Crime Fix with Angenette Levy - Shocking Twist in Woman's Fake Pregnancy Scandal

Episode Date: November 20, 2025

Laura Owens, 35, faces 14 felony charges related to allegations she faked pregnancies and lied about them under oath. The charges involve two men in Maricopa County, Arizona. Owens appeared in court this week to answer to new charges but her attorney withdrew from the case. Now taxpayers will fund Owens defense. Law&Crime's Angenette Levy goes over the latest in the case and the evidence in this episode of Crime Fix — a daily show covering the biggest stories in crime.PLEASE SUPPORT THE SHOW: If you’re ever injured in an accident, you can check out Morgan & Morgan. You can submit a claim in 8 clicks or less without having to leave your couch. To start your claim, visit: https://www.forthepeople.com/CrimeFixHost:Angenette Levy  https://twitter.com/Angenette5Guest: Dave Neal https://www.youtube.com/@DaveNealComedianProducer:Jordan ChaconCRIME FIX PRODUCTION:Head of Social Media, YouTube - Bobby SzokeSocial Media Management - Vanessa BeinVideo Editing - Daniel CamachoGuest Booking - Alyssa Fisher & Diane KayeSTAY UP-TO-DATE WITH THE LAW&CRIME NETWORK:Watch Law&Crime Network on YouTubeTV: https://bit.ly/3td2e3yWhere To Watch Law&Crime Network: https://bit.ly/3akxLK5Sign Up For Law&Crime's Daily Newsletter: https://bit.ly/LawandCrimeNewsletterRead Fascinating Articles From Law&Crime Network: https://bit.ly/3td2IqoLAW&CRIME NETWORK SOCIAL MEDIA:Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/lawandcrime/Twitter: https://twitter.com/LawCrimeNetworkFacebook: https://www.facebook.com/lawandcrimeTwitch: https://www.twitch.tv/lawandcrimenetworkTikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@lawandcrimeSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Wondery Plus subscribers can binge all episodes of this Law and Crimes series ad-free right now. Join Wondry Plus in the Wondery app, Apple Podcasts, or Spotify. Ms. Owens, was your intention to hire another attorney or how did you want to proceed? Your Honor, I'm going to need to have a public defender. There's a plot twist in Laura Owens' real-life courtroom drama as she appears in court to answer to new charges that she lied about being pregnant with a second man's babies. This is so inappropriate. I'm sitting here. Where are you guys?

My dad is a handicraft. I go through the latest in Laura Owens' case with someone who's been following it from the very, very beginning. I'm Ann Jeanette Levy, and this is Crime Fix. There's a reason that Morgan and Morgan is the country's largest personal injury law firm. because the firm wins a lot. Morgan and Morgan has more than a thousand lawyers who have recovered $25 billion from more than 500,000 clients. In the last few months, a client in Florida got $12 million when insurance offered just $350,000. In Pennsylvania, another client was awarded $26 million.

That was 40 times the insurer's offer. Morgan and Morgan makes it easy to fight for what you deserve. You can even start a claim from your phone. It's that easy. So if you're ever injured, You can start a claim at for the people.com slash crime fix. Click the link below or scan the QR code that you see right there on your screen. Laura Owens was supposed to go on trial in January for an alleged scheme in which she told former bachelor Clayton Eckert that she was pregnant with his babies. Guess what? She wasn't, but that trial will likely be delay. She's pleaded not guilty to the charges involving Clayton Eckert.

