About this transcript: This is a full AI-generated transcript of Laura Owens Sentencing — Bachelor Fake Pregnancy Case from 12 News, published October 23, 2026. The transcript contains 18,623 words with timestamps and was generated using Whisper AI.
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[00:08:10] Speaker 1: 12 News Breaking News Now.
[00:08:27] Speaker 2: Hello and thank you for joining us on the 12 News streaming app. I'm William Pitts for the Laura Owens sentencing case. We're going to bring you live coverage of that in just a little bit. Laura Owens, you may remember, is accused and will plead guilty, has pled guilty today, to fraudulent schemes. The actual charges are fraud schemes, perjury, and identity theft. She's accused of faking pregnancies for two men, one of which was the star of The Bachelor, Clayton Eckerd. This all started a couple of years ago. We are going to bring you that live sentencing in just a little bit. We are on a court-ordered 30-minute delay. So as soon as the court hearing starts, which was supposed to be 9 a.m., we have to wait about 30 minutes. In order to show you any video from inside that courtroom. Once that 30 minutes expires, we will toss to that court hearing, and then you'll be able to see exactly what was going on inside there. What we will also bring you before that, should it happen before we actually get that video, is the actual sentencing information, the actual sentencing verdict that comes down from the judge inside the court. Sean Rice is inside the courtroom right now. As I am told, are a lot of other people. We were told the line started about 7.30 in the morning to get in there. Seating was first come, first serve. And we know from a high-profile case like this, people are absolutely following this for years and wanting to be in that courtroom as this sentencing is handed down. We are joined right now by Adam Ashby, attorney, to kind of fill us in on this a little bit. And high-profile cases like this, I mean, you get people that really want to see this. This courtroom is going to be packed.
[00:09:57] Speaker 3: Yeah, it is. It's one of those things where the number one, two, three most watched podcasts and podcasts listened to are crime podcasts. People love this stuff. Not only is this a local story, this isn't a national one, so people are interested because we're in Arizona, looking at Arizona defendants and talking to Arizona judges. So that's interesting enough for people to want to wait in line for hours and see what they can see.
[00:10:19] Speaker 2: Yeah, we're told the court still has not started yet. Again, when court starts, we have to add about 30 minutes to that. And then we will be able to bring you what was going on inside the courtroom at the time. Now, this case has a lot of twists and turns. We've been covering this for a while. We do want to give you kind of the lay of the land here of what this case was about. So we're going to go back in time a little bit to Bianca Bono, who talked to Clayton Eckert shortly after this came to light.
[00:10:42] Speaker 4: Clayton Eckert starred as The Bachelor. Following a breakup after the show ended, the Missouri native moved to the Valley.
[00:10:48] Clayton Eckert: It's a very active community, a melting pot of people from all over the country. I just love the entire atmosphere. Either I'm dealing with one of the most craziest individuals that I've ever met, or I'm dealing with someone who's telling the truth.
[00:11:00] Speaker 4: He received a message on LinkedIn from a prospective client, Laura Owens. Their conversations turned flirtatious, and she ended up coming over to his house.
[00:11:10] Clayton Eckert: Some things happened, but there was no sexual intercourse. The next day when I told her that was a mistake, and this can't be anything more than what that was, she began to cry, and I realized at that point something felt off.
[00:11:20] Speaker 4: Eleven days later, Owens told Eckert she was pregnant.
[00:11:24] Clayton Eckert: I couldn't believe it just because, again, what occurred that night, I said, there's no way that this actually happened.
[00:11:29] Speaker 4: Eckert wanted to see an ultrasound, and if pregnancy was confirmed, he wanted a paternity test.
[00:11:34] Clayton Eckert: She drafted up an actual dating contract that she typed up that basically said, date me for a week, and if you do and it doesn't work out, then I'll have an abortion. But if you don't date me, I'm having this child.
[00:11:44] Speaker 4: Owens would ultimately tell Eckert she was actually pregnant with twins, sending him this email. Here is my 100 million percent real ultrasound video. Eckert said he and his legal team would later learn the ultrasound stemmed from a years-old YouTube video.
[00:12:00] Clayton Eckert: She was doing whatever she could to get me to come back and believe her.
[00:12:04] Speaker 4: But Eckert didn't, so in August, Owens filed a paternity suit and went public with her accusations.
[00:12:10] Clayton Eckert: It was guilty until proven innocent, and everyone online was saying, yep, this is the guy that we saw on The Bachelor, terrible person, you know, makes sense, his tracks. And then professionally, I lost a lot of speaking engagements.
[00:12:23] Speaker 4: But it was shortly after Owens went public that Eckert came to know he wasn't alone, learning of other men who also received paternity claims from Owens.
[00:12:32] Clayton Eckert: I realized that I'm not fighting for myself anymore. I'm fighting for these previous men.
[00:12:36] Speaker 4: Eckert eventually got a paternity test, and court records show the results showed little to no fetal DNA. During a November hearing, Owens testified she had just recently seen her doctor and confirmed she was 100 percent pregnant and 24 weeks along. But a second paternity test weeks later again showed little to no fetal DNA. Owens then claimed she miscarried, filing a motion to dismiss her suit. But Eckert's legal team wanted to continue.
[00:13:04] Clayton Eckert: Her story is just made up at this point. It's just a lie after lie after lie.
[00:13:09] Speaker 2: And, of course, that was a couple of years ago with Bianca Bono reporting and talking to Clayton Eckert. And, Adam, I mean, there's a lot of detail in this. How much of this detail kind of sank her case? I mean, it's pretty obvious whether or not you are, have been, or are now pregnant.
[00:13:24] Speaker 3: Yeah. That's a pretty bold accusation to say I'm pregnant with your child, to make a sworn statement in a family law court and have made-up ultrasounds or made-up DNA samples or DNA tests. And not expect anybody to ever hold your feet to the fire, especially if you're looking for some sort of a benefit, right? That's a pretty bold claim. And I don't know how she never thought that, you know, the lie was going to catch up to her.
[00:13:49] Speaker 2: Now, originally she was charged with 14 different felonies over two different indictments because there were two men involved in this. And we'll talk about that in just a second. But right now she pled guilty to fraudulent schemes, perjury. And the one that I thought was interesting, we were talking about this earlier, was identity theft. Where do all of these kind of come from? I think we know the fraud schemes was demanding money support.
[00:14:11] Speaker 3: Yeah, you just have to have some sort of a benefit. The truth of the matter is, is it doesn't actually have to receive a benefit. That has to go with the fraud schemes. You don't have to have the benefit. And also the victim doesn't have to believe you. A lot of people think like, well, there was no harm done. They never paid any money. And the victim said that they never had sexual intercourse. So where's the harm? But the truth is, the law doesn't require for the victim to believe what she said. So because she said it under oath, which is the perjury, and she tried to demand some sort of a benefit, to that we really don't know, but we're assuming some sort of financial gain. And then also, many people think with identity theft, you're stealing credit cards, or you're stealing IDs, or you're stealing something.
[00:14:50] Speaker 2: Exactly what I would think. You know, no, I didn't buy that boat. No, I didn't buy that car. Somebody stole my identity and did it. Exactly. This is a different take on identity theft.
[00:14:57] Speaker 3: Yeah, in this case, this person is taking the identity of someone else to say, he is the father of my child, and therefore I need X. So it's a little bit different, definitely something that we don't see as often.
[00:15:08] Speaker 2: What are the sentencing guidelines for something like this? I mean, obviously this is a plea deal. She pled guilty, so that's kind of up to the judge. But, I mean, how much time is she facing?
[00:15:15] Speaker 3: Yeah, so the plea agreement, which I was able to download and review in depth, is actually a little bit scary for her, if I'm being completely honest. She has a Class 2 felony that she pled guilty to, actually two of them, which is the fraud schemes. And under the Class 2 felony, she could be facing up to 12 1⁄2 years. The plea agreement states that it's an open-range plea agreement. What that means is, the judge will look at this and say, the presumptive years is five years, and that's where the judge will start. The prosecution may ask. It's like a minimum. That's right. Well, no, not necessarily, because minimum would be probation. The five years is the presumptive, which means it's right in the middle. The prosecution could ask for more, and then the defense will likely ask for less. And really, it's just up to the judge. The judge will weigh in all of the factors and then say, this is where I think this should lie. That's what an open-range plea agreement is.
[00:16:00] Speaker 2: Now, again, to give people an idea, because you've sat in sentencing, I've sat in a lot of sentencing over the years, the actual process of how this goes. We're going to start with a courtroom. Everybody's going to come in. The judge will sit down. What happens in the process?
[00:16:14] Speaker 3: Yeah, great question. The judge will obviously administer some sort of court proceeding and then say, first, we're going to hear from the prosecution, and the prosecution's going to weigh in on what they believe should be the aggravating factors and state why they believe a sentence of X is reasonable and justified. And then the defense will have an opportunity to say something. And shortly thereafter, if the defendant would like to, Laura Owens will be able to say what she wants to say. And whether or not she says that, time will tell. But then at the very end, the victims will be able to stand up and give their peace, right? So we don't know exactly who wants to speak and who's going to speak, because the defense and the prosecution have already submitted motions to the judge. So the judge knows what they're asking, what they're requiring, that kind of thing. But it definitely is going to be making sure that the judge understands the aggravating factors and the mitigating factors. And then the judge ultimately determines the sentence. In a situation like this, I mean, you said they filed the paperwork.
[00:17:09] Speaker 2: They know what the plea agreement is. The judge knows this case. Has the judge already made up her mind? Or can you be swayed by a good allocution at the end?
[00:17:19] Speaker 3: Yeah, I know this judge really well. And I find this judge to be very reasonable and very fair. So I would like to think that this judge is saying, I believe that my number is this. But then they do keep an open mind. And they want to hear from the victims. They want to hear from the defendant. If the defendant would like to take accountability and state some good reasons why mercy is justified. But I would like to think that the judge does keep an open mind. But nine out of ten times, the judge kind of goes into the court hearing, really understanding this is likely where I'm going to fall. And whether they move a little bit or not, it's not likely going to be a huge swing.
[00:17:51] Speaker 2: Gotcha. Well, Adam Ashby is going to stick around with us for a little while. We're told court still has not started yet. So 915. We're looking at at least 945 before we bring you any of the video from inside the courtroom. Right now, though, I want to go over to Tori King, who is standing here with us in studio. And Tori, you watched The Bachelor. Do you remember this guy, Clayton Eckert?
