Laura Owens: Podcast Career, Equestrian Background and Her 2026 Guilty Plea

Introduction

Laura Michelle Owens has lived two very different public chapters.

The first looked fairly conventional. She rode horses competitively, graduated from Penn State, worked around the equestrian business and co-hosted a podcast with her mother.

Then everything changed.

A paternity dispute involving former Bachelor star Clayton Echard moved from family court into appeals, criminal investigation and felony charges. On August 28, 2026, Owens pleaded guilty to four felony counts.

That changes how her story reads.

As of August 30, 2026, Owens is awaiting sentencing. The hearing is scheduled for October 23, 2026.

The rest of her public record, though, started years before the court case.

Quick Facts About Laura Owens

Quick Fact: Laura Michelle Owens is a Penn State graduate, longtime equestrian and former co-host of the Nobody Told Me! podcast. On August 28, 2026, she pleaded guilty to four felony counts in Arizona and is scheduled for sentencing on October 23, 2026.

Detail	Information
Full name	Laura Michelle Owens
Birth date	May 1990
Age	36 as of August 2026
Education	Penn State, Class of 2013
Study format	Penn State World Campus
Known for	Podcasting, equestrian activity, Quartet Farms and the Clayton Echard legal case
Podcast	Nobody Told Me!
Podcast co-host	Jan Black
Parents	Ronn Owens and Jan Black
Equestrian business	Quartet Farms
Criminal status	Pleaded guilty to four felony counts on August 28, 2026
Sentencing date	October 23, 2026

Who Is Laura Owens?

Laura Michelle Owens is an American podcaster and equestrian whose earlier public work centered on horses, interviews and personal-development media.

She graduated from Penn State in 2013.

Her studies came through Penn State World Campus, the university’s online education program. Penn State later featured her through its Alumni Association in 2022.

Owens also became known through Nobody Told Me!, a podcast she hosted with her mother, Jan Black.

The show began in 2018.

Its format was simple. Owens and Black interviewed guests about work, life, setbacks, personal growth and business.

Apple Podcasts currently lists the program’s run as 2018 through 2025 and shows 999 episodes.

That was her main media identity.

For years, anyway.

Laura Owens’ Education

Penn State confirms Owens graduated in 2013.

She studied through World Campus.

That detail matters because her university experience did not follow the standard residential path many readers associate with Penn State.

She completed her studies remotely.

Penn State’s Alumni Association later spoke with Owens about that experience, along with her work in podcasting and the horse business.

The university profile did not clearly publish her degree subject. So that detail should not be guessed.

Simple rule here: stick with proof.

What can be confirmed is her Penn State connection, her 2013 graduation year and her World Campus study route.

Her Equestrian Background Started Early

Horses came much earlier.

Quartet Farms says Owens began riding at eight years old.

She later competed in hunter and equitation events and became involved with the family horse business.

Her Quartet Farms profile lists several competitive results.

These include top finishes at events such as the Washington International Horse Show, Pennsylvania National Horse Show, Capital Challenge and National Horse Show.

The same profile says she placed third in the North American Equitation Finals and fourth in the $100,000 Platinum Performance Hunter Prix Finals.

These results come from Quartet Farms itself.

So they should be credited that way.

Owens’ equestrian work was not simply a childhood hobby. It became part of her adult business activity too.

What Is Quartet Farms?

Quartet Farms is connected with the Owens family.

Its website describes the operation as involving Laura, Jan, Sarah and Ronn Owens.

The business works with hunter and jumper horses and ponies, including horse sales and leasing.

Owens has been listed as part of its team.

This part of her public story often gets buried now because of the court coverage, but horses had been part of her professional life long before the Clayton Echard dispute began.

Nobody Told Me! Podcast

Owens entered podcasting with her mother.

Jan Black had already worked in journalism.

Together, they created Nobody Told Me!.

The podcast launched in 2018.

It focused on conversations with guests from business, media, personal development and other fields.

Apple Podcasts credits both Jan Black and Laura Owens as its creators.

The platform currently lists 999 episodes and marks the show’s active years as 2018 through 2025.

That means describing it as an active 2026 podcast would be shaky.

Better wording is simple: Owens co-hosted the podcast.

The past tense fits the available record.