She now faces a total of 14 felony charges in Maricopa County, Arizona. The charges are fraudulent schemes and artifices, forgery, tampering with physical evidence, theft by extortion, and taking the identity of another. Owens is now accused of telling two men that she was pregnant with their babies, forging documents related to the fake pregnancies, and lying about it under oath. This is CR 2025-006-831 State v. Laura Owens. I'm set for a complex case management conference. Now Owens was expected this week to enter a plea to new charges involving a second victim named

Greg Gillespie, but she and her lawyer, they flipped the script. I did get the complex case management reports, but I also got Ms. Shutz's motion to withdraw. Ms. Owens, I know you wanted to appear here virtually, but now that the council issue came up, need you here in person to figure out what we're going to do moving forward. So what I'm going to do is I will grant that motion to withdraw. Ms. Owens, was your intention to hire another attorney, or how did you want to proceed? Your Honor, I'm going to need to have a public defender. Okay.

So I did review a previously submitted financial affidavit and reviewed my previous determination regarding indiancy, regarding appointments of experts. I'm just going to affirm that finding. I'm going to appoint the Office of Public Defense Services to represent Ms. Owens. Ms. Shuts, you're going to be relieved with any further obligations in this matter. What I'll do, do we have an availability next week for a status conference? Oh, that is Thanksgiving. How about the following week?

November 2nd at 9-10. All right, so, Ms. Owens, it takes, there's a little bit of administrative delay between my appointment and when they actually assign a lawyer. I'm going to set a status conference for December 2nd at 9-10. By that time, that administrative proceedings should have occurred. They'll have your new lawyer. They should be here to meet with you on that date,

and we can discuss our future dates moving forward there is a chance though since you know whatever lawyer gets appointed may not be available that day that I might have to move that date slightly so if you could give us your contact information give that to my courtroom assistant what we'll do is we will forward that to the attorney that is appointed to represent you and also that way they can get in communication with you if you have to move that date got it okay but December 2nd at 9 o'clock is a date you need to be here in person okay if you don't show up a warrant

could issue for your rest. All right. I think that's pretty much all we can do today, given the status of her attorney. Thank you. We are in recess in this matter. So Laura Owens is private attorney withdrew from the case. And she qualifies for a public defender, meaning she can't afford private counsel. So now the taxpayers will foot the bill for her defense. Owens lives with her elderly parents at their property in Scottsdale. I'd like to see my father, please. You're just on Laura. No, I don't know where my mom is. Don't let me put you in handcuffs.

Just cooperate. Come on. They're just so much. These people are horrible. There's like eight of them. I'm coming. I was just somebody can see that. This is so inappropriate.

I asked for you because I said I didn't know if they were real or not. I really still don't even know when they put on. That was Owens losing her cool last January when police executed a search. warrant looking for evidence connected to the case. You know what? It's not even 7 o'clock. I have done nothing except get pregnant by the Bachelor. Okay, you can talk. It's not like I'm going to kill somebody. Laura, and you can talk with the county detectives about that. So during that search, investigators, they went through the house and they were looking for evidence. That's what they do. So let's take a look at some of the evidence

that Owens is accused of making up. These are text messages dating back to 2021 between Laura Owens and Gillespie, in which she tells him she's pregnant with his twins, but one died. In the text messages, Owens wrote, looks like you're going to be a dad to one or two babies, was sick enough to go to the clinic this afternoon and had to get an ultrasound to make sure I wasn't having an ectopic pregnancy. I wasn't. I found out that I've been pregnant with twins. Looks like one of them passed or isn't doing well, probably because of the medicine I took. I had the option of a surgical abortion and elected not to. If I'm going through this on my own, I will let God decide if he wants both one or none to be born. And the kid or kids would deserve to know their father's

side of the family. I'm giving you one more shot to admit you were overwhelmed and panicked and apologize. Otherwise, you are not getting any input going forward. Your behavior is appalling, coercing me to get an abortion for your own personal agenda, and I will escalate this if I don't hear back from you. I talked to a lawyer who told me I can have a court order to establish paternity at eight weeks and get child support from that point on, which is 25% of your income, even if you're making less than me. You would not get custody given all you have written about aborting the pregnancy. If you also had manipulated me to take abortion pills that resulted in the deformity or death of the second fetus, I would also pursue any and all legal action for that.