[00:18:10] Speaker 6: Oh, yeah, absolutely. His season was extremely popular. And this, at the time, I was living in California. And so when all of this came out, we were all very shocked. But, yeah, I watched his season. He's actually been on The Bachelor and The Bachelorette. So he's been on both shows. 2021, he was on the season of The Bachelorette with Michelle Young. And then he was the actual Bachelor the next season in 2022. That's season 26 of The Bachelor. So that one premiered in January. And his season was really popular. He came down to Susie, Rachel, and Gabby. He ended up choosing Susie. And then Susie ended up denying the proposal. So he pretty much got left at the altar during the season finale. And then Clayton and Susie, they ended up reconciling after the film and began dating. And then in September, they officially broke up. And that's when all of this started happening. So that's when he met Laura Owens was after The Bachelor season was over, after him and Susie had already broken up. And he was single and pursuing a career in real estate in Scottsdale. And so that's basically, whenever they did meet, she was actually never...
[00:19:23] Clayton Eckert: I was completely taken advantage of by this woman. And now, thankfully, the script has been completely rewritten. One chapter's closing, but another one's opening. I truthfully believe that this journey was meant for me. And the amount of resilience it's given me and what it's done, it's just bigger than me. So I really do feel that there's another chapter coming. What that looks like, I don't know. But I know I didn't go through this by accident.
[00:19:48] Speaker 6: So sorry about that technical issue there. That was basically him speaking with us after the original indictment came out. And he described the impact that the case had on his life. He really just says he's trying to move on. But if you want to talk about how they met, that's actually really interesting. They met on LinkedIn. She never was a contestant on The Bachelor, Bachelorette, nothing like that. They met here in Arizona. She was looking for an investment property and contacted him through LinkedIn. They met up. It started out as a professional relationship. And she was looking for an investment property. And then it turned romantic. And they ended up going home together that night. But Clayton says that they never had sexual intercourse. And so that is why he has been so defensive with this entire claim. He has been pushing back very, very hard. And that was all the way in 2023. So that's really how all of this got started. But I also want to mention, Will, there's another man involved in this as well. This was not just with Eckert. This was with another man from Arizona. And we know that his name was Gregory Gillespie. And that started two years before any of this did. So they were dating. They'd met. He's a Scottsdale man. And she eventually told him that she was pregnant with his child. And so he, again, was disputing those claims and said this is a little fishy. He was trying to prove whether the pregnancy was legitimate or not. And he says that Owens provided a sonogram image as proof. But the sonogram image, he did a reverse image search on that. Turns out it was from another woman's blog back in 2015. So he then turned around, accused her of the pregnancy claims, said it was false. And that's what is now also part of this criminal case. So that's why there's 14 different claims here. And she's pleaded guilty to four of them.
[00:21:40] Speaker 2: Yeah, very, very strange case. All right, Tori, we're going to come back to you in just a second. But Adam, I mean, those details in there, there's a lot of work involved. And I think one of the things that was found in that was a pattern of similar, if not identical, behavior. That doesn't bode well for any kind of court case or criminal case if you can prove that this has happened more than once.
[00:22:00] Speaker 3: Yeah, that's exactly right. Honestly, the fact that there was a second victim that came forward and that the judge is able to use that, that's definitely an aggravating factor. The prosecution will lean into that heavily. That's what I just assume. And I know this prosecutor super well. I believe the prosecutor will use that to the state's advantage and say that because of that, they are concerned that if we do not punish her accordingly, that this pattern can continue to go on. And the only way that we deter people from doing this in the future is by punishment. That is what the state's position always is, right, is we want to make sure that the law is applied justly and swiftly.
[00:22:33] Speaker 2: So we just got a text message from Sean Rice, who's in the courtroom right now. He says that court has not started yet. The prosecution is here. The defense attorney just left the courtroom a few minutes ago, and he will let us know when court actually starts. We're not a 20-minute delay. Do you read anything into that, or we just, court takes a while and we're kind of slow?
[00:22:54] Speaker 3: Yeah, I don't want to speculate as to what could happen. I mean, I've been in sentences where you walk into a sentencing hearing and, honestly, the defendant could be getting cold feet, could be terrified about maybe potentially getting 12 and a half years in prison and wants to say that she was forced into this plea agreement and that I want out. But without speculating, we don't know what really is going on. The judge could just want the media to cool down or want something to be resolved outside of the courtroom, for all we know.
[00:23:19] Speaker 2: What is it like to have a defendant who's going through a plea deal? And you know this is the day. Like, you've already pleaded guilty. Like, this is it. You're about to have this person FaceTime. You're their lawyer. How do you get them through it? What do you tell them?
[00:23:32] Speaker 3: These conversations happen over weeks and weeks. A lot of people think and see online or on TV that these cases happen where she committed the crime, she goes to court, she pleads guilty, and she goes to prison.
[00:23:41] Speaker 2: Law and order. Within 42 minutes, the case is over. Exactly right.
[00:23:44] Speaker 3: These are months and months that have gone by, even years, honestly, in this case, where, as she's discussed with her attorney, her attorney has explained to her, I'm sure, dozens of times, this is the process, this is what happens. If you're found guilty and sentenced to prison, because she already has pled guilty, but if she's found guilty, sentenced to prison, they'll put handcuffs on her right away and they'll walk her out. Right? So, as that kind of builds, a lot of my clients, not saying that they want to get out of the plea agreement, but a lot of my clients get terrified. Right? They start looking at me going, holy crap, I don't know if I really want to do this. Can I please get a continuance? Can I have one more time to hug my mom? I mean, they may ask for all sorts of things. And so, it is a very, very, very stressful situation. And every single defendant is different, but definitely something that I tell my clients is, you have to understand the process and what's about to happen because I'm the one that helps you, but you're the one that walks out with handcuffs or not.
[00:24:36] Speaker 2: So, can you back out of a sentencing or a plea agreement when you're already in the sentencing courtroom, ready to go? Can you just say, no, no, no, no, no, let's go to trial?
[00:24:46] Speaker 3: Yeah, it's a very difficult process, right? So, after you plead guilty, the judge, before they find them guilty, the judge will review with the defendant and go over all of the statutes that require any type of manifest injustice, right? So, the judge will make sure that this person is pleading guilty under their own free will and choice, that nobody has forced them or threatened them to take this plea agreement. Those are the actual words that the judge says. And then says, do you understand that if you plead guilty today, you can't back out of this unless there's a manifest injustice, which usually means I was under some sort of medication. I wasn't under my right mind or my attorney didn't explain something to me properly. I didn't fully understand. We know this with the Brian Koberger case in Idaho, over the Idaho murders. He's trying to do the same thing. Not only has he been sentenced, he also wants to say, I wasn't fully in my right mind and I want out. And it is a very, very, very difficult thing to do.
[00:25:38] Speaker 2: Because there is, again, you and I have both sat in sentencing before. There is a part of the sentencing where the judge looks at you and the defendant and says, look, do you understand that by pleading guilty, you are giving up your right to a trial? Do you understand that by pleading guilty, you are admitting to have done this? And the defendant says yes.
[00:25:57] Speaker 3: Yeah.
[00:25:58] Speaker 2: It's almost impossible, you would imagine, to back out of that later on and say, I didn't know what I was doing. The judge looked at you and said what you were doing.
[00:26:04] Speaker 3: Yep. Like I said, there's very, very narrow circumstances and very narrow exceptions to which the judge will hear. And if that is the case in this type of scenario, the defense attorney is going to have to present very, very conclusive evidence showing that this person wasn't in their right mind or that there was information that was held from the defendant in order to make the proper decision.
[00:26:22] Speaker 2: Okay. So we know that this case has been just crazy online. We have podcasts. We have trial bloggers. We have court watchers that have just followed this thing since the very beginning. It actually manifested in a very strange way, which is Laura Owens has a TED Talk that was online. That ended up becoming very, very scrutinized in terms of should this actually be there? Sean Rice is in the courtroom right now, did a story on this just a little while ago. Well, I'll get the right video here in just a second. I should get the right video.
[00:26:59] Speaker 7: The mission for TEDx and TED Talks is a simple one. They say ideas are worth spreading, but they have this video of Laura Owens public and viewable by anyone who has access to the Internet. So I posed to them a simple question. Should someone accused of faking a pregnancy, lying about it in court, and is also under indictment for fraud and perjury, be able to share on their platform ideas worth spreading? So far for TEDx, they have shown silence.
[00:27:26] Speaker 8: My name is Laura Owens, and as you can tell, I wasn't the hero in this story.
[00:27:30] Speaker 7: A TEDx talk that accused liar Laura Owens gave back in 2021 remains online. She gave this talk at a school called Mercer Island in Washington State. In the TEDx talk, she outlines abuse she allegedly endured at the hands of a former boyfriend as they were on a flight to Iceland. She claimed that the kindness of a stranger on that flight helped her get out of an abusive relationship.
[00:27:54] Speaker 8: Anyone they knew that saw it would have known that it was him she was talking about.
[00:28:00] Speaker 7: Writer and podcaster Megan Fox says the public has known for half a decade that her TEDx talk was about former boyfriend Mike Marasini, who Owens has filed multiple restraining orders against, restraining orders that have since been dismissed after Owens no-showed at hearings. Mike's attorney tells 12 News every single one of her claims in the TEDx video are false.
[00:28:22] Speaker 9: It's really frustrating to know that she has this pattern of storytelling and these narratives and false premises and false statements and to have nobody do anything about it and just leave it up there for all the world to see.
[00:28:36] Speaker 7: Laura Owens has been under indictment for fraud, perjury and forgery here in Maricopa County for a year, connected to claims that she said she was pregnant with twins by former Bachelor star Clayton Eckerd. He has an entire community calling for this TEDx video to be removed.
[00:28:52] Speaker 10: The court has found that this individual lied and fabricated a pregnancy. This isn't a matter of did they lie or did they not. She has been found to be a liar.
[00:29:02] Speaker 7: As the list of people pleading for this video to be taken off the Internet grows, the more the silence from TEDx and TED Talks has become deafening. Fox says she's reached out every way she knows how, to no avail.
[00:29:15] Speaker 8: The only evidence we have that we know that they hear us, we know they do, is that they've turned the comments off on the YouTube TEDx, which to me is like a slap in the face. It's like saying we've heard you and we don't want to hear from you anymore.
[00:29:31] Speaker 2: All right, we just got a word from Sean Rice just a second ago that Laura Owens has walked into the courtroom. They are getting ready to go shortly. So in about a half hour, we will be able to bring you the feed from inside the courtroom again. We are on a 30-minute delay as ordered by the judge. So whatever happens, we should know about 30 minutes ahead of time. But we will bring you, of course, all of that video from inside the courtroom. All right, let's bring in Tori King. Tori, this is, again, you were doing some research on how exactly she was found out in the Clayton Eckerd case.
