Host of hit podcast explains why Scottsdale’s Laura Owens faces 14 felony charges

PHOENIX – What started as a brief fling between a former “The Bachelor” contestant and a Scottsdale woman spawned one of the most popular – and bizarre – true crime podcasts in recent memory.

“Love Trapped” tells the wild story of how Laura Owens found herself facing 14 felony charges in Maricopa County Superior Court after accusing Clayton Echard of getting her pregnant.

Host and producer Stephani Young told KTAR News 92.3 FM’s Arizona’s Morning News on Monday she spent a year working on the bingeworthy show, which reached No. 1 on the Apple podcast series chart.

Echard was a contestant on Season 18 of “The Bachelor” and the star of the popular reality show’s 26th season. He was starting a new career as a real estate agent in Scottsdale when he met Owens in 2023.

“They were intimate not in a way that makes a baby, and 11 days later she said that she was pregnant with his child,” Young explained.

The paternity case went to family court, where it was ruled in June 2024 that Echard did not get Owens pregnant. Owens has maintained that she was pregnant with his twins and had a miscarriage.

“The story is the twists and turns, the amount of things that she used to try to prove to him that she was pregnant. The list is long,” Young said.

Why is Laura Owens facing criminal charges?

The list wasn’t just long, as the “Love Trapped” podcast documents in detail. It allegedly was fraudulent.

After the paternity trial, the judge asked the Maricopa County Attorney’s Office to investigate whether Owens lied under oath about being pregnant.

While looking into the accusations, investigators found evidence that Owens made similar allegedly false claims of being impregnated by another Arizona man in 2021.

“It turns out that actually the man that this happened to in 2021 was represented by a family law attorney in Scottsdale, Gregg Woodnick. And he then represented Clayton Echard, too, in the family court system. So, two of the men had the same attorney, so that attorney kind of knew what was going on in both situations,” Young said.

In May 2025, a grand jury indicted Owens on charges of perjury, fraud, forgery and tampering with physical evidence in the Echard case.

Six months later, a grand jury indicted Owens again, this time on charges of perjury, fraud, identity theft, forgery and extortion related to the 2021 incident.

“There’s more than that,” Young said. “She dated a man in California, and there’s some stuff going on there, too.”

Will Laura Owens take a plea deal?

Owens has pleaded not guilty in both Arizona cases.

Maricopa County Attorney Rachel Mitchell told KTAR News’ Outspoke with Bruce & Gaydos last week that Owens has been offered a plea deal. If no deal is reached, Owens will stand trial, Mitchell said.

“I’ve been investigating this for the past year, and I think that one of the main things that I think for Maricopa County is that these are taxpayer dollars. … Think about all of the judicial and legal resources and taxpayer dollars that have been wasted,” Young said.

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