If you are going to stick with manipulation, lies, and ghosting, you are not who I thought you were and would deserve it. I still want to believe that you are the guy who wanted a fresh start with me and to go to Sedona for it on a trip that you told me to book a hotel for. I told you early on, that you didn't need to be with me and that I would make the decision on my own with my own timeline, but you insisted that you wanted to be with me and do this the right way in the future, which I believed. This is your last chance to show me that you weren't coercing me to have an abortion under false pretenses. I would have had the surgical abortion today if you were supporting me. I still would if you still intended to keep your word. If I don't

hear from you, I am going to go forward with the lawyer. Here's what I did. I'm made an appointment for the surgical abortion as well as with the attorney to go over specifics. So let me know which one you want me to cancel. I guess you're right that I don't know who you are. So show me. Greg Gillespie responded, You're going to give birth to a baby with birth defects? You took pills.

Laura responded, I won't know until later on what the issue would be, if any. She continued, so what do you want me to do? It clearly affected at least one considering how small it is. Greg responded, it's one baby. Well, guess what? That was not Laura Owens's ultrasound. His lawyer said it belonged to another woman. And now Laura Owens has been indicted, accused of lying and denying that she sent the sonogram to Greg Gillespie in the first place. And she later actually sued him. An attorney representing the victims of Laura Owens says she's been doing this type of thing since like 2016. This letter was presented at trial as evidence of Owen's altering medical. records. It reads, Dear Laura, thank you for your email. I am sorry you are going through such a rough time right now and will do my best to help you through it. I read the messages you sent me from your boyfriend and answer his questions. Stage 1A is without a doubt considered to be true cancer and something that we take seriously. You are correct, Laura, that this cancer is found

only in one ovary. He is incorrect in his saying that this means that you might just have malignant cancer please tell him that, yes, I have diagnosed you with real ovarian cancer, not something that just may be there. I am not sure what is meant by the message you forwarded that says I would only be diagnosing it if it were something other than stage 1A. That is a very real stage and simply means it has not spread beyond your right ovary. I recommend looking at the American Cancer Society's website page for more information. In addition, you can let him know that your diagnosis and treatment has been complicated by your pregnancy, which on its own has been extremely difficult and unusual. I would strongly encourage him to change his attitude and support you at this time.

I sincerely hope things get better, all the best. And there's another letter from later that month, signed by another doctor. Hi, Ms. Owens. Yesterday, 83016, you received ovary removal surgery of your right ovary, as well as the surgical abortion. Due to your recent medical history, I will wait to confirm pregnancy termination until blood work and a follow-up ultrasound are completed, although there were no complications during the procedure. As you explain to me, you have already experienced emotional side effects such as extreme fatigue, depression, and mood swings. These are common, and I would ask your boyfriend to support you during your recovery. Now those letters involved a man in California named Mike Maruccini. Owens tried to get a domestic violence

restraining order against him recently, but she didn't show up for court, and it was dismissed earlier this month. All right. So to discuss the very latest in this case, I want to bring in Dave Neal. He is the host of the Rush Hour podcast. He also has his own YouTube channel. Check that out. And he is listed as a witness in this criminal case that makes it even more intriguing. So Dave, thank you so much for coming on. First off, I want your reaction to Laura Owens with her attorney withdrawing from the case. So now she's got a public defender. Yeah, well, first, thank you for having me and welcome to the lower Owens party. Yeah, there's another lawyer. Yeah, of course. Well, as you know, there's, there's a growing number of us out here. It's just another, her lawyer exiting is just

another man in Maricopa County, uh, running away from her. I, I mean, he got his, um, his two minutes of fame. He, you know, and he probably realized he was on the wrong side of history. And now she'll, um, I guess, get a taxpayer funded attorney. Well, he's running away, but also, I'm assuming, you know, there's, there's another case now. There are now two, you know, cases so it's double the work. And so she's, she probably can't pay. I, I, I, I'm assuming that's why he's withdrawing, right? Yeah, and they've doubled the felony charges against her, bringing in Greg Gillespie, who is kind of like one of the forgotten victims here.