[00:30:03] Speaker 6: Yes, different from the earlier one, the Gillespie case. But she was caught in both cases, essentially. So the first one, she ended up pulling a sonogram from a blog back from 2015. But with Eckerd's case specifically, she had claimed that he was the father of their twins. She was, in fact, seeking child support. And when these allegations became public, I mean, obviously, the pictures became public as well. And Owens provided that she claimed him medical evidence supporting the pregnancy. He underwent paternity testing as well, and those reports showed that there was little to no fetal DNA. And then Owens later claimed that she miscarried. But they caught her because the images that she used of the baby were actually taken from another YouTube video from another woman's pregnancy. So that's how they ended up catching her. She completely fabricated the video, according to prosecutors, and also altered an ultrasound image. So, again, prosecutors accused her of making those false claims under oath. And then that family court judge found Owens had knowingly presented those false claims. And that's when they got referred to the criminal investigation. So, really, the evidence was the major turning point in this case and figuring out, with reverse image searching, that they were someone else's videos.
[00:31:19] Speaker 2: All right, Torrey King, we're going to come back to you in just a second because I want to go to Adam here. And, Adam, you were talking to me earlier. We don't actually know what the demand was on this paternity case because the records are sealed.
[00:31:29] Speaker 3: Correct.
[00:31:29] Speaker 2: Even for a fake paternity case.
[00:31:32] Speaker 3: Yeah. I mean, the family court was the court that found these documents to be fake. And they were the ones that turned this information over to the county attorney's office in order for them to investigate and ultimately press charges against her. So it is interesting because we don't know exactly what type of gain she was trying to receive from these charges and from these accusations. But we do know that likely it has to do with, you know, type of financial support or child support or who knows what type of benefit she was receiving. But usually in these types of cases, it comes down to money because that's how they can prove that there was some type of gain that they received.
[00:32:07] Speaker 2: But you don't actually have to have paid any money for this to be a thing.
[00:32:12] Speaker 3: That's exactly right. For fraud schemes for that exact crime, you actually don't have to receive any type of benefit in order for you to be found guilty of that. And furthermore, the victim doesn't even have to believe what you're saying. So those are two big elements that the prosecutor didn't have to even prove. They don't have to say, well, these two victims paid $100,000. And so therefore, this is the type of damage that they've received. That's not the crime that we're talking about right now. The accusation was made. She made a false accusation about the pregnancy. And then they were hurt because of it, because they were the victims. She believed that she would or she knew that she was lying. And so therefore, they found enough elements to charge her.
[00:32:52] Speaker 2: Now, there's something else that has that happened after all of this. Now, from this, again, been a long court process. I mean, we've been dealing with this for years. Laura Owens wrote a blog post basically accusing the judge of bias. She said that she had declared herself to be a doctor and a judge. Does the judge take that into account that she has, I don't want to say gone against the authority of the court because she didn't do it in a courtroom. She did it outside. But is the judge looking at that at all? Well, honestly, I know everybody else did.
[00:33:25] Speaker 3: Yeah, honestly, if the judge knows about it, it's absolutely something that they take into account because this isn't something where she went on an Instagram post and said, this is the father of my child. This is something that she did in court under a sworn statement in a family court proceeding. So absolutely, the prosecutor will take that information and make sure that that is presented as an aggravating factor, saying she is not only making these accusations and these false claims, but she's also mocking the legal system by dragging the citizens and our taxpayers' dollars through these types of proceedings all for nothing.
[00:33:58] Speaker 2: Because you can bring this into part of your, as a prosecutor, you can bring this into part of your statement. Absolutely. She's not, she may be pleading guilty, but she's not sorry. Look what she wrote about you, Your Honor.
[00:34:08] Speaker 3: That's absolutely right. And we don't know if she was saying it about the current sitting judge that's going to be sentencing her or the judge in the family law court, but both are sitting on the bench, right? So that's going to be something that that judge will take seriously one way or the other, because that is definitely mocking the system that is there to protect mothers who are pregnant with people who aren't going to take accountability for their children. And then also for someone who is accused of serious, serious crimes that carry prison penalties, and she's mocking that court system as well. I mean, it's definitely a bad look and the judge isn't going to look lightly on that.
[00:34:39] Speaker 2: No, we should tell you right now, we just got a notice here that court is in session and we are going to bring you the video at 954. That's when our 30 minutes expire. So we can air some of the video that was shot in court. Again, Sean Rice is in court right now. He is live tweeting, he is live texting us, and he is, of course, giving us information back here in the station. So as soon as we know what's going on in court, we will, of course, bring that to you as well. So Clayton, I was, Clayton, Adam, I will get it. There's too many names floating around today. Let's go through these kind of one by one. I mean, we're talking fraud schemes, fraudulent schemes. Serious, not so serious. Which one of these four is the one that really is the most serious and carries the most time?
[00:35:26] Speaker 3: Yeah, good question. In Arizona, there's six levels of felonies, one being the worst and six being the least, all of which are serious. This is a class two felony and she's pled guilty to two counts of fraud schemes, which are two class two felonies. In many situations, fraud schemes can carry mandatory prison time. In this case, it doesn't. It's looking at that probation is available, but she definitely is looking at prison time. And so out of the four that she's pled guilty to, fraud schemes is by far the worst. Because in the plea agreement, all the rest state that they have agreed to essentially probation or probation tells, which means if she goes to prison for count one of fraud schemes or count two of fraud schemes, then the rest of them will tell as a probation term for the class four and the class six.
[00:36:08] Speaker 2: So plain language, what exactly is fraud schemes? Because I know a lot of these charges, when I see them pop up, they are inherently generic because they encompass a lot of things. Yeah. This seems like fraudulent schemes. This could be anything.
[00:36:21] Speaker 3: Yeah. As a defense attorney, we call this a waste paper basket charge, which means you can essentially throw anything into the garbage to be able to throw it out. Because if you have to prove every single element of fraud, which is also a class two felony, it's much more difficult. And so the legislature has come up with fraud schemes, which essentially just says, as long as you have knowingly obtained a benefit through false pretenses or through omissions or anything like that, you fall into this waste paper basket charge. And they have to kind of prove it more broad than they do have to prove it more specifically. So it is a dangerous charge because it's a little bit easier to prove for the prosecution and it is harder to defend from the defense perspective. So you were talking 12 and a half years possible.
[00:37:04] Speaker 2: There's also, I probably should have asked you this earlier, is that consecutive or is that concurrent? And what is the difference? Because we hear this a lot and I know when I'm in court, I got to do the math, remember which one's which, and then try and figure out the exact length of this sentencing term.
[00:37:17] Speaker 3: Yeah, the plea agreement is very specific. Count one of fraud schemes or count two of fraud schemes is looking for prison. The rest of them is probation. And so there won't be consecutive concurrent. There's only going to be one count where she can be found guilty and be sentenced to prison. So if she's been found guilty of all four in the next few moments, the judge will announce that and say that I found you guilty of these four charges. And then the sentencing phase will say on count one, count two, count three, and count four. Count one is the only one where she is going to be looking at prison time. All of the rest, the defense and the prosecution have agreed to probation. So everything will be just one sentence. There's no consecutive concurrent that you have to worry about.
[00:37:54] Speaker 2: Is 12 years fairly normal for something like this or is this kind of excessive? I don't, I don't, I don't, I don't really, honestly, I don't know. I mean, I've never actually sat in a fraudulent schemes court because to be honest, it's usually a little small for us to be covering as a news story. But this is obviously something different. So 12 years, is that normal?
[00:38:12] Speaker 3: Well, it just depends on who you ask. If you're asking the victims, they probably say that 12 years is absolutely justified. If you're asking other women that have, or other men that have been victim to women saying that they were pregnant with their children and they lost money because of it, or that their reputation has been defamed, then they probably think 12 years is justified. From a defense perspective, if I'm being completely honest with you, someone who has no criminal history, that doesn't really show any type of danger to society, 12 and a half years is wild. If you're thinking she received very little gain from this, she definitely defamed and hurt their reputation. And as Clayton has mentioned that his business has suffered, that's financial loss, absolutely, and possibly reputation. But 12 and a half years for lying about pregnancy, honestly, it depends on who you ask, but that seems really, really steep to me.
[00:38:58] Speaker 2: So victim impact statements, which is obviously something that happens during this entire process. You've got lawyer statements, then you've got her statement, then you've got victim impact statements. How much weight does the judge give the victim impact statements? She knows the case already, but for somebody to stand up and say, this is how this ruined my life. This is how this changed my life. This is how much blame I place on her. How much weight does the judge give that?
[00:39:21] Speaker 3: Well, Arizona has given so much weight to the victim impact statement that they've put it into the Arizona Bill of Rights, actually. So the victim not only has the right to make their statement, to tell exactly how they feel about these charges and accusations, but the victim actually gets to give this and the judge is essentially under law required to take that into account. So a judge knows exactly what they need to do. They understand that this victim has these rights to not only be heard, but that the judge is under specific law to take this into account. So to answer your question, I think the judge weighs in this heavily. Every single case that I've ever defended, I always tell my clients, if the victim participates heavily, it's much more difficult because the prosecution feels more pressure. The public brings in more pressure. If there's no victim and there's nobody that's whining or complaining to the prosecutor, then we don't have anybody that we really have to worry about as far as a third party is concerned. And so victim involved makes the case much more difficult. Yeah.
[00:40:18] Speaker 2: If you don't have anybody giving up their victim impact statements, you control the narrative. You get to decide what the judge hears.
[00:40:24] Speaker 3: Exactly right.
[00:40:24] Speaker 2: How many times does that happen?
[00:40:26] Speaker 3: In cases like this, especially for somebody like a former bachelor star that has a public reputation that he has to uphold, as you can see, like we don't have Greg Gillespie giving public statements as much. But we do have Clayton Eckert doing that because he definitely is a little bit more public. And so his public reputation has been absolutely damaged by these accusations. And so he has to be a little bit more public to make sure that his truth can be made known so that his reputation hopefully can be rehabilitated in some way.
[00:40:54] Speaker 2: Now, Torrey King, I mean, how popular or how well known is Clayton Eckert, really? I mean, you know him from the show. Was that a good season? Was that a famous season? Again, I don't watch The Bachelor. I'm sorry.
