Laura Owens, the woman who a Maricopa County, Ariz., judge declared is “uncreditable” and who admitted to fabricating evidence who filed a paternity suit against former Bachelor Clayton Echard in “bad faith” has taken to Medium to complain endlessly about the “unfair” treatment she is receiving from the public. Despite having a lawyer (who doesn’t appear to have counseled her to remain silent while she’s under investigation by the county attorney’s office for perjury and evidence tampering,) Owens is talking to anyone who will listen and trying to convince the world that she is the true victim and not the three men who were dragged through court and made to believe they fathered twins with her.
In fact, Owens, who perjured herself boldly under oath in front of at least three judges, continues to tell lies about the men she targeted for public destruction. One of them, Michael Marraccini has been suffering under the weight of Owens’ false allegations for almost ten years. Marraccini dated Owens for two years when they both lived in the San Francisco area in 2015. Owens ended up making a TedX talk about the alleged “abuse” she says she suffered while dating Marraccini. Marraccini tells a much different story. He sat down with me after Judge Mata’s ruling came out to talk about what his life has been like and how the ruling affected him.
“Yesterday was pretty surreal,” he said. “I would say it was a bittersweet moment for us. I woke up in bed to Clayton's text.” Marraccini woke up his wife and read the good news to her. “My wife was still sleeping and I woke her up and we both started crying, to be honest with you. It was a lot of tears of joy.”
Marraccini still has an open restraining order against him that was filed by Owens, who keeps renewing it claiming to be in danger. She presented no evidence that Marraccini is a dangerous man other than her wild tales and judges believed her.
“Justice had finally pulled through,” Marraccini continued. “I feel like the first Domino fell, so it was a moment where I felt vindicated from the ruling yesterday. But at the end of the day, it was great for us three guys to be able to come together and get that ruling because that's what we were hoping for.”
The third man is Greg Gillespie, whom Owens accused of “abortion coercion” after he refused to comply with her demands to date her in exchange for an abortion of alleged twins. Owens always sticks to the same pregnancy tale. It’s always twins and a relationship can secure an abortion, but rejecting her offer of a relationship condemns her mark for endless malicious litigation and harassment.
In Marraccini’s case, Owens didn't accuse him of domestic violence and rape until after he had broken up with her in what he thought was an amicable split after navigating a very stressful fake pregnancy (with twins) and abortion drama. After seeing Marraccini with a new girlfriend, Marraccini says Owens began stalking him and then went to a judge and accused him of violently choking her into unconsciousness and raping her while they were together. I asked Marraccini directly if any of that was true.
“No! Of course not. It’s completely fabricated,” he said. “I mean, everybody's asked me that. My family's asked me, my wife has asked me at times because [Owens is] so convincing, but no I would never do that!" he said. "I grew up with all women and that's why the relationship I felt dragged out for so long. I was trying to be kind. I was always trying to be there emotionally for her, but no, I never, I would never get to that point." Marraccini continued, "There were times where I was definitely frustrated… but I was never emotionally abusive or physically abusive. I was always trying my best to make sure that the individual didn't hurt themselves.”
Like Echard testified in court, Owens also threatened to commit suicide multiple times while she was dating Marraccini. Those threats kept him in the relationship longer than he wanted to be there. “I would talk to my family about it and they were kind of naive as well and they would say ‘I can't imagine why somebody would lie about these things so try and stick with her’ and it finally got to the point where like the stories just weren't making sense.”
Marraccini described his relationship with Owens as “constant conflict and chaos.” Text messages extracted by a forensic expert show a pattern of Owens using medical emergencies to keep Marraccini in the relationship. A few months after the two began dating, Owens claimed to be pregnant with twins. She then made and canceled multiple appointments for an abortion, while berating Marraccini for not being a good “teammate.” After Owens said she went for the abortion, she then claimed it didn’t work and one of the babies survived, putting Marraccini through many more months of the same nightmare of made and canceled appointments.
Then the stories of ovarian cancer entered the saga. Owens claimed she needed an ovary removed due to cancer. She provided Marraccini with letters she claimed were from her doctors telling her that her boyfriend should be supportive.
During Echard’s legal case, Owens claimed those records weren’t real and didn’t come from her. The forensic analysis showed otherwise. Owens now claims she has both ovaries and never had cancer but Marraccini remembers it much differently and text messages between the two confirm his account.
Last night on the stream with @ThatUmbrella we went over the cancer texts that Laura Owens sent to Mike Maraccini. It's weird that she claimed she never did this... pic.twitter.com/0gzhdGkJQx
— Megan Fox (@MeganFoxWriter) June 5, 2024
Owens is the daughter of famed San Francisco radio talk show host Ronn Owens who left the air after a Parkinson’s diagnosis many years ago. Ronn Owens recently accused Echard of antisemitism for calling his daughter “a pest” and “like a cockroach.” The claim of Jewish heritage came as a surprise to many who have followed the Owens family.
Laura is reported to have attended Catholic school and made many references to Christianity in her text messages to all three victims. Documents from her horse riding competitions reveal she asked for Christmas off but not Hannukah. The Owens family may be Jewish, but the people who know them didn’t know about it. That would call into question how Echard would know if family friends didn’t.
