Getting your
Trinity Audioplayer ready...Years before Laura Owens was criminally charged in Arizona in connection with disputed pregnancy claims involving two men, including “Bachelor” star Clayton Echard, a witness says he heard her father, Bay Area radio legend Ronn Owens, privately warn another man that his daughter had “a tendency to exaggerate or even flat out make things up.”
The former KGO-810 host allegedly made the statement in 2016 to Laura Owens’ boyfriend at the time, a young San Francisco businessman named Michael Marraccini, according to a sworn witness declaration filed in San Francisco County Superior Court.
Marraccini had begun to suspect Laura Owens had lied to him about being pregnant, according to court records and interviews with this news organization. As he started to pull away, Laura became distraught and talked about suicide, prompting her father to convene a meeting with him and Laura, Marraccini and the witness. During that meeting, the self-described “Voice of Reason” of San Francisco radio was heard urging Marraccini to keep seeing his daughter and promising to help him “get out of” the relationship once she stabilized, according to the declaration.
Ronn Owens denies making the statement. In email statements to this news organization signed by Owens and his wife, Jan Black, he said Marraccini’s witness had “every reason to discredit Laura” and that the meeting did not happen as described.
“I have never said my daughter ‘makes things up,’ ‘exaggerates,’ or anything remotely similar — not once, not to a friend, not to a family member, and certainly not to [the witness], whom I’ve met only a handful of times,” one of the statements said.
Laura Owens, 36, was charged last year in Maricopa County, Arizona, with 14 felony counts of fraud, perjury and evidence tampering stemming from her disputed pregnancy claims against an Arizona man, Greg Gillespie, in 2021 and against Echard in 2023, the year after the Scottsdale resident starred in season 26 of “The Bachelor.”
She has pleaded not guilty and faces trial in the coming year.
A Maricopa County investigative report and indictment allege that Laura Owens gave false testimony about being pregnant, altered medical evidence and passed off another woman’s ultrasound as her own to compel men into intimate relationships. The report also alleges that the aspiring self-help podcaster sought to “increase her notoriety” through “lies and contrived evidence” as she took the men to court to seek protective orders.
With Marraccini, Laura Owens also accused him of physical violence during an on-off 17-month relationship from 2016 to 2017. Marraccini denies ever abusing her and says her allegations and years of court action have hurt his reputation, career prospects, finances and cost him thousands of dollars in legal fees.
Marraccini, now a married father of two young children, is still fighting Laura Owens’ efforts in San Francisco to renew a 2018 domestic violence restraining order against him, even though he lives more than 700 miles away. Laura Owens has said in court documents she has had no contact with him for years, but in her petition to renew the order, she said she continues to feel harassed and threatened by him, in part because he has given interviews about their case.
Her petition was dismissed in November because she failed to appear in court for scheduled hearings. Laura Owens is appealing the dismissal, saying said she had a life-threatening medical emergency related to a diagnosis of anorexia nervosa, according to court records and essays she wrote on Medium.
Ronn Owens and Black have publicly stood by their daughter through the legal battles involving Marraccini, Echard and Gillespie. They have said they believe Laura Owens was pregnant in each case and have rejected allegations that she abused the court system.
In January 2025 interviews with this news organization, Black said she didn’t think it was “that unusual” for a woman in her early 30s to “have been pregnant, you know, with three different men” and to have protective orders against all three. She also said she and her husband “know for a fact all the information” their daughter and her attorneys have presented to the courts.
In a May 11, 2026, statement to this news organization, signed by Ronn Owens and Black, the couple said, “It has been painful for her to pursue these cases and she has been very brave in doing so.” While they declined to say whether they were concerned about the possibility of their daughter going to prison, they reiterated their “unwavering support” for her and said she had “verified medical evidence” of her pregnancies and of her alleged abuse by Marraccini.
“Our support for Laura is rooted in firsthand knowledge of what she has endured emotionally, medically, legally, and psychologically over many years,” the statement said.
Laura Owens moved with her parents to Scottsdale in 2021 after Ronn Owens retired from a Radio Hall of Fame career that spanned more than four decades. Her mother, Black, is a former KCBS reporter.
After Laura Owens publicized her paternity claims against Echard in a 2023 interview with The Sun, she became the subject of reports, commentary and investigations by online sleuths, “Bachelor” fans and popular YouTube podcasters Dave Neal, Megan Fox and Reality Steve. The case also has been examined in the iHeartMedia and Glass podcast “Love Trapped.”
The Owens family has said that the international attention has brought them anguish and “profoundly mischaracterized” Laura Owens. Ronn Owens and Black have called the “Justice for Clayton” Reddit community a cult and said online critics have subjected their daughter “to an extraordinary level of public humiliation and hostility.”
In his May statement, Ronn Owens rejected any suggestion that supporting his daughter would be “a stain on my legacy.”
“If anything, it reflects loyalty, compassion and a refusal to sacrifice my child to satisfy an online mob,” he said.
He and Black also reject “the premise that parents supporting their adult daughter through emotionally difficult relationships and legal disputes constitutes ‘enabling.'”
But the controversy has taken a toll on the former Bay Area media figures. On his Facebook page in November, Ronn Owens described 2025 as “the roughest year of my life.” The year started with him publicizing a $140,000 GoFundMe campaign, six months after Laura Owens lost her paternity claim against Echard and a Maricopa County judge referred her case for criminal investigation, finding that she gave “false testimony,” provided no medical evidence of pregnancy and initiated litigation “without merit.”
Ronn Owens and Black have denied claims from the “Justice for Clayton” community that GoFundMe donations went to Laura Owens’ legal expenses. In interviews and on Facebook, they said Ronn Owens’ “serious health struggles,” and what they described as a “devastating online smear campaign,” contributed to their financial struggles. Ronn Owens has Parkinson’s disease, heart troubles and has survived multiple bouts of cancer.