[00:41:05] Speaker 6: Oh, yeah. No, he is very popular. His season was definitely very highly watched. In fact, that's the reason why he became The Bachelor was when he was on The Bachelorette, people really liked him. And so they're not going to pick an unpopular man to be on The Bachelor next season. So very, very highly watched. I'm not sure in terms of all of Bachelor seasons, you know, whether it's top five, top ten, stuff like that. But he remained very famous afterwards. He's got a huge following on Instagram, on TikTok, and again, a real estate career here in Scottsdale, which has certainly taken a hit. But to say that it was popular, I would say extremely. And so well popular that bloggers, TikTokers, they've all picked up this case. If you type in his name into the For You page, you're going to see more information on this court case than his actual season. And so there's actually a couple of bloggers. I was checking TikTok as well as Instagram Reels. There's a couple of the bloggers inside the courtroom right now who have been following this since 2023. One of them is actually a comedian who's going to be performing this weekend in Chandler. So a lot of people have been hearing about this case. I believe he has close to a million followers on Instagram. I can definitely check on that for you. But an enormous online presence.
[00:42:22] Speaker 2: So there's a possibility if you go see this guy in Chandler, we're going to see a stand-up set about Laura Owens?
[00:42:28] Speaker 6: Well, he's certainly going to talk about it because Laura Owens actually came after that comedian and tried suing him. He allegedly created fake profiles online claiming that, you know, she was going to hurt herself and that people were threatening her life. And he said that he made her, that she made his life extremely difficult during him and his own wife's pregnancy. And so she came after him and allegedly they're also potentially going to deal with a lawsuit as well. So that has not been confirmed, but that's kind of what he's been talking about on TikTok. But a lot of people have been following this and I'm certain he's going to say something about it at his show in Chandler this weekend.
[00:43:11] Speaker 2: Oh, that is one of those crazy things. Adam, I mean, we were talking just a minute ago about high-profile cases like Jody Arias and things like that. I remember covering that back in the day. We had Court TV back when it was a thing set up a stage outside to anchor live coverage of the sentencing, the resentencing. We had pundits, we had bloggers, we had trial watchers. How hard is a high-profile case? I'm not sure, have you ever tried or been involved in anything this high-profile before? How hard is that?
[00:43:41] Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean, as high-profile as someone like Laura Owens, absolutely right, somebody who is Arizona native, things like that. But when you talk about things like Lori Vallow or Jody Arias, who are also Arizona natives and those types of big murder cases, there are attorneys that dedicate their careers and their lives to defending something like that. But a case like this for Ms. Owens, this is definitely something that's up our alley. So we defend this stuff all the time. We understand the nuances. We understand the minimums and maximums. We get that, but when you bring in high-profile, it definitely makes things much more difficult. So much so that I even have a friend that I had in high school who's already texting my wife. She's been following this case for years and is tuning in to 12 News right now to get this live update. This is something that she wants to know about, she wants to see, and she lives in New Mexico. She's not even living in Arizona anymore. So it is definitely something that hits people where they can feel it, and they want to make sure that they're tuning in to see how things happen, especially when it's in their backyard.
[00:44:37] Speaker 2: Well, we appreciate the viewers. Thank you for tuning in also. So we were talking about podcasts and things like that. There's a podcast called Love Trapped that was all about this case. Topped Apple's podcast series chart. Showing how big this, how widespread this case is. This is not just a little local case. We've got people, I'm sure, tuning in probably worldwide to watch this and find out what's happening, because this is kind of the finale of this. Because really, a lot of times we treat this as an episode of Law & Order that just happens to stretch out a year or so, you know, two years' distance, and then we end up with the finale, which is today. But it's crazy to think that that's how the legal system is viewed at this point.
[00:45:20] Speaker 3: It's honestly difficult, right? Because we live in a time where we are trying to gain more emphasis and more sympathy for victims of sexual abuse, sexual assault, people who are having to be accountable for their actions, like women who have children and men that may not be accountable for participating in those actions. But then you have someone like Laura Owens who is making a mockery of that, and it's almost setting people back, right? It's almost setting people who need that help and who need people to believe them and who need the support. Now it's like, do we actually believe them now when they come into family court and state that they're pregnant with their children? Because we've got this person who's just completely lying about it on multiple fronts and then making a mockery of the court. And it honestly is really, really sad to see because then there are real victims who won't be believed because of something like this.
[00:46:07] Speaker 2: How unusual is it for a family court judge to refer a case like this to prosecution?
[00:46:13] Speaker 3: Yeah, it happens extremely rarely. It's not something that happens super often because the family court doesn't usually gain so much information to where they can conclusively say, this is fraud or this is complete forgery or perjury or whatever it may be. Clearly, it had to have been so, so clear to this judge where the judge is like, I'm going to refer this over to the county attorney because this is not only a crime, this is an habitual crime that she is participating in, hurting multiple people. And there could be multiple defendants here. She could be a serial liar when it comes to these paternity tests.
[00:46:47] Speaker 2: Now, I want to go back to the attention that this has gained because I kind of want to take you to the other side of what your job usually is, your defense attorney. Does this also complicate things for the prosecution to have something like the Justice for Clayton community online or the high profileness of this case? Scrutiny on them has to be just insane.
[00:47:09] Speaker 3: Yeah, I would say it makes it difficult on them. Any high profile case, it makes it hard on them. But then at the same time, they also have a lot of public support as well, right? They want to make sure that this person is held accountable for the actions that she has admitted to, right? She's pled guilty to these four charges. So the prosecution, to be honest with you, I know this prosecutor super well. They're not too worried about it. They're not too worried about the public perception. They're not too worried about 12 News, no offense, or anybody that really puts pressure on them. They do their job. They're there to bring justice swiftly. They're there to apply the facts to the law and fall what may, and then they're leading it up, the sentencing up into the hands of the judge. The judge is ultimately going to determine what her sentence is. As long as the prosecution does their job, they're going to walk away fine.
[00:47:53] Speaker 2: Well, and typically, also, the online community doesn't come for you unless you mess it up. If you have what they consider to be a slam-dunk case, and it goes from this person's going away for a very long time to this plea is now probation, that's when they end up turning on the prosecutors. We've done that a lot of times when people think this case is just a given. Yeah. And then all of a sudden, they come out of the woodwork, and a prosecutor is on their target list.
[00:48:20] Speaker 3: That is a lot of pressure. And to be honest with you, a lot of the things that I've seen, too, is that people are upset that a prosecutor would even offer a plea agreement. They're saying, why don't you take this lady to trial and put her in prison for 25 years? Because that's potentially what she would receive if she was found guilty of these 14 counts that she was charged with, right? So they think, oh, well, you're taking it too easy on her. Well, they also aren't attorneys. They've never been in a criminal court setting. They don't know the risk that's involved with taking something like this to trial either.
[00:48:45] Speaker 2: Oh, everybody's an armchair prosecutor or an armchair defense attorney when you watch these on TV. It seems so easy.
[00:48:50] Speaker 3: Yeah, exactly right. And those are some of the funnest ones to follow because you'll read the comments, or you'll see people's blogs or TikToks or whatever. And, of course, they are the best prosecutors in the world that aren't prosecutors, right? So they come in and criticize that. But there's a finality to a plea agreement. There may be some nuances that are difficult to prove in court. And so the prosecutor wants to make sure that justice is held against her. And going to trial and losing could potentially alleviate that. And the victims wouldn't receive any justice. And so a plea agreement isn't always just the prosecution giving up. It may be exactly what's needed in these types of situations.
[00:49:24] Speaker 2: Now, we're about eight minutes away from being able to air the video that's in court right now. Sean Rice is in there as well. And he just texted me that the prosecution is presenting a PowerPoint right now, PowerPoint presentation, as part of their address to the court. So we will be able to start that in just a few minutes at about 9.55 or so. What happens after this sentencing? Can she appeal this because she pled guilty? Is this it? This is it.
[00:49:53] Speaker 3: She's pled guilty. The judge will find her guilty officially in that. And then the judge will lay down her sentence. The only thing that she will have is what's called a post-conviction relief right. And she has 90 days to file that. So it's some sort of an appeal. But it's a Rule 33 motion where she says there's been such an error legally in this sentencing that I believe I should be receiving a review and that this should be determined differently. Those are so extremely rare that I would even be surprised if she files that. The fact that she's going into a plea agreement with an open range, which means I'm giving all the power up to the judge and I will live with the sentence. That means that she's going to live with the sentence. She can't then say, oh, I didn't know that he was going to give me 12 and a half years. No, no. You did know that. That's what your attorney was there for. And your attorney explained that to you. And, in fact, the judge will have reviewed that with her multiple times so that she can't come back and say, oh, I didn't know the actual minimums and maximums and I didn't know what I was facing. That's not true. So she does have a Rule 33 motion. But she could try. But I would find that very unlikely.
[00:50:57] Speaker 2: I mean, as a lawyer told me, you can sue for literally anything. That's right. Whether or not it stands up in court or gets thrown out, that's totally different. You could say you didn't know a whole lot of things, but not necessarily in this case. That's exactly right. Sean Rice is texting me right now that the prosecution is going through. It sounds like they are basically presenting their case, even though there is no trial. They were going through hundreds of pages of text messages over a one-week period in August 2021 from between Greg Gillespie and Laura Owens claiming that she's pregnant, abortion pills aren't working, and sending a fake ultrasound image. So that sounds like they're basically presenting the entire case that they would have presented in opening arguments, basically, if this had gone to trial.
[00:51:35] Speaker 3: Honestly, that's super rare for a prosecutor to spend that much time in a sentencing hearing. Like I said, they send in a memorandum to the judge ahead of time, likely with all of these attachments, with all of these text messages. But the prosecution wants to make sure that the victims know they are going to do everything they can to serve justice to this defendant. But to present PowerPoints, you know, present hundreds of pages, that is them showing that they really want harsh, harsh penalties. And they want to make sure that the judge understands that this isn't just something like, oh, I sent an ultrasound image to the victims. So it wasn't a one-time thing. And not only that. Yeah, it's a prolonged thing. And it's showing ultrasound images. It's showing videos. And it's showing abortion pills. And she's sending emails, text messages. She's trying to communicate with these people from all different areas. And then not only that, she takes them to court and brings a legal proceeding against them. So it's not just a one-layer, hey, I'm pregnant with your child. This is a very, very detailed and layered event.
[00:52:34] Speaker 2: So in legal terms, is this showing the extent of the fraud?
[00:52:36] Speaker 3: Absolutely.
[00:52:37] Speaker 2: And that's kind of the point.