Ronn Owens was involved in Marraccini’s relationship with his daughter too. In a disturbing set of text messages between the ex-radio host and Marraccini, Owens begged his daughter’s boyfriend to save her from self-harm in a manipulative exchange.
Ronn Owens sends emotionally abusive texts to Mike Marraccini while his step-father was dying. #BelieveEvidence #ProsecuteLauraOwens pic.twitter.com/QyULZ2GmvS
— Megan Fox (@MeganFoxWriter) June 28, 2024
Laura’s constant threats of self-harm throughout the relationship with Marraccini took a toll on him and kept him in an unhappy relationship for far longer than he wanted.
“I remember like even at Christmas of 2016 when you know she was threatening to harm herself she was talking about how this is going to be her last holiday with her dad and to please be around and I'm obviously dealing with my dying stepdad who ended up passing away a few months after that,” said Marraccini. “I just remember she was always trying to dangle some emotional carrot uh to try to get me hooked back in and it was really challenging thinking back on it.”
After the relationship with Owens ended, Marraccini says Laura began showing up everywhere he went. He became concerned and called the police but before he could get an order of no contact, Owens filed for a restraining order against him alleging horrific acts of violence. Among the allegations was one of choking her into unconsciousness which, according to her TedX talk gave her epilepsy.
But in text messages to Marraccini, Owens claimed she had her first seizure in May of 2017, and she said she believed it was due to a car crash.
Exhibit B for any defamation claims. Laura's own statements. Laura says in 2024 Mike Maraccini choked the epilepsy into her. But in 2017 it was a car accident. I've never, ever encountered such a prolific liar (other than Amber Heard). pic.twitter.com/UuBUgH6ROK
— Megan Fox (@MeganFoxWriter) June 1, 2024
PJ Media reached out to TED for comment but received no response at the time of publishing. Owens’ allegations against Marraccini and the restraining order she obtained in what Marracccini says was under false pretenses have affected him in incalculable ways.
“It was during the height of the Me Too movement,” said Marraccini. “My attorney was like ‘Listen, it's very easy they just hand out restraining orders like hotcakes to anybody. You're never going to win this and what I think the goal should be is to have this go away in two years… and just hope that she finds happiness in another person and that she forgets about you,' and that's originally what my game plan was,” he said.
Marraccini regrets not fighting harder against the restraining order now. “Obviously, that was a bad move, and Greg Gillespie [another victim] also learned that just being on the defensive is not the way to go about this. Clayton had it right about being on the offense.”
Marraccini had a hard time getting and keeping jobs after the restraining order was granted. “I remember being pulled into HR almost immediately after the restraining order was filed in 2018,” he told PJ Media. “They said they were called and things were brought up that were disturbing and so I was pulled into a room. I was let go probably a couple of months after that," he said. "I think that was the initial cause because it was not performance lacking or anything like that but they also they also said multiple people had called in so I assume it was her and a family member that had called into my company.”
Owens tried to harass him by showing up in person at his work as well. “I then asked my company to have her banned from the building."
Marraccini believes he was passed over for many jobs due to the restraining order calling him a domestic abuser. “I mean it's really hard to prove but when you go through the job interview process you get to the point of … meeting with the hiring managers and…you get to the point of reference checks and that's really where they reach out to your old managers, old colleagues, and also do your background check at the same time,” he said. “I would get to the reference check… and then I wouldn't get a call-back.”
“It got to the point where I couldn't apply to the big companies because their background checks were too thorough. I had to go for like the smaller companies,” Marraccini told PJ Media. “I'll never get a job at [the big companies] because of this and that's painful because I got to the final round with some of the largest companies in the world for some dream positions and I never got them.”
The emotional toll was great for Marraccini. “It was really, really difficult," he said. "I used to cry quite a bit and I don't want to cry here, but I used to think my life was ruined because of it and luckily I've come out of that but it still affects me to this day when applying for jobs. I still hold my breath until the background check clears.”
Owens continues to renew the restraining order against Marraccini when it comes up even though they live in different states and have had no contact for many years. “It is incredible and it feels like the judge does not listen to you saying ‘Hey listen I live in a totally different state than she does. I am not anywhere near her,'" he said. "I have no desire to be in contact with her and this is affecting my ability to care for my family.”
Marraccini tried to tell the last judge who presided over the restraining order renewal that he isn’t a threat to Owens, but the judge renewed it anyway based on Owens’ “feeling threatened.” “What does a woman in Arizona need a restraining order against a man in California for?” asked Marraccini.
During the renewal hearing, Owens claimed Marraccini showed up at her gym and violated the order by being there. Marraccini had evidence that he wasn’t even in the city where she claimed he was. “I brought the log of the gym showing I was not there and I was in a completely different city thinking to myself ‘Oh, this is a layup; this is her only piece of evidence that I violated the restraining order! I'm going to crush this,’ and the judge said he couldn't care less.” All Owens had to say was she “felt threatened,” and she was granted the renewal for five more years despite the evidence that her story was false. The restraining order is still in effect today.
There is a serious problem in our court system where women don’t need to show any evidence of actual threats to get restraining orders against men they wish to harm. While judges should be careful to protect women in danger, they should do a better job looking at evidence before just believing every woman who presents a sob story. Restraining orders have lifelong consequences and should only be used in serious situations where someone is in actual danger.
For the full interview with Marraccini watch the video below.
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