Clayton's been getting his justice, and San Francisco, Mike, has been getting his. And Greg's been kind of the holder of a lot of evidence. He's got wild evidence that no one cared about until all eyes were on The Bachelor. And luckily, now that's being brought into the case. I mean, it's just like unbelievable. He's got audio, video, video. fabricated ultrasounds. He had it all several years ago and she still has a restraining order against him. It's interesting because earlier in the show, we looked at a little bit of that.

We looked at the text messages. We looked at the fake ultrasounds. It's a big wow. I read one of the text messages that is from Laura Owens to Greg Gillespie. And it's really intense. I mean, there was some thought that had to go into crafting this text message. And she's talking about how like, I mean, she took abortion pills. And one of these twins is likely, you know, she's carrying this child, you know, dead. Like the baby died. And I mean, this is a very elaborate story that she's telling to this Greg. Yeah, that's what so heinous really is. She didn't just steal the ultrasounds, in this case from a lady in Texas, she also stole that lady's story, the invisible twin, or the vanishing twin, and it's a terrible story. And luckily our audience, you know, is just

trying to do good from it, raised money for the surviving twin, and we were able to help have a good birthday for that child, who's, I believe now six or seven, because this ultrasound was several years old. Now, we knew it was fake, but the information that my audience, that we uncovered, is actually by looking at the ultrasound on our desktop monitors, we were able to see some inconsistencies. And when we zoomed in, that's when we were able to find what was the remnants of a Fiverr logo, Fiverr the company that can be used for, you know, cheap freelance work. So the logo was actually, she must have used a watermark remover tool because it was the inverse of the logo. But when we slid it in there, it just, it was it was it, it was the Fiver logo.

She claims that she never sent this to him, but he's got all the video footage of her, literally texting it to him while he's screen recording the video while he's on the phone with her. I mean, he's got it all. Wow. So that text message, that text chain, that is the image that you and your viewers debunked. Yeah, we knew it was already stolen because reverse Google search. And what she does all the way back from Mike and maybe before that is she kind of alters the way she manipulates and fabricates things. And she's learned in the past that you can't Google reverse certain things. And so she'll distort the images in a way that she doesn't think they can be found.

With Clayton Eckerd, she used a video. And it's hard to do just a Google search on a video. But the internet, God bless them, scoured and found a video that was on some medical website. on their YouTube channel from like six years ago, and she took that ultrasound video as well. So it's, you know, I mean, she wasn't used to the accountability that was coming with all of the attention on the case.

You're a comedian and you cover pop culture stuff on your podcast. So in your wildest dreams, did you ever imagine that covering The Bachelor on your podcast was going to lead to you being kind of embroiled and landing in the middle of this case that, you know, she's, she's innocent until proven guilty, of course. But a judge referred her, you know, referred this whole mess to, you know, the county attorney's office to the prosecutor's office for investigation. So did you ever,

could you have ever imagined that you would be in the middle of something like this from just covering the bachelor? I didn't have star witness on my bingo card when I got it. into this. But see, what happened was nobody else was covering it because she was threatening to sue everybody. And I also realized I was starting to become a target of hers with the threats of lawsuits. There was a, there was really a ticking bomb that we knew if we didn't expose her by a certain date, she would just say she had a miscarriage and then it's all over. And then a year later, she writes a book or a podcast series. A lot of people don't understand her motivation. I believe partly it's to fabricate a victimhood. So it's like lab grown victim.