[00:52:38] Speaker 3: The extent of the fraud, it's going to diminish any type of incapacity that she tries to say. Like, oh, I didn't know what I was doing or I was really emotional when I sent that photo. You could say, well, maybe for one photo. But this fraud and this scheme that you, you know, put together was very layered and actually very detailed. And so it's a very difficult argument to say, oh, she was out of her mind for two and a half years where she couldn't ever find her way out of it.
[00:53:02] Speaker 2: Yeah. Sean Rice is now telling us that they are going into now Laura Owens filing a lawsuit against Greg Gillespie in 2022, getting an order of protection against him. All things that build up this level of fraud and the fraud schemes thing, which, of course, as you said, is the one that carries the most jail time, is the most serious. That's right. So trying to build the case as much as possible.
[00:53:21] Speaker 3: They want to make sure that because, as I mentioned, in the plea agreement, the count one of fraud schemes is the only one where the judge is legally allowed to give her prison time. And so the prosecution is absolutely going to spend the vast majority on the time on the fraud scheme charge to give the judge the legal authority to give her as much prison time as possible.
[00:53:39] Speaker 2: Okay, so when this is over and we learn what the sentencing is, are we still possibly going into that civil case? I mean, you could still file a civil lawsuit against her if you were any of the victims, right?
[00:53:53] Speaker 3: Yeah, absolutely. So the victims will have rights to file civil lawsuits. There will also be, in the plea agreement, there's also restitution that is owed on behalf of the victims in the plea agreement stated that she is going to have to pay for any damages that come out of certain police reports, any type of allegations or accusations. Now, is that actually spelled out in the plea agreement, how much that is? Not necessarily. They may have a restitution hearing to actually determine exactly how much that is.
[00:54:17] Speaker 2: Which comes after sentencing. That's correct. Potentially if they want to push it to. I've seen that happen a couple of times. Yeah.
[00:54:21] Speaker 3: Or she could stipulate to it and say, yeah, I understand that I defrauded them this much or I caused this much harm. And so there could be a stipulated amount. But the issue with that is too, and I have to explain this to any type of person that's looking for a lawsuit is, you're looking at somebody that's been trying to steal money from multiple men by accusing them of being pregnant with their child and asking for child support. It's not likely that she has money buried somewhere in a mattress that's going to be able to be found and earn anything. So lawsuits may only drag your name further through the mud. It may be something where Clayton and Greg are saying, you know what, she's been served justice. I have restitution. If she does earn anything in her lifetime, I'll be receiving it, but unlikely. And if she goes to prison, they're definitely not going to collect anything.
[00:55:04] Speaker 2: You're not grabbing anybody, any money out of anybody who's been in prison for 12 and a half years.
[00:55:08] Speaker 3: Not likely.
[00:55:09] Speaker 2: Any restitution that you get or any civil judgment that you get, you're looking 13 years down the road before you even start collecting anything.
[00:55:14] Speaker 3: And it will be nominal, yeah.
[00:55:16] Speaker 2: If there is no estate, I guess is the term for it.
[00:55:19] Speaker 3: Yeah, and obviously we don't know all of those facts. Maybe she is, you know, sitting on millions of dollars and this is just some sort of scheme that she likes to do in order to have purpose every single day, which is honestly true. That happens to many people. But it doesn't, I wouldn't, I wouldn't hold my breath for lawsuits to come down the pipe, especially if she is sentenced to prison.
[00:55:38] Speaker 2: And now Sean Rice is telling us that they just now moved on to Clayton Eckert's case. We're still in the prosecution. We've been going, I'm going to do some quick math here. We've been going 30 minutes in court. That seems sort of unusual that we are taking this much time on a case that didn't go to trial. That's kind of, that seems like a lot of work for something that you've already told the judge we're good with.
[00:56:02] Speaker 3: I mean, we were talking about it earlier, right? I've done probably hundreds of sentencings and the judge set apart nine to noon, right? And said, if this goes three hours, we need to plan for three hours. And you and I both said, there's no way, there's no way this is going to go three hours. We've been in murder cases that have not gone this long. Yeah. And the only reason it goes 45 minutes is because they have cameras in the courtroom. They have press. They have to, you know, get people in and out. They've got to make sure that there's enough security, all that kind of stuff. But to the fact that the state is going this long, the state probably told the judge, I'm going to take this long to make sure that you understand all of the facts that I've dictated in my sentencing memorandum. So I want to make sure that there's enough time for us to really, really distinguish the difference between one person who committed fraud scheme and what Laura Owens did.
[00:56:44] Speaker 2: Now, Sean Rice is in the courtroom right now. He is live tweeting on X. He is, of course, sending information back to us here, texting me so that I have an updated information of what's going on in there. We will be broadcasting the video from inside the courtroom here probably in about a minute or less because, again, the judge ordered a 30-minute delay on the live camera coverage that is inside the court. Our cameras are in court right now, but the judge, and this is not unusual. They do this a lot. The judge has decided that it's got to be a 30-minute delay until that video is broadcast out live. We've seen this a lot, frankly, in the last couple of years after cases like Jody Arias. We've brought that up before. So we are told right now that the 30 minutes is up. We're going to go right now to the feed from court, and here is the Laura Owens sentencing. All right, we're obviously having some technical issues with that audio. We're going to see if we can fix that up. Thankfully, though, at this point, you're not exactly missing anything because the beginning of this, and we will keep on this video here until we can figure out what's going on with this, but we're not missing much right now. Court starts. The judge is on the bench, and it's, you know, state your appearances. Let's get ready for procedural. You've done this, Adam, a hundred times, I'm sure.
[00:58:24] Speaker 3: Yeah, absolutely.
[00:58:24] Speaker 2: And this is part of the procedure.
[00:58:27] Speaker 3: Yeah, this is part of the process. The judge is going to make sure that everybody's following the rules. He's probably going to give instruction to the media crews and the camera crews, everybody in the courtroom. They're going to make sure that they follow the 30-minute gag order that they've issued, and then also make sure that everybody's protected. They want to make sure there's enough security. They want to make sure that nothing crazy happens, and that's one of the reasons why the judge will give that 30-minute delay is because after the sentencing is given, they want to make sure that they can escort Ms. Owens out, whether it's through the front doors or through the back doors, whichever way that the judge determines, but they want to make sure that everybody is safe in the end of this.
[00:59:00] Speaker 2: Now, I mentioned this right before we tossed to this, and again, you're not missing anything because no one's up there talking yet, but I mentioned this. This is something that I've noticed that has come up, especially since the Jody Arias case, because that thing was broadcast live with maybe a five-second delay, and there were some things that went out that, frankly, the judge did not like that went out. We're talking autopsy photos. We're talking about all kinds of things, and this is one of those situations where they have started to put in a 30-minute delay, which is legal, and that is, they're right, because their control is in their courtroom. They can do whatever they want, right?
[00:59:31] Speaker 3: Yeah, that's absolutely right. They don't have to require or allow the media crew to be in there. Now, in this day and age, the media crew is likely in there because everything is public now. Everybody knows everything with the social media age, et cetera, and the streaming availability, and so the fact that they do that, they just want to make sure that if there are things that are sensitive information that are presented, that the victims can be protected, that their identities can be protected, personal information can be protected, and then also, like I said, that everybody's kept safe, so if there is some sort of a riot or some sort of an uproar, they want to make sure that there's a 30-minute kind of middle ground to where they can keep everybody in a safe proceeding.
[01:00:07] Speaker 2: Now, also, we are told that there are some restrictions on what we are allowed to show, obviously. We're not allowed to broadcast audio of the lawyers meeting with the judge on the bench. We cannot shoot laptops of the attorneys, which, of course, we really realistically would never do anyway, but again, that 30-minute delay, and again, it looks like you're not missing too much, but it looks like the prosecution is starting to get up there. We're still trying to figure out what's going on with the audio here. In this case, I mean, again, they have now been going for 30 minutes or so, basically laying out their case and getting to the point where you can start having victim impact statements. This is probably going to go a little while, isn't it?
[01:00:51] Speaker 3: Yeah, like I said, and like we had mentioned earlier, it actually is surprising to me that a prosecutor is even bringing up a PowerPoint statement. They want to make sure that because this is being aired, that this is going to be put out there. They want to make sure that everybody knows that they're taking this super seriously. This isn't just a run-of-the-mill fraud scheme. This is something where they want to say, if people like Laura Owens is going to decide to defraud somebody and use pregnancy tests, family courts, criminal courts to their advantage to try to defraud people, they are going to be held accountable. So, the prosecutor definitely is making a statement by making this big of a show.
[01:01:27] Speaker 2: So, let me ask you this as a defense attorney. You're in a sentencing. Prosecution goes 30, 40 minutes. What do you do? How do you combat that? What do you do next?
[01:01:38] Speaker 3: Yeah, a lot of times I'm giving advice to my client. I let them know and say, hey, don't make noises under your breath. Don't say anything. Don't turn around and look at the cameras. Don't roll your eyes. That's something that you want to make sure that you're advising your client on. But then honestly, the prosecution is going to say what they want to say. The victims are going to say what they want to say and that they have a right to say. And so, you want to make sure that you're not taking that away from them and mocking them in any way because that obviously throws egg on your face. So, during this time, you're making notes because if the prosecution says things that I believe are outside of the plea agreement or maybe a little bit too dramatic, then I want to make sure that I'm addressing that in my statements when I'm speaking on behalf of my client. But then a lot of the times, I'm mostly just trying to control the nerves of my client during that part of the hearing.
[01:02:23] Speaker 2: How hard is it to shorten yourself, I guess, or make it go longer when you are like, okay, look, we just sat through 30 minutes of things that I don't think this prosecution should have said. But also, I am trying to curry some favor right now. I don't want to make this go as long as possible. I know in jury trials, usually the idea is that the prosecution goes long. You probably shouldn't. Yeah. Because the jury wants to go to lunch or go home.
[01:02:48] Speaker 3: Yeah, that's absolutely right. And the judge is an attorney himself. He knows what these proceedings should and shouldn't be about. If you're bringing up things as the prosecution or as the defense that you shouldn't be talking about, it's not a good look, right? And I'm not saying that this prosecution is doing that or the state is trying to manipulate the judge in any way. But if they are, you want to make sure as an attorney, you're focusing on the facts that apply to these four crimes that she has pled guilty to and really nothing else.
[01:03:15] Speaker 2: Now, again, this is a video from about 30 minutes ago inside the courtroom. We're trying to figure out the technical issues of the audio here. But we can see the PowerPoint presentation that the prosecution has started with. And they're starting right here. Laura selects her next victim. That line in itself says kind of a lot. Not her first victim, her next victim.
