 against Echard, but she also filed for an Order of Protection (OOP) against him, claiming that she was in fear that he would harm her or the “babies.”
The public did not have access to that hearing until this week when it was uploaded to YouTube. It showed how drastically Owens' stories have changed. Recently, in a court filing, she accused podcaster Dave Neal of fabricating an ultrasound video sent to him on October 12. In Echard's response, it was revealed that Owens herself sent that very same video to Bachelor podcaster Reality Steve. That video was identical to one posted on YouTube six years before Owens claimed it was her sonogram from 2023. Neal matched up the two perfectly on his YouTube channel, and it is evident that they are the same video with a different header added to include Owens’s name.
Owens also sent a still photo of a sonogram to Echard and Neal, claiming it was her 21-week-old son. In the email to Neal on Oct. 12, 2023, she wrote, “The last imaging was troubling to me because I thought the boy’s profile looked kind of weird (attached), but the sonographer didn’t say anything. I guess I just don’t know how to read these things and am probably overanalyzing. The girl’s looked fine.”
Despite these emails from her email address with these documents attached, Owens claimed through her attorney, David Gingras, that she had nothing to do with either of them and that Neal received them from someone who fabricated them. But in the new footage from the OOP hearing in October, Owens very clearly states that she sent both the video and the 21-week sonogram photo to Echard, claiming it was their son. (She sent the same image and video to Reality Steve, who forwarded it to Neal.)
Let's get to the Oct 25th OOP hearing. Echard was slapped with a restraining order that will follow him for life based on the sonogram she now says is FAKE. But here she is saying she sent it! pic.twitter.com/S4vlaGI0d5
— Megan Fox (@MeganFoxWriter) May 7, 2024
The judge refused to look at the evidence that Echard brought to court, including the video above where Neal proves the ultrasound was stolen from an old YouTube video, and ruled against Echard and took away his rights based on a meme posted on Reddit. Owens claimed that Echard had posted an unflattering meme of her and her alleged pregnant belly on Reddit.
In the meme, Owens is depicted on a Spirit Halloween costume package as an “Anonymous Woman Costume,” which mocks her as a pregnancy faker. The meme says the costume includes “Sports bra, leggings, belly bump, unbrushed wig, 'real' sonogram.'" For this crime of allegedly posting a funny meme, Echard is a "harasser" and a "terrorizer" of women, according to Judge Doody. Echard has always maintained that he did not make the meme or post it.
And how do we KNOW it's the October Sonogram she sent? Because she's complaining to the judge about this meme right here and in her hand is a sonogram and it is the October 21st one. Which she tells the judge SHE SENT pic.twitter.com/hdXNeLFhAu
— Megan Fox (@MeganFoxWriter) May 7, 2024
But the one thing that tied Echard to this meme, according to Owens, was the sonogram photo the image is holding. Owens claimed that Echard was the only person she sent that to, so he had to be the one who posted it. It was on that basis that the judge granted her order of protection against Clayton.
Since the hearing footage has come out, the Reddit poster who goes by the name Jenn, who made the meme, has come forward and claims to have copied that sonogram from a public file-sharing site that Owens shared with the public to “prove” her pregnancy claims. Jenn sent PJ Media several documents showing that she put the meme together and informed us that she also reached out to Echard's attorney to prove her identity.
To recap: Owens put “evidence” of pregnancy on a drive and posted it publicly, sent it to media, went to Page Six and The Sun, and admitted under oath that ten people, including media, had access to the photo of her alleged pregnant belly. Yet Echard got slapped with a harassment order for it being circulated online.
Owens’s lawyer, David Gingras, is currently claiming on his blog that there is no October sonogram. “I don’t know what you mean by the ‘October sonogram.’ To my knowledge, there is no ‘October sonogram.’ It’s possible you’re talking about one or more fake sonograms that someone else created and then sent to certain online media people. Laura has denied having anything to do with those, and so far, I haven’t seen any evidence to the contrary.”
Let's talk about the "October Sonogram" that Gingras says doesn't exist. 🧵 pic.twitter.com/QnwmSA1cmL
— Megan Fox (@MeganFoxWriter) May 7, 2024
I guess Gingras didn’t get the transcripts or watch the October 25 hearing of his own client telling Judge Doody that she is the one who sent the October sonogram and video to Echard and the media.
The October sonogram raises another problem with Owens’s new miscarriage tale. Her current expert, Dr. Medchill, wrote a report stating that the miscarriage happened before 20 weeks—before Oct. 16, 2023, but may have been as early as October 9. At one point, July 23 was also floated as a miscarriage date. None of it explains why she continued to claim she was pregnant through October and November.
Does anyone else see the problem here? If she did miscarry before October 9 (and as far back as possibly July 23), as her expert said she must have, then everything she did after that point was fraud on the court, including showing up to a hearing in late October with a huge distended belly and claiming again on November 2, under oath, to be 100% pregnant with twins. She also claimed she had just seen Dr. Higley, an OBGYN, on October 27. Dr. Higley could not produce any patient records for her other than a scheduled appointment that was quickly canceled.
The trial is still set for June 10, despite Gingras’s constant attempts to derail and delay it. Meanwhile, the self-styled "free speech" lawyer, when he's not threatening journalists and YouTubers with defamation lawsuits for having unfavorable opinions of Owens, is posting wild statements on his blog claiming that perjury isn't that big a deal.
“What if Laura knowingly lied? Can she be punished then? The answer is kind of surprising. MAYBE YES, AND MAYBE NO….people ARE allowed to file cases they know are 100% false/fraudulent (I know that’s shocking, but bear with me). People are allowed to LIE in their papers. They can even commit perjury (in certain situations).” I wonder if the judge, who has had to waste months of her life and the county's resources on this ridiculous case, will see it that way.
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