She has these stories that happened to her, in which, by the way, I think the, I think, you know, when she ends up losing this case, which I believe she will, I don't think she's going to accept any deals, she'll continue to be a victim when she sits in prison. And it'll be a story and fodder for her. She likes that attention that she gets. She's been rewarded for that attention. She still has TED talks that are online, as her being a, you know, a fabricated victim. So we knew we had to find as much evidence as possible before she got to the point where she wanted to pull the plug on this video. game and by calling her out we extended the game and then we like we called out she was about to have you know fake a miscarriage which I don't want to have to do at the time my wife is pregnant we've since had a boy we have an 18 month old but we're going through our own pregnancy we understand how how fragile the whole process was and we knew in our heart of hearts that she was faking this and the audience is 90 plus percent women and they were not going to let her really abuse a process that is meant to protect a lot of people, right? And, you know, they hand out these restraining orders like it's Halloween candy out of the abundance of caution because no judge wants

to be held liable and all of that. And yet then she uses those restraining orders to then continue to go after these men. Her restraining order attempt against me was denied by the judge on First Amendment concerns. She then sued me for harassment and she dropped. that case the night before, but she's continued to come after me. So, you know, as a comedian, your number one job on stage other than being funny is to tell the truth. And all we've tried to do this whole process is tell the truth with all of the threats being thrown at us. We just knew we needed to get as much attention on this because we did have the truth, you know, on our side. Wow. So she tried to get a restraining order against you.

Early on, yeah, early on. And that didn't fly. That is really wild, really wild to me because you're a podcaster, you're a comedian, you're a guy with a YouTube channel, and she's trying to, like, go to court to... And it was based on evidence that she sent me. So her game plan was to send people things privately and then tell them they can't report on it for like hippo reasons, which isn't true. So she would send us these private things and then I would publicly share them and then all of the experts in the audience. would go, that's not an ultrasound. She put her first name first in an ultrasound. It should have been last name first.

In the video of the ultrasound, there wasn't a rolling time code. She made all of these mistakes that I wouldn't have noticed that all of these victims wouldn't have noticed. But luckily, the internet catches those lies as they come out. And we were able to sort of crowdsource her body really and get down to the truth. Yeah. How did you find out that you were going to actually be a potential witness? in the criminal case. I mean, were you called to testify in front of the grand jury?

Were, you know, did detectives or, you know, investigators from the county attorney's office come and interview you? What happened? You know, I've, this audience does all of my PR work for me. Whenever there's a case, whenever someone new covers and they go, you got to talk to Dave, he was, you know. And I was, you know, my phone blows up whenever there's new information, just like when the new felony counts come up. I get millions of messages. My phone literally steam.

and then I go, what's going on? And I found out, people assumed I knew. And then everyone's like, yeah, you're a witness. I'm like, of course I am. And they're like, no, really. I was like, oh. So it really was only when I saw the court documents that came out that listed me as a witness. And, you know, I mean, all we've done all along is put all of the information online.

We, we, you know, in part with my friend, Megan Fox, it was her idea to do a mail, mail campaign to Rachel Mitchell to have hard copy letters from people, not just in Maricopa County, but from all over the world, really, saying this isn't right, you've got to stop this. And I think we'll see if they don't start to prosecute this type of stuff, you're going to see more of it with AI, where people can just, you know, bang out some fake medical documents and use it to control others. And, you know, luckily, Rachel Mitchell is like the worst, like, place that Laura Owens should, I mean, I don't know, she could have lived in any other county in this country and they might have not covered this. I think it's pretty rare that they picked this up. But, you know, she's tormenting these men in their town. I mean, God knows how much money they've spent on police visits and everything else. The taxpayer money, the bill is just insane on this.