[01:03:36] Speaker 3: Yeah, not only her next victim, they're showing that how detailed this fraud is. It wasn't something where, hey, I really liked this guy and we met and this is what it is. It's no, I'm going to make sure that I'm going out of my way to find somebody who I believe I can defraud or who I can obtain a benefit through, who maybe who has money or lives in a prominent neighborhood or who was famous on a show like The Bachelor and has resources.
[01:04:03] Speaker 2: And so some sort of means.
[01:04:04] Speaker 3: Uh-huh, something like that. And so if they can detail that and show, again, that's going to diffuse any type of argument that the defense is going to say when they say, oh, she was suffering from some sort of mental illness or deficiency.
[01:04:17] Speaker 2: Now, you're looking right now at a video that was about 30 minutes ago because of this 30-minute delay inside the courtroom of the Laura Owens sentencing. She is pled guilty to fraudulent schemes, two counts of fraudulent schemes, one count of perjury, one count of identity theft. Right now, the only thing that's up in the air is how much jail time she will be spending after this entire hearing is over. We're looking at possibly 12 and a half years on these fraudulent scheme charges. She is accused of faking pregnancies with two different men, one of which was Clayton Eckerd, the 2022 bachelor on ABC's show The Bachelor, season 26, apparently. He's a real estate agent in Scottsdale. And this is, I mean, we've been on the air for now more than an hour. And this is one of these cases that just, there's so much involved in this. I mean, looking at the bullet points right here, you're just laying this thing out step by step by step. Again, almost as if the prosecution was talking to a jury that isn't there.
[01:05:17] Speaker 3: Yeah, it is. I think we talked about this earlier. It is a pretty gutsy move to make these types of accusations of being pregnant and then losing the pregnancy. And then not only that, taking it to a family law court and committing perjury by stating that these things were true. When you have text messaging, Snapchats that can be pulled, you have everything that can really be used as evidence against you because every single piece of communication, whether you delete it or not, or whether you think it gets deleted, it's going to be brought against you. And so they have mountains of digital evidence that they're going to, they're obviously showing to the judge because they want to make sure that the judge understands this wasn't just like a one night thing. And all of a sudden I want to ruin this person's life. This looks like this was a long drawn out scheme.
[01:06:02] Speaker 2: You see those text messages right there. Now I'm going to bring in Tori King, but we're going to stay on this video right here. Tori, this is, we've talked about this before, but she was caught, I don't want to say easily, but almost easily.
[01:06:12] Speaker 6: She was. I mean, the evidence was extremely stacked against her. And they say that everything online stays online forever. And we know that with technology, AI, ChatGPT, everything like that, we now have the means to be able to go back and reverse image search. And that's how she ended up getting caught, not once, but twice. And so again, they're trying to show a pattern here over several, several years. And in both cases, very, very similar. It seems like she waited 11 days in both the Gillespie case and the Eckert case to tell them that she was pregnant. So I just was reading that on the PowerPoint just now. So it's a little interesting to see that both cases, it was 11 days before she told them that she was pregnant after their alleged encounter. Now, again, I want to mention Clayton has fiercely defended that they did not have sexual intercourse. Meantime, Gillespie, different case. They were in a relationship over, you know, several months. And so he's also claiming that she used this claim of pregnancy to get them to stay in a relationship, that the relationship was coming to an end, essentially. And that's when she started sending the text messages of the sonograms, of, you know, everything like that, proving to him that she was pregnant. Similar in Eckert's case, she also sent everything through text message. She actually sent him an email claiming that she was 100 million percent positive that she was pregnant with his baby. And again, reverse image search is what led to this being uncovered as other women's pictures, other women's videos, other women's sonograms. So if it wasn't for that technology, both of these men would not have been, I think, as fiercely defensive of this case.
[01:07:57] Speaker 2: And really, if they hadn't thought to question, which, you know, goes back to Clayton Eckert's statement that they never had sex. If that didn't happen, how can she be claiming a paternity of a child that can't possibly exist or at least could not possibly be his? So the skepticism kind of led to this whole thing. And then eventually, once you've got some scrutiny on this, Adam, the whole thing just falls apart.
[01:08:23] Speaker 6: Yeah. And I want to mention, too, his Bachelor season, he was a very popular Bachelor, but his season was actually very controversial. And so you almost wonder if she ended up using his reputation on The Bachelor. And maybe that's why she essentially targeted him or that's why they're painting that she targeted him in this way, because that season ended in a way that most seasons don't. He got left at the altar. There was no marriage proposal. Obviously, he tried. Susie let him down, said no. And then they started a relationship months later. But his season ended very controversially. And allegedly, it's because the woman that he chose said, well, I don't really trust you with other women. And so maybe you wonder if that has any connection as to why she tried to target him. Because she reached out to him through LinkedIn first. She knew exactly who he was.
[01:09:13] Speaker 2: So Sean Rice just texted me a second ago. Again, we are on a 30-minute delay for the video in the courtroom. And we're working through some technical issues here to figure out where the audio is going. We're going to try and get that to you as soon as possible. But Sean Rice, who is in the courtroom right now, just texted me that they are now on to showing photoshopped pictures of Laura Owens having a baby bump. And they're showing those photos in court. That's something that I had not heard before, that those photos existed. And again, Adam, that goes to, as we keep saying, the level of the fraud. Which, the more this goes on, the more you have to think, well, maybe this does justify 12 and a half years. This was very, very detailed.
[01:09:50] Speaker 3: Yeah, honestly, like you said, it depends on which side of the aisle you are on as far as whether or not 12 and a half years is justified. But if I could say this, how scary is the internet, right? Being able to reverse search an image and find out that from 2015 in a YouTube video that an ultrasound was able to, or a sonogram was able to be pulled up and used as an actual video and to be manipulated that way. That's a very scary thing, and then on top of it, being able to photoshop a baby bump to where it looks some sort of real, I mean, that is absolutely wild. And the internet is a very, very scary place. But honestly, it's what saved these two men from likely, you know, having these false accusations or these allegations placed against them.
[01:10:33] Speaker 2: Now, we're looking right now at the prosecution who is giving a PowerPoint presentation that, by my count, has now been going on almost 40 minutes, laying out their case. From start to finish, again, this is not a trial. There is no jury in the courtroom. The judge does not have to decide guilt. Laura Owens has already pleaded guilty to fraudulent schemes, perjury, and identity theft. So guilt is not even a factor here. The only thing that is up in the air right now is how many years she will spend in prison for faking two pregnancies. This is going into, I said this before, a lot of detail, I think way more detail now than I think we had ever thought. Now I'm wondering if, honestly, setting aside 9 a.m. to noon is enough time for this whole thing to get done.
[01:11:23] Speaker 3: I mean, the judge, definitely something that we weren't expecting, but the judge understood it and knew it. And the prosecution was likely very clear that this is how much time she wanted to take in order to make sure that the judge and the court knew exactly the type of detail that Ms. Owens went in order to defraud these two people. But the truth of the matter is, this isn't just a typical fraud scheme because you're dealing with somebody who is very well known. And so public pressure also makes things a little bit more elongated, right, where you have to make sure that all of the information is presented so that the judge can make a real decision. It's important to know, though, that under the fraud schemes, when we're talking about potential of 12 and a half years, the prosecution has the burden to aggravate that term. The judge is going to start at five. They call that the presumptive term, which means the judge starts at five. And in order to get to 12 and a half years, the prosecution has to prove the aggravators of seven and a half more years. That's why the prosecution is taking this much time. She wants to show, Your Honor, this isn't a five-year prison term. This is something that needs to be closer to 12 and a half years. And let me take an hour or an hour and a half to prove it to you because that's the prosecution's burden to aggravate from five all the way up to 12 and a half.
[01:12:35] Speaker 2: Now, Sean Rice, again, in court right now. And you are looking at video from one half hour ago, almost exactly. And we're working on the audio issues here to figure out why that's not playing back. We know the audio does exist. We know it was recorded. We're working on getting it to play back right now. Sean Rice said just a second ago that Clayton Eckert is now giving his victim impact statements. So it looks like the prosecution spent about 45 minutes, 45 to 50 minutes laying this whole thing out step by step. Again, hundreds of pages, Sean says, of text messages. And you saw some of those actually right there on that computer. That's the prosecution right there talking. And sometimes, you know, we have one camera in court. We can't be on the prosecution and also be on the PowerPoint presentation that they're giving at the same time. But you can see that monitor right in front of her there, which is the PowerPoint presentation. And we're talking about, no, there we go. Almost as if he could hear me, which he can't because it's 30 minutes ago. They are showing text messages. They are showing e-mails. And that looks right there like a sonogram photo that they are bringing up to the judge. Again, showing the extent of the fraud involved here. Adam, Clayton taking the, not taking the stand because you're not actually taking the stand. You're just going up in front of court and explaining this. Will the judge add a little more weight to him because he's the one who came forward first? He's the guy who kicked this whole thing off.
[01:13:58] Speaker 3: Yeah, the judge definitely will add weight to his statement. One, because he's been very vocal throughout this entire case. He's done multiple interviews. He's also probably the one that has most to lose because of his public fame, I guess you could say, where people actually know who he is. His character and his reputation definitely is being defamed. And he mentions that in many of his interviews, right? And so the judge is really going to take that into account. I'm impressed with a lot of the things that he said. And it'll be interesting to see what Mr. Eckerd says because in a lot of his interviews, he actually extends a lot of mercy to her and actually extends forgiveness and says, you know, I hope the best for her. I hope that she gets the help that she needs. In the end, justice prevails. But I hope the best for her. And so that honestly isn't very common with victims, especially ones that have suffered as much heartache and pain as he has. But the judge will also take that into account. So it definitely is a two-edged sword when it comes to that. If the victim isn't calling for 12 and a half years, but rather saying, your honor, you can show mercy, then the judge is going to take that into account as well.
[01:14:58] Speaker 2: So probation for the other counts, potentially perjury and identity theft. But perjury is one of those charges that we hear about. Everybody screams, you lied on the stand. It's perjury. It's perjury. Whether or not it actually is. How hard is that to actually prosecute? And how often do you actually get a perjury charge in court?
[01:15:17] Speaker 3: Well, in this case, it's super easy because she was in a court proceeding when she lied. And so for her to say under oath, yes, these are the twins that are the babies of Mr. Eckerd, and that proved to be false. I mean, that's super easy to prove, right? Because it was in a sworn statement. This wasn't like it was in a text message where then she could say, oh, I didn't send that text message. That wasn't me. That was somebody else, right? That's a he said, she said type of deal. But when she's in a sworn under oath statement, it's a lot easier to prove perjury. But the most important part about perjury is that it's not just about lying, right? It's something where the person has to know it to be false, to believe it to be false, and then state that as something that is true. So it is a nuanced crime, but something under oath in a family law court, it's not as difficult to prove. And that's likely why that one is a little bit of an underarcing one, because it's a class four felony and not a class two, which carries more penalty. Well, you have to have intent also.