Laura Owens’ TEDx Appearance

Public speaking became another part of her work.

In January 2022, TEDx Talks published Owens’ talk titled The Lifesaving Power of Kindness to Strangers.

The talk presented Owens in a very different public setting from the one that later surrounded her legal disputes.

At that point, she was being introduced mainly through her podcast work, family media background and public speaking.

Penn State highlighted the TEDx appearance later that year.

Laura Owens’ Parents

Owens comes from a media family.

Her father is Ronn Owens.

He became a longtime San Francisco Bay Area radio host and spent decades working at KGO.

Her mother is Jan Black, whose legal name is Elizabeth Naylor.

Black worked as a journalist and reporter.

She later became Laura’s podcast partner.

That mother-daughter connection became central to Nobody Told Me!, where the pair interviewed guests together for several years.

The Clayton Echard Paternity Case

This is where the story changes sharply.

In August 2023, Owens filed a paternity action involving Clayton Echard.

Echard had previously appeared as the lead on ABC’s The Bachelor.

He denied being the father.

The dispute eventually reached an evidentiary hearing in Arizona in June 2024.

The trial court ruled against Owens.

It also ordered her to pay Echard’s attorney fees and costs.

The amount was later set at $149,219.76.

The court found serious problems with the case, including false testimony related to the alleged pregnancy and failures involving disclosure requirements.

These were court findings.

That distinction matters.

The ruling was not simply internet commentary or reality-TV gossip.

It came from the court record.

Owens Appealed the Court Decision

Owens challenged the ruling.

The Arizona Court of Appeals issued its decision on March 28, 2025.

It upheld the lower court’s judgment.

The appeals court also agreed that Echard could recover reasonable attorney fees connected with the appeal.

There was one point where the appeals court found an error.

The trial judge had made an incorrect finding concerning the Sunday business hours of Planned Parenthood.

But that error did not overturn the case.

The appeals court found no basis to reverse the judgment for judicial bias.

Owens then sought review from the Arizona Supreme Court.

That request failed too.

On August 19, 2025, the Arizona Supreme Court denied review.

At that stage, the civil litigation had reached a much firmer endpoint.

But another case was already developing.

Criminal Investigation and First Indictment

The Maricopa County Attorney’s Office began investigating the matter after a referral from the Superior Court.

In May 2025, prosecutors announced the first criminal indictment against Owens.

That indictment contained seven felony charges.

They included accusations involving fraudulent schemes, forgery, perjury and evidence tampering.

At that stage, these remained allegations.

Owens had not been convicted.

Prosecutors said investigators found evidence involving an altered ultrasound image, a fabricated pregnancy video and false statements made under oath.

The case kept growing.

Seven More Charges Followed

In November 2025, prosecutors announced another seven felony charges.

These related to a different man and an earlier pregnancy claim dating to 2021.

Authorities alleged that Owens had made another pregnancy claim after a short relationship ended and used falsified documents connected with it.

The second indictment brought the total number of felony charges to 14.

Those charges included accusations involving perjury, fraudulent schemes, identity-related conduct, forgery and extortion-related conduct.

Again, they were charges at that point.

That changed in August 2026.

Laura Owens Pleads Guilty

On August 28, 2026, Owens appeared in Maricopa County Superior Court and entered guilty pleas to four felony counts.

She pleaded guilty to:

• Two counts of fraudulent schemes and artifices
• One count of perjury
• One count involving taking another person’s identity

Two of the guilty pleas concerned the Clayton Echard matter.

The remaining pleas concerned the separate case involving another man.

Under the plea deal, prosecutors agreed to dismiss the remaining ten charges.

This part requires careful wording.

Owens did not plead guilty to all 14 original counts.

She pleaded guilty to four.

The other ten are set to be dismissed under the agreement.

That difference is big.

And easy to get wrong.

What Did Laura Owens Admit?

Reporting from Arizona outlets says Owens admitted conduct involving a false ultrasound image connected with the Echard pregnancy claim.

That admission formed part of the guilty plea proceedings.

Her legal position now differs sharply from where it stood when the charges were first filed.

Before August 28, 2026, the criminal counts remained accusations.

After the plea hearing, four became admitted felony offenses.