In late January 2025, Maricopa County authorities executed a search warrant at the Owens family’s property. Police body-cam footage showed the search unfolding before 7 a.m., with Black trying to calm Laura Owens as she yelled at officers for coming before 7 a.m. and behaving toward her as if she had “gone and killed somebody” when “all I did was get pregnant by the (expletive) Bachelor.””
The couple, who once owned a multimillion-dollar home in San Francisco’s Sea Cliff neighborhood, faced increasing financial pressure in 2025, leading them to file for Chapter 13 bankruptcy. A U.S. bankruptcy court judge dismissed that petition after they failed to comply with a monthly repayment plan and provide copies of their tax returns. On May 26, their foreclosed Scottsdale property was scheduled to be sold at auction. They obtained a delay by filing for Chapter 11 bankruptcy on May 22 but have since asked the court to dismiss that petition.
Laura Owens also filed for bankruptcy, though her case has since been dismissed. During a Feb. 9 creditors meeting, she said she had never earned income on her own, saying, “I’ve really been supported by my family.”
Some of the questions now surrounding Laura Owens and her family first surfaced in her conflict with Marraccini.
Unlike Echard and Gillespie, who dated Laura Owens briefly, Marraccini had a longer relationship with her and said he got to know her parents. He said he regularly joined them for dinners at trendy San Francisco restaurants, where he’d hear Ronn Owens talk about his closeness to Nancy Pelosi and Gavin Newsom and see fans and celebrity friends, including Bob Saget, greet the radio star.
Marraccini and Laura Owens agree that they met through a dating app in March 2016. Marraccini said their “first few dates were actually really fun.” In an interview with this news organization, he said an early date included meeting Ronn Owens for lunch near the KGO-810 studios, leaving him in awe of the broadcaster’s fame but wary of getting on his wrong side.
After Laura Owens told Marraccini she was pregnant, he let her parents know that he and Laura were not ready to become parents. He said Ronn Owens later sent him a text expressing gratitude that he would support his daughter through an abortion and saying he felt as if he had “gained someone like a son at this point in my life.”
Around that time, Marraccini said he began to question the relationship because he felt Laura Owens was trying to control him with guilt trips and claims of constant medical crises involving both herself and her father.
Laura Owens and Marraccini both say he accompanied her to a July 2016 appointment at Planned Parenthood in Walnut Creek to terminate the pregnancy, according to court records. But Marraccini said Laura Owens told him the appointment had been canceled.
Over the next few weeks, Laura Owens said she learned she was pregnant with twins and also sent Marraccini texts describing a series of painful pregnancy and abortion complications, according to court records. By mid-August, she told Marraccini she had been diagnosed with ovarian cancer and allegedly texted him letters from two Bay Area doctors saying that she had undergone surgery for an abortion and to have an ovary removed and that he should be more supportive, court records show.
Eight years later, while testifying in the Echard paternity case, Laura Owens denied ever being diagnosed with cancer.
In an interview with this news organization, Marraccini said Laura Owens pushed the cancer claims with help from her mother. He said that when he visited Laura Owens’ apartment after her supposed surgery, he saw Black administer an ice pack to her daughter’s lower abdomen.
Ronn Owens and Black denied that account in their statement.
“Jan was not present for any such event,” they said. “It simply did not happen and is a figment of Mike’s active imagination.”
By the end of 2016, Ronn Owens and Black were texting Marraccini, alarmed that Laura Owens could hurt herself. In a Dec. 10, 2016 text, Ronn Owens asked Marraccini to be “extra supportive of her.”
That day, Ronn Owens also convened the meeting with his daughter, Marraccini and Marraccini’s witness, according to the witness declaration. The witness, Marraccini’s future brother-in-law, said Laura Owens never mentioned during the meeting that Marraccini had been “physically or psychologically abusive,” though she later accused him of violence and of choking her on multiple occasions during sex.
The declaration was filed in San Francisco Superior Court as part of Marraccini’s effort to show what his lawyer called Laura Owens’ “emotional manipulation” and to counter her domestic violence allegations.
Marraccini said he continued to see Laura Owens after that meeting because he still cared about her as a friend and hoped she would get help. He also said Ronn Owens and Laura Owens offered him what sounded like a lucrative new career possibility at a time when he was out of work and looking to change careers: co-hosting a podcast with Laura Owens on millennial dating, even though Marraccini had no radio experience.
Half a year and two international trips later, Marraccini said, the podcast idea fizzled and he finally cut ties with Laura Owens in the summer of 2017.
In their statement, Ronn Owens and Black denied ever pressuring Marraccini to date their daughter and said they offered only generosity.
As for the podcast, their statement said, “No offer was made, no contract existed, no payment was ever discussed.”
At the end of 2017, Marraccini and Laura Owens had several tense encounters in her San Francisco neighborhood after she saw him with a new girlfriend. Marraccini filed a police report, and Laura Owens countered with a petition for a restraining order alleging domestic violence.
“There is a deep hatred that he exudes towards me, and I am afraid for my life,” she wrote in her petition.
Marraccini, then and now, denies he was ever abusive. He said he only wanted to move on from his experience with Laura Owens, which is one reason he agreed to stipulate to the original restraining order in 2018. He also learned it could cost him $20,000 or more to take the case to trial.
He said his attorney told him at the time: “You do a two-year civil restraining order, and that’ll be the end of it.”
Years later, Marraccini said, it has not ended.
If you or someone you know is struggling with feelings of depression or suicidal thoughts, the 988 Suicide & Crisis Lifeline offers free, round-the-clock support, information and resources for help. Call or text the lifeline at 988, or see the 988lifeline.org website, where chat is available.