[01:16:13] Speaker 2: You have to acknowledge that what you did was false. Yep. So let me put you in the chair of her attorney. How would you defend this?
[01:16:22] Speaker 3: Yeah. I mean, that's a great question. I don't know her personally. There hasn't been much statements made to her, but from a 10,000 foot view, in my opinion, this is somebody who's suffering from some sort of mental illness.
[01:16:34] Speaker 2: Which is, I kind of thought you would say that. It's interesting that that has never been brought up. Well, I mean, we don't... Until, of course, her allocution, that might happen.
[01:16:41] Speaker 3: Yeah, exactly. When it gets to her time to speak or when her defense attorney gets the time to speak, this isn't somebody who is mentally capable of obviously making good choices. That doesn't mean that she shouldn't be held accountable. I don't believe that. But a mental illness does play a factor in this when you are making up things in order to either get attention or to have a boyfriend. We know that with Mr. Gillespie, she was stating this not to gain a financial gain, but to force a relationship with him, saying, I hope that you'll stay with me if you know I'm pregnant with your baby. So this is somebody who obviously suffers from a lot of different struggles. There's some issues there. There's some issues. And if it's just loneliness or abandonment or some sort of financial issue that she's trying to get out from underneath of, there are definitely some issues that she's suffering from.
[01:17:29] Speaker 2: And if she had actually gone to trial on these 14 counts, we'd be talking about a lot more than 12 and a half years. Absolutely right. Yeah, that's 12 and a half just for one count. And she had 14 against her. So we're looking right now at video again from 30 minutes ago, which puts us at about 9, well, not, yeah, 945. I'm doing the math in my head here. 945 from inside court. That is an email, it looks like from a doctor to Laura Owens right there. I'm trying to read that. The monitor is a little far away from me. It's kind of tough to get in there and see exactly what that email says. But this is video from 30 minutes ago inside the courtroom during the Laura Owens sentencing. Again, we're trying to fix our audio issues there. We didn't know that there was audio recorded. We're trying to figure out why it's not playing back there. But the prosecution spent conservatively 40 to 45 minutes on this PowerPoint presentation basically laying out their entire case. You see that monitor in front of the prosecutor right there, which looks like it has text messages. They've gone through hundreds of pages of text messages, hundreds of text messages. Reporter Sean Rice is telling us he is inside the courtroom right now, basically laying out the entire case, the entire, if you will, fraudulent scheme that she is accused of perpetrating, which was falsifying a pregnancy with two different men. We're talking about at this point, by my math, we haven't even gone into Clayton Eckert yet for the prosecution's presentation. Here we have only gone into Greg Gillespie, who was the first person allegedly that this happened to. And then we will go into Clayton Eckert after that.
[01:19:04] Clayton Eckert: Oh, I see whether or not she's being truthful, because you cannot fake empathy to that degree. So she can say she's sorry.
[01:19:12] Speaker 2: I'm hearing a sound bite right there, but then I'm also hearing some audio on the actual feed there. Now, hang on one second here. Guys, if we can turn that audio off that we're hearing somebody speak other than the prosecutor.
[01:19:32] Speaker 11: On behalf of victim Stormy Mitchell.
[01:19:37] Speaker 2: There we go. We'll try to turn that off right there. That's a different feed than what we're actually trying to get right there. The prosecutor, as you can see right there, taking point by point through the case, trying to make as much, I guess, as much evidence. I don't want to say evidence. That's not the right word. Not scoring points either, because you're not really scoring points. This has already been decided. They're just trying to enhance the decision, I guess would be a great way to put it. Yeah.
[01:20:03] Speaker 3: The word is convince the judge. That's right. The word is aggravate, right? The law gives the prosecution the chance. As I mentioned, they're starting at five years. That is the presumptive term under count one, which is fraud schemes. And taking that, the prosecutor is now taking the time to then say, judge, this is why we believe you should aggravate the sentencing above five years. If I had to guess, when they offered a plea agreement to Ms. Owens, they probably offered seven and a half to eight years in prison. And the defense was saying, yeah, right, we're not taking that much. And so when they came to this plea agreement, they said, let's leave it up to the judge. Let's let the judge decide, which is why it's called an open plea. They give the judge the power to then say, between zero up to 12 and a half years, judge, start at five, either go less or go up.
[01:20:50] Speaker 2: All right. Let's see if we have that audio issue fixed there on the court feed. We'll see if we can dial this up just a little bit and try to increase the volume in the court. We will go right now to the in-court feed from about 30 minutes ago. Again, this is delayed by order of the judge as the prosecution goes through the case in the Laura Owens sentencing.
[01:21:11] Speaker 12: On August 11th, so we're still in 2021, she files a civil lawsuit against Greg, alleging abortion, coercion, domestic violence, and intentional infliction of emotional distress. Greg files an order of protection against Laura. He alleges that Laura attempted to get him fired from his job in retaliation for breaking up with her. Greg eventually retains an attorney to represent him. She is asked at some point to take a prenatal paternity test at the labs. She responds and says she will, and she also plans on filing a separate family court case. But, of course, in her email, he can contact me with her phone number if he rethinks his decision regarding a relationship and if he would like to be part of the pregnancy decisions going forward. So, again, if he gets into a relationship with her, she'll take all this back. She files a petition for an order of protection against Greg, which is granted on the same day. Now we are finally in 2022. The litigation is still ongoing. On January 6th, Laura gives her TED Talk on being a victim of domestic violence after her relationship with Mike. This has since been removed and taken down. March 4th, her plan isn't working, so now she's going to escalate things. She emails the court, which she is later scolded for ex parte communication, and she says, On March 4th, 2022, I was drugged, violently assaulted, and raped. I have strong reasons to believe that both the defendant and his counsel were involved, and there's a pending FBI investigation regarding the incident. To my knowledge, neither the defendant nor his counsel are aware that they're being looked into. I was worried that submitting a motion ex parte could accidentally be publicly e-filed and accessed by them, which would pose a threat to my safety. I apologize for sending an email, but I could not think of any other way to alert Judge Backus about this without giving the other side confidential information about what has transpired. So, we still have more litigation going on regarding the civil case. Judge Gordon dismisses it on August 12th, 2022. She does renew her order of protection against Greg. So, now we're in 2023. She submits the Gillespie connection to the Scottsdale Police, claiming that Greg is violating his protection order by posting things about her online. Detective Reedy concluded that none of this, none of the Reddit accounts, can be traced back to Greg. As a matter of fact, the actual poster came forward and said he did it, not Greg or Clayton. But, of course, she's still obsessed with him at this point because he's moved on. April 26th, it's discovered that the ultrasound she sent Greg back in 2021 to prove her twin pregnancy had a fiber logo embedded in the background. And they were able to determine that the ultrasound actually came from a vanishing twin blog in 2015 from victim Stormy Mitchell. And meanwhile, while all of this is going on, she's also been doing the same thing to Clayton, which we'll get to later. Greg was called to testify at the hearing, but they ran out of time. So, here is the, this is on the left here is Stormy Mitchell's actual ultrasound that she posted on her blog. This one to the right is the one that Laura stole. As you can see, hers is zoomed in a little bit more, but it's exactly the same. You can see the sack where the baby, both babies would be, one's bigger than the other one. You can also see, whoops, there's a typo in it. She didn't use the number zero. She put an O in it, which would not be on a proper medical ultrasound. Stormy Mitchell found this out. She was very distressed because I'm not sure how much the court is aware of the vanishing twin. That means the one that the smaller one did not survive. And, you know, what was supposed to be a time of, it was a very difficult time, which is why she posted on the blog to get support. Laura used Stormy's sad, or her sad situation for her own selfish benefit.
[01:25:54] Speaker 11: So, May 17th, defendant contacts Clayton. He was a reality star. He had been the bachelor, and at the time he was working as a Scottsdale realtor. She contacts him under the auspices of a possible real estate deal, as I'll discuss shortly. The evidence supports that Clayton was targeted by his defendant. They text back and forth, and they agreed to meet at Clayton's place. In fact, the invites were over on May 20th, 1.3. Importantly, they hook up. They end up having oral sex, but there was no intercourse or penetrative sex. Clayton, as the professor said, these gentlemen who are victimized here, in part, they're victimized because they were guys who tried to do the right thing. Clayton realized he'd made a mistake. He believed that he'd crossed an ethical line, you know, in his capacity as a potential real estate agent, and he thought it best to refer Laura to another real estate agent. She became very upset, and she was, because she was targeting, she was very upset about the fact that they were not going to engage in a relationship. That's what she wanted from him.
[01:27:37] Speaker 1: Again, you refuse to represent her, and ultimately, despite contact, you want her from her.