The remaining counts still should not be described as proven simply because they appeared in the original indictments.

Accuracy matters here.

What Happens Next?

Owens has not been sentenced yet.

As of August 30, 2026, sentencing is set for October 23, 2026.

The plea agreement calls for probation on three of the four counts.

The first fraudulent-schemes count does not contain an agreed sentence.

That leaves the judge with a wider range.

According to Arizona reporting, the possible outcome on that count stretches from probation to as much as 12.5 years in prison.

That does not mean Owens will receive 12.5 years.

It is the reported sentencing range.

The actual sentence has not been entered.

For now, that is where the criminal case stands.

Laura Owens’ Bankruptcy Filing

Another public record surfaced during the same period.

Owens filed a Chapter 7 bankruptcy petition in Arizona on December 8, 2025.

Her sworn filing reported:

• $19,950.74 in personal property
• $263,750.08 in total liabilities
• $0 in reported real estate
• $0 in reported combined monthly income
• $3,303.02 in monthly expenses

These numbers came from her bankruptcy schedules.

They should not be treated as a calculated net worth.

Bankruptcy documents report assets, liabilities and financial disclosures for a legal process. They do not automatically tell readers what someone’s true market value or long-term wealth might be.

A later U.S. Trustee filing stated that Owens’ Chapter 7 case was voluntarily dismissed on May 14, 2026.

Is Laura Owens Still Podcasting?

The available evidence suggests Nobody Told Me! is no longer publishing as an active show.

Apple Podcasts lists its run as 2018 to 2025.

The show remains available.

Its older episodes can still be found.

But there is no strong source confirming an active 2026 production schedule.

Quartet Farms still has a website that lists Owens as part of its team.

Her public Linktree has also continued linking to the podcast, Quartet Farms and her TEDx talk.

Still, her most clearly documented public status right now is legal rather than professional.

She is awaiting sentencing.

Why Laura Owens Became Widely Searched

For years, people could find Laura Owens through podcast interviews, Penn State features or equestrian material.

The Echard case changed that.

Court records brought the story far beyond reality-TV discussion.

Then came an appeal.

Then criminal indictments.

Then a second set of charges.

And then guilty pleas.

By August 2026, searches for Owens were far more likely to relate to the criminal case than her older podcast work.

That does not erase her earlier career.

But it does explain her present public profile.

What Readers Should Keep Straight

Several details can easily get mixed up.

First, this Laura Owens is Laura Michelle Owens, the podcaster and equestrian.

She should not be confused with the well-known American contemporary artist also named Laura Owens.

Second, Owens faced 14 felony charges.

She did not plead guilty to all 14.

She pleaded guilty to four.

Third, no final sentence has been imposed yet.

The sentencing date is October 23, 2026.

And one more point matters.

The civil court findings and the criminal guilty pleas are different legal events. They should not be blended into one vague claim.

The dates tell the story clearly.

Final Thought

Laura Owens first built a public identity around horses, podcasting and family media work.

Her later public record looks completely different.

The Clayton Echard paternity case led to a major civil judgment, failed appeals, criminal investigation and two rounds of felony charges.

Then came August 28, 2026.

Owens pleaded guilty to four felony counts.

That is now the strongest confirmed development in her story.

But the case is not finished.

Sentencing is still ahead.

As of August 30, 2026, October 23 is the next date that matters.

FAQs

Who is Laura Owens?

Laura Michelle Owens is a podcaster, Penn State graduate and equestrian associated with Nobody Told Me! and Quartet Farms. She later became widely known through legal proceedings involving former Bachelor lead Clayton Echard.

How old is Laura Owens?

Laura Owens was born in May 1990. She is 36 as of August 2026.

What podcast did Laura Owens host?

She co-hosted Nobody Told Me! with her mother, Jan Black. Apple Podcasts lists the show as active from 2018 through 2025.

Did Laura Owens plead guilty?

Yes. On August 28, 2026, Owens pleaded guilty to four felony counts in Arizona.

How many charges did Laura Owens face?

She faced 14 felony charges across two indictments. Under her plea agreement, she pleaded guilty to four counts and the other ten are set to be dismissed.

Has Laura Owens been sentenced?

No. As of August 30, 2026, sentencing is scheduled for October 23, 2026.

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