And it's like, enough is enough. You talked about her true motive here and what you believe it is. You said she, you know, wants to create this kind of victimhood story or, you know, this victim's story. you know she went as far as to sue clayton eckert for paternity even though they never they never had sex like so i mean she couldn't be pregnant so um or at least you know the kind of sex where you can get pregnant uh so i'm just kind of like thinking to myself like you know what do you do you think there's more to it than her just wanting to kind of become a victim i mean because this is like serial offender type stuff like she's she's repeatedly telling men i'm pregnant with your babies so the twin aspect

is interesting because she didn't believe there was a paternity test on twins that you could do before before birth uh it is hard to test paternity when there are twins so that's the reason why people believe she would weaponize that over people's heads now i think there's a lot of psychological things happening i think she did want to date mike then gregg then clayton i think she saw them as all suitable. I mean, these are, these are good looking, they're, they're great guys. They've all got all of these great attributes. It wasn't until she didn't want to, it wasn't until Clayton didn't want to continue dating her, or, you know, they went on one, what they had one rendezvous together. It wasn't until then that she flipped this script. What we noticed with

Greg Gillespie, Mike, and Clayton, another thing that they all have in common here is that she tried to get Clayton to sign a dating contract. She said, I'm pregnant, but I'll take the Plan B abortion, the abortion bill. I'll take it if you agree to date me for one to two weeks. In the emails, I can send these to you. She said, I'm the safest person you could have sex with now. I'm already pregnant. So at that point, maybe she thought if they just get to know me, which is super sad, but she thought if they just get to know me, then maybe they'll stay with me. And that's why she was using this fake pregnancy abortion scheme as a way to keep these guys attached. Greg Gillespie, she said, all right, I'll take the pill if you date me.

He's like, sure. Then afterwards, he's like, psych. And then she says, oh, actually, it didn't work. One of the babies is still alive. So it's just like insane the game she was trying to play. And she even went so far as to sue Greg Gillespie for like coercing her to have an abortion because he told her get the abortion and we'll date, which again, you know, that, got thrown out. So you see the same sort of game plan over and over. I did think she wanted

to date them. I think when they rejected her, it went to scorched earth and smear them. And I think she believes she should get away with it because they have wronged her. She knows she's wrong. She's admitted to some of the fraud already. We got her to admit to the fraudulent HCG tests she sent me, which was one of the earliest medical documents she sent me. She sent me a level of 143,000. which would have been about where she would have been on the pregnancy level, the hormone HCG. The real number was 102. This is where it's interesting. She did test 102, which is like very early on in a pregnancy. So she did pee on a pregnancy test and test positive, and that's what she's held on to. Whatever evidence they have is probably related

to her contacting fertility clinics or even dietitians that might inject HCG for weight loss. So how she got HCG into her body, that's still a mystery. Very interesting. Wow. So I don't think this trial is going to happen in January for Clayton Eckert's case. You know, the public defender is not, we've got holidays coming up. The public defender, I don't believe, is going to be able to get up to speed on this in time. There will be more delays.

What do you say? Yeah, that's what most people are saying. I'm not booking my condo yet, although I prefer January and Scottsdale versus June. We had her trial last year, June 10th, 2024, and I literally melted trying to cover it. So we'll have to see. I'll be there regardless of what the dates are. And look, I wanted to get a fair trial because I don't want any excuses about how this thing went wrong. You know, I mean, I don't see a scenario where she doesn't serve time.

I would prefer her to get the mental health help she needs. Her family has proven to be, you know, sort of conspiring. in one way or another and enabling her. And it's like she's, she's 35. Like she has a long life ahead of her. Like figure this out and quit, you know, knock it off. Well, Dave Neal, it's been really interesting talking with you. Thank you so much for coming on. And we look forward to talking with you again. I don't think this case is going anywhere anytime soon, at least not to trial. Yeah. Well, thanks so much for having me. I appreciate it. Now again, Laura Owens has pleaded not guilty to the charges involving Clayton Eckert's case. She will be back in court in December,

and I do want to let you know her former lawyer did decline my request for an interview or a comment when I reached out to him when she was indicted on these new charges. So stay tuned. We'll let you know what happens next. That's it for this episode of Crime Fix. I'm Angie Net Levy. Thanks so much for being with me. I'll see you back here next time. Thank you.