[01:28:00] Speaker ?: This is also a very detailed investigation that reviewed tens of thousands of documents, largely from Laura's cloud and power for accesses, and was very informative as to what motivated growth were out, particularly the planning action of the incident. This is a text message. Again, the timeline is May 20th, 1.3. That's when Clayton and the Senate are coming. The next day, she sends a text message saying, "All of her plans and dates are still on Clayton, but I went over and had a company and we tunneled, et cetera, but not this." So, from the very beginning, she says, "So from the very beginning, this is May 20th, 2.3. I went over and had a company and we traveled, et cetera, but not this." So, from the very beginning, she said, "So from the very beginning, this is May 20th, 3. I went over and had a company and we traveled, et cetera, but not this." So, from the very beginning, she said, "So from the very beginning, this is May 20th, 2.4. I went over and had a company and we traveled, et cetera, but not this." So, from the very beginning, she said, "So from the very beginning, this is May 20th, 2.3. So from the very beginning, this is May 20th, 2.3. So from the very beginning, this is May 20th, 2.3. So from the very beginning, this is May 20th, 2.3. So from the very beginning, this is May 20th, 2.3. So from the very beginning, this is May 20th, 2.3. So from the very beginning, this is May 20th, 2.3. So from the very beginning, this is May 20th, 2.3. So from the very beginning, this is May 20th, 2.3. So from the very beginning, this is May 20th, 2.3. So from the very beginning, this is May 20th, 2.3. So from the very beginning, this is May 20th, 2.3. So from the very beginning, this is May 20th, 2.3. So from the very beginning, this is May 20th, 2.3. So from the very beginning, this is May 20th, 2.3. So from the very beginning, this is May 20th, 2.3. So from the very beginning, this is May 20th, 2.3. So from the very beginning, this is May 20th, 2.3. So from the very beginning, this is May 20th, 2.3. So from the very beginning, this is May 20th, 2.3. So from the very beginning, this is May 20th, 2.3. So from the very beginning, this is May 20th, 2.3. So from the very beginning, this is May 20th, 2.3. So from the very beginning, this is May 20th, 2.3. So from the very beginning, this is May 20th, 2.3. So from the very beginning, this is May 20th, 2.3. So from the very beginning, this is May 20th, 2.3. So from the very beginning, this is May 20th, 2.3. So from the very beginning, this is May 20th, 2.3. So from the very beginning, this is May 20th, 2.3. So from the very beginning, this is May 20th, 2.3. So from the very beginning, this is May 20th, 2.3. So from the very beginning, this is May 20th, 2.3. So from the very beginning, this is May 20th, 2.3. So from the very beginning, this is May 20th, 2.3. So from the very beginning, this is May 20th, 2.3. So from the very beginning, this is May 20th, 2.3. So from the very beginning, this is May 20th, 2.3. So from the very beginning, this is May 20th, 2.3. So from the very beginning, this is May 20th, 2.3. So from the very beginning, this is May 20th, 2.3. So from the very beginning, this is May 20th, 2.3. So from the very beginning, this is May 20th, 2.3. So from the very beginning, this is May 20th, 2.3. So from the very beginning, this is May 20th, 2.3. So from the very beginning, this is May 20th, 2.3. So from the very beginning, this is May 20th, 2.3. So from the very beginning, this is May 20th, 2.3. So from the very beginning, this is May 20th, 2.3. So from the very beginning, this is May 20th, 2.3. So from the very beginning, this is May 20th, 2.3. So from the very beginning, this is May 20th, 2.3. So from the very beginning, this is May 20th, 2.3. So from the very beginning, this is May 20th, 2.3. So from the very beginning, this is May 20th, 2.3.
[01:30:06] Speaker 1: It's just the same timeframe in which eight days after she had just hooked up with Clayton. Why does this matter? Because here's a guy she actually has this stuff. Here's a guy she can actually claim was the result that she was pregnant with her husband. But no, she can't claim because he was a perfect partner for what she wanted. The method that she chose was HCG. It's a hormone that shows up in pregnancy and can be prescribed and injected and will often mask or create false pregnancy. It was a rather false positive in these sort of like over-the-counter pregnancy tests. So, okay, and we're talking about nine days after her inciting of a doctor, this is a message to a medical spa, I was wondering if I can get HCG injections, and she comes up with an exclamation for a clear end of her skin.
[01:31:30] Speaker ?: The evidence is towards the point that the only reason she obtained these was to create the false privacy that ultimately would manipulate it. So, we're talking about May 20th, May 29th, then on June 1st, three days later, after she sends the email down and playing an excuse for her. She also provided the public records to the test.
[01:31:58] Speaker 1: By that point, she already purchased into the records that the record was able to uncover,
[01:32:05] Speaker ?: showed that she had purchased 60 seconds of rejection, as was made for your current. So, I'm going to get a guy that I'm going to get a guy that I'm going to get a guy in the process with this one. So, he started questioning her, "So, what did she do? She just stopped. I didn't have to say, "How did I get the truth of this kind of thing?" "You know, we had to say, "How did I get it? Like, how did I get it?" "Well, she refused out to her sister." "Is this literally an awful thing to ask that I can't let people sue me? I don't provide them without your sound of English. I haven't had one yet. And you have anything I can do, I'm freaking out. She's desperate. "So, Sister, can you give me something since she was pregnant?" "Sister, I have a ultrasound." "You already have a sister in the digital ultrasound, she didn't know what." "And here we go.
[01:33:10] Speaker 1: "Sister provides her with this bed, with her with her own ultrasound, so that she can then push them out of the plane and continue this scheme of convincing him that she's actually pregnant with her."
[01:33:30] Speaker ?: "And, as the professor said, Noelle is giving one pregnancy and going to be an example with an influence on the plane to see the back." "And that's what she did today." "She took her sister's ultrasound, and again, overshot and twins." "So, we're now into June and July of 23, and this is her attempt to continue to exploit and manipulate the plane." "Which two of which was her relationship or her relationship?" "You know, her piece of fiber and brand recognition, Dr. Jones." "Tonight went well and we did, and we didn't want to see what was there, I would order the bills right away."
[01:34:33] Speaker 1: "I have much more respect for you, and we would promise not to go to the press at any point of night."
[01:34:39] Speaker ?: "Why does that matter?" "Because at this point, the judge is trying to, in the middle of July of the country, she's trying to, or triggers." "Creating urgency." "I'm going to go to the press. I'm going to go to the press." "I'm going to go to the press." "I'm going to go to the press." "I'm going to go to the press." "I'm going to go to the press." "I'm going to go to the press." "I'm going to go to the press." "You know, whatever." "There's no way that the Earth is trying to find anything." "You know what he says?" "Other than that, this host has been a lot of them." "The only way they've passed lies is the world's last." "She vows for the curtain in August one of the three." "Jacey vows a little bit." "I mean, I had this one of my favorite." "What's surprising about it." "She's thrilled." "This was the matter of the teeniest, you know, a teenager." "She tested out on September 20th." "We're ahead of Kim Kardashian on Page Six Insider." "It's the most trending story on Page Six." "This is what she wanted."
[01:35:43] Speaker 1: "This is going to help her brand." "This is going to help her podcast."
[01:35:48] Speaker ?: "I'm sorry for all of us, it's the annual attorney case." "Most of the children of the people of the attorney case that she's not pregnant." "I don't know if there was a attorney case that she keeps talking about." "She keeps saying it. She's like, I lost the baby. I'm not pregnant anymore. We don't need this." "But let me say, you pulled me through this last six, seven months of hell." "No. I made it." "You're not pregnant." "So December 23rd, he says, you know, you're not the only thing in this case." "I want a normal finding of an attorney." "We haven't had any lawyer's independence in the process."
[01:36:44] Speaker 1: "So that attorney case continues."
[01:36:48] Speaker ?: "I didn't know March 1st, 2024, where she used to call it from her deposition." "I didn't know March 1st, 2024, where she was pregnant." "I didn't know March 1st, 2024, where she was pregnant." "I didn't know March 1st, 2024, where she was pregnant." "I didn't know March 1st, 2024, where she was pregnant."
[01:37:07] Speaker 1: "She says, I'm gonna start creating fake documents for my administration and my court hearings to prove somehow that I was pregnant."
[01:37:27] Speaker ?: "So, in the actual court hearing, during the demonstration, it was presented." "In which she was always presented, it hasn't been the same."
[01:37:42] Speaker 1: "All right, this is me, I'm pregnant, and I'm pregnant." "And it's how you run out."
[01:37:47] Speaker ?: "Well, as the ultimate photo of the protection program, we'll take it to uncover." "Look at Mrs. Sister, that was the topic that she created for the back of the pen." "The person described her, which was Sarah Owens, was blocked off." "And she says, 'That's my dad, I'll be my pregnant now.'" "All of this is part of this scheme and manipulation to what she wanted out of the claim." "So, we'll move the tune and put it in more civil needs to actually be able to try that." "And she continues to make a mockery code." "The civil court system." "What you see is an exhibit that she presented." "Plaiming that she was pregnant." "And, you know, you can see the person in this particular picture that she was pregnant."
[01:38:43] Speaker 1: "But, her investigation realized that she was using particular software to manipulate those photo pictures to make it seem like she was pregnant."
[01:39:02] Speaker ?: "This was actually created in early October 2023." "There you can see the different versions she's trying out." "And, part of the body are obscured and taken away so you can make yourself pregnant." "And, she did so. "And, she did so to continue and scheme." "This might be an idea what Laura was actually doing right around the class." "She's creating that video and actually planning to be pregnant and pushing that information to the courts and to the events." "While she's actually not pregnant and engaging more." "So, I'm just saying, you know, part of why this is this is how much Mrs. Holmes tried to get into this entire system." "It wasn't just one time, it wasn't a single document." "It wasn't one of the deposition." "It was again, and again, and again, and again, beginning of October 2023," "Corting into the Church of John's community, not standing up." "Store deposition, lie after lie." "It didn't matter to the class of results, she lied again."
[01:40:34] Speaker 1: "Creating false documents." "Okay, you know, you got me know, I'm going to listen."
[01:40:41] Speaker ?: "So, as we said, I'm going to create, you know, people just have a time to create, you know, videos that make it seem like I'm pregnant." "I'm getting it, and again, and again, and again." "And, actually, people do this to the civil court trial." "It's not saying that lies in the church, lies in that process." "And that's why we're here." "And that's why we're here." "And that's why we're here." "And that's why we're here." "And that's why we're here." "And that's why we're here." "And that's why we're here." "And that's why we're here." "And that's why we're here." "And that's why we're here."
[01:41:20] Speaker 1: "And that's why we're here."
[01:41:23] Speaker ?: "I don't know if we're here."
[01:41:23] Speaker 1: "I don't know if we're here."
[01:41:24] Speaker ?: "I don't know if we're here." "I don't know if we're here." "I don't know if we're here." "I don't know if we're here." "I don't know if we're here." "I don't know if we're here." "I don't know if we're here." "I don't know if we're here." "I don't know if we're here." "I don't know if we're here." "I don't know if we're here." "I don't know if we're here." "I don't know if we're here." "I don't know if we're here." "I don't know if we're here." "Well, thank you for coming to court." "I did review your written statement." "What was it that you had done today?" "I want to thank you for giving me this time." "And I didn't prepare that." "I appreciate you reading it." "I wanted to leave space for me to be alone." "I want to leave space for me to be alone." "I just let whatever comes out of the conflict." "I believe it's being in the hearts." "That's really all I want to do." "So it's been really hard for me." "The truth to that, as a man, I've been fighting for the last three and a half years." "But today, the power is in your hands." "It's not in mine." "And that's hard." "And it's caused me to be angry." "And it's caused me to feel a certain way in my system."
[01:42:45] Speaker 2: "All right, obviously, we're having some technical issues still with the audio on this thing." "We are going to step away from this for just a second." "We will be back in about 20 minutes with the 11, which will air at 11 o'clock." "Where we will actually turn around Clayton Eckerd's statement." "And you'll be able to hear that on the 11." "We will also give you a wrap-up of the rest of the day's news." "And, of course, we'll talk about that."