Bay Area radio legend Ronn Owens and his wife were dealt a legal blow this week, which could lead to the foreclosure of their home in Scottsdale, Arizona.
The 80-year-old retired KGO-AM 810 talk-radio host and his wife, Jan Black Owens, have lost their bid, via a Chapter 13 bankruptcy filing, to keep creditors from trying to collect on their reported $2.3 million in liabilities. They reported owing months of back mortgage payments for their home and more than $511,000 to more than 40 banks, credit card companies and other creditors.
On Monday, a U.S. Bankruptcy Court judge in Arizona dismissed Ronn and Jan Owens’ Aug.14, 2025, bankruptcy petition, saying the couple failed to fully comply with recommendations made by the court-ordered trustee. Meeting these requirements was necessary for them to move forward with a plan that could allow them to keep their home and repay some or all of their debts over a three- to five-year period.
This news comes as their 35-year-old daughter Laura is separately preparing for trial in July on 14 felony counts alleging that she targeted two Arizona men, including former “Bachelor” star Clayton Echard, with false pregnancy claims in 2021 and 2023. Authorities in Maricopa County allege that Laura Owens initially wanted to press these men in relationships before pursuing court cases against them.
Laura Owens has pleaded not guilty and issued a statement last year saying she intended “to meet these accusations head-on — and I will defend myself, fully and relentlessly, through every step of this process.”
Ronn Owens and Jan Black, a former KCBS news reporter, have offered public support to their daughter, while tying their financial difficulties to her being investigated, prosecuted and the target of what they say is “a devastating online smear campaign.” They are referring to YouTube journalists, online investigators and “Bachelor” fans who began to extensively follow Laura’s paternity claims against Echard, the 2022 star of ABC’s “The Bachelor,” when they first became public in the fall of 2023.
In a post pinned to the top of his Facebook account, Ronn Owens thanked his Bay Area fans and mentioned the threat of foreclosure. In the post, he called 2025 “the roughest year of my life” because of his bankruptcy, serious health issues, a January 2025 police search on their home (related to the investigation of Laura), the online criticism of his daughter and his family, as well as the legal charges against his daughter “that greatly mischaracterize who she is and what she stands for.”
Owens also directed fans to consider contributing to a $140,000 GoFundMe campaign, which was originally launched in late 2024 to help Owens and Black alleviate the financial toll they initially said had come about because of his “profound” health struggles, which include Parkinson’s disease, heart trouble and past bouts with cancer.
But since its launch, the GoFundMe has faced scrutiny from Laura Owens’ online critics, who have questioned whether the money was actually being used to help pay for her legal expenses related to her criminal defense and to her court battles against Echard, the second Arizona man and a third man from San Francisco, whom she also accused of getting her pregnant. Both Laura and her parents have repeatedly denied that the money was going to her.
The Bankruptcy Court’s decision to dismiss the Owens’ bankruptcy petition made no mention of any of the controversy surrounding the couple’s daughter.
The trustee reported in December that the couple were delinquent in paying $15,600 monthly installments under their proposed repayment plan. They also needed to provide completed and signed copies of all unfiled state and federal income tax returns, specifically for 2024, as well as any documents showing that they have zero value in several companies they reported owning.
One company, run with Laura, an equestrian, leased and sold horses for show-jumping; another company was for the self-help podcast that Jan Black and Laura Owens co-hosted until June 2025. In an email to this news organization in August, Jan Black said the ongoing online harassment had “significantly impacted” their ability to make money with such side ventures. She said she and her husband were using them to supplement their monthly income from their pensions and Social Security. Their bankruptcy petition shows that, despite their financial difficulties, they still make a monthly income of about $21,000 a month. Jan Black did not respond to a request for comment about the bankruptcy dismissal and about whether she and her husband would refile.
In 2020, the couple sold their home in San Francisco’s tony Sea Cliff neighborhood for a reported $3.5 million and moved to Arizona after Ronn retired from KGO after more than 40 years on the air. Laura moved with them into a casita on the property, which also included facilities for her to keep her horses.
Laura also is going through bankruptcy proceedings of her own and was declared indigent by the Maricopa County Superior Court for the purposes of getting the public defender’s office to fund her defense. She is being represented by a court-appointed attorney.
In her Dec. 8 Chapter 7 bankruptcy filing, Laura Owens reported no income and no current employment. The bulk of her $263,000 in liabilities is the $196,260 in legal fees she owes to Echard, stemming from her unsuccessful attempt to prove in Maricopa County Superior Court that she became pregnant by Echard during their one and only date in May 2023. All along, Echard has insisted there could be no pregnancy because there was no sexual intercourse, only oral sex.
The criminal charges against Laura Owens stem from her pregnancy claims against Echard and the second Arizona man. Owens took both men to court to claim paternity and to obtain protective orders, while saying that the purported pregnancies eventually ended in either miscarriage or abortion, according to court records and a newly released investigative report from the Maricopa County Attorney’s Office,
In that report, authorities also allege that Laura Owens wanted to press these men into relationships after they said they did not want to date her. With Echard specifically, authorities said she wanted to use his status as a TV personality to elevate her fame and increase her commercial value as a media personality herself.
Over several months after their sexual encounter, Laura Owens sent Echard some 500 emails and text messages, the investigative report. They included proposals of a dating contract and offers to end the pregnancy if he agreed to an intimate relationship. When he refused, she “began utilizing the media to damage Echard’s reputation,” the report also said. She did so by giving an interview with The Sun tabloid and by contacting one of the YouTubers, Dave Neil, whom she would later accuse of leading the smear campaign against her.
Laura Owens’ trial is scheduled to begin July 29. The 14 felony counts include allegations that she altered medical evidence, passed off the image of another woman’s ultrasound — and of her older sister’s pregnant belly — as her own and gave false testimony in depositions or court hearings. During a June 2024 hearing against Echard, the court found that she scheduled but cancelled multiple appointments with practitioners for what she said was a high-risk pregnancy with twins, never sought in-person care after a purported miscarriage and testified in court, with a swollen abdomen, that she was 24 weeks pregnant, shortly after she knew a test confirmed there was no viable pregnancy.