Sound Familiar? | EP 5

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After Laura was barred from speaking with Clayton,

she became hyperactive online.

She began repeatedly reaching out to online contact creators,

like Dave Neal, to refute their claims.

Around this time, Dave got an interesting email

from a Howard University student.

It is basically a press release that

is titled Unpacking Racial Insensitivity

by somebody named Chase J. Jones.

This whole unpacking of racial insensitivity

is Clayton dancing on TikTok to a song

where the song had the end word.

It seemed like Clayton couldn't catch a break.

Dave tried to reach out to Chase J. Jones to talk on the phone.

Crickets, I hear nothing.

I'm going, you know I can't report this story

if I can't even confirm who this person is.

But Chase kept following up, asking Dave to cover the story.

The fact that Chase wouldn't get on the phone

raised alarm bells for Dave.

He and his audience began to suspect

that maybe Chase J. Jones didn't exist at all.

Chase J. Jones became the most interesting

like Loch Ness Monster, a big foot, if you will, a mystery.

Dave started to wonder if the Howard University student

emailing him was actually who he said he was.

I'm Stephanie Young and this is Love Trap.

There's no way out you'd better believe.

I'll be raising holy hell my love

if you ever, ever, ever, ever try to leave.

On November 2nd, 2023, a judge granted Clayton

Eckerd an injunction against harassment.

You heard those proceedings on the last episode.

That meant Laura was legally prohibited

from speaking to Clayton.

For Clayton, the legal barrier worked.

The messages finally stopped.

But the silence was an illusion.

Laura had found a new focus.

Laura then started harassing journalists

who were telling this story.

She contacted me within the first video or two

where I started to doubt her story.

I'm sending you this email because I'm required

to give you 30 days to retract your false statements

before I sue for defamation.

She reports my video and it gets taken down.

By filing to establish paternity in the courts

and by going to the tabloids,

Laura had opened the door to public commentary.

After her restraining order hearing was live streamed,

everyone online knew her name.

She couldn't hide.

Clips from the hearings were going viral.

Dave Neill started getting more frequent emails from Laura.

She was not happy.

It's hard to explain to somebody

how the hairs on your neck immediately go up

when you see you get an email from Laura Owens.

Dave had been covering Laura and Clayton's story

nearly every day since it first broke.

His audience were the ones who first discovered her name

and inconsistencies in the evidence she provided.

Dave became a lightning rod, a target of Laura's rage.

I was threatened nearly immediately by Laura

that she was going to sue the hell out of me

if I cover this.

Laura might have seen Dave as the instigator

of the doubt and criticism she was experiencing,

but the truth was the story had taken on a life of its own.

It basically took over the bachelor reddit.

So much so that a new sub was established.

Our slash Laura Owens.

This one was dedicated to Laura Owens

and things we found out about her and about her past.

This is a woman who goes by the online username

Schnitzel Ninja.

Thought it sounded funny and never really anticipated

it was gonna be as popular as it is.

She's not a content creator.

She's a mom with a job that has nothing to do

with being online and she's a casual fan of the bachelor.

Back in 2023, she had a habit of scrolling through

bachelor news.

It was very much like a lurker online

until that our Laura Owens sub was created.

That's when I really started interacting.

We're all doing all of this research on her,

but like there's always another thing to uncover.

There's always another thing we found.

She got sucked into the story and I can relate.

Today Schnitzel Ninja is a central figure

in the online community.

We're not going to use her real name

because of Laura, she's intimidating

and doesn't shy away from threats.

Schnitzel Ninja stumbled into the story by accident.

In September 2023, she was browsing the bachelor Reddit

when she came across Laura's post.

The one where Laura said she was the anonymous woman

in the Clayton Eckerd paternity scandal.

She believed Laura because who would lie

about something like that?

I remember commenting on the post something like,

I'm really sorry this is happening

to a really whole Clayton steps up

and gives you the support you're looking for.

I was just taking it at face value

and it sounded like it could be legit.

She later deleted that comment.

It quickly became clear to me at least

that Laura was like maybe lying about some things.

And so I decided to start doing some research.

At the time, Laura herself was active on Reddit.

Posting comments like this one,

which will be read by a voice actor.

I don't have any desire for Clayton to co-parent anymore.

I want full custody.

I have very clearly stated I do not want

a relationship with Clayton.

The replies were brutal,

some were downright cruel,

and a few crossed the line.

You just did this for attention

and to distract from the paternity result showing no baby.

You need to stop abusing the legal system and get help.

First, you try to baby trap him.

Now it's his fault he got too stoned to consent.

If he was too stoned to consent,

why did you give him a blowjob?

Laura was clapping back in the comments.

Here are some of her replies.

You're wrong.

Thanks for the sarcasm though.

He gave me a gummy when I got to his house,

which he would admit.

So not sure how that would make me baby trapping him.

We consensually did stuff

when we were both under the influence.

Eventually, someone reported the subreddit and it was banned.

Users like Schnitzel Ninja were still active on YouTube,

but Laura began reporting YouTube videos

and sending threats of legal action

to the people who posted them.

Laura was reporting people's videos,

reporting this, reporting that,

trying to have this removed from the internet.

The thing is, Laura's case was in the public record.

She couldn't stop people from commenting about it

and sharing their opinion,

but she had an incentive to try.

Here's Dave Neal.

If she could keep people from being able

to share these documents, she could keep her lie up.

At this point,

citizens loose like Schnitzel Ninja

were personally invested in exposing the truth.

From her perspective,

Laura was repeatedly misusing public funds

like the police and court system.

It's a public court hearing

and I was just like, don't do it

if you don't want it on the internet.

So she requested a physical copy

of Clayton's injunction against harassment hearing.

I found out you could request these videos.

I enlisted my husband

and kind of had to tell him I was following

this crazy case online.

The DVD arrived in the mail a few weeks later.

Schnitzel Ninja posted the video on YouTube.

Someone reported the video,

making a privacy complaint.

According to YouTube policy,

only two people would have been able to file that complaint.

Laura or Clayton and Clayton says it wasn't him,

but Schnitzel Ninja was able to repost the video

since the hearing was a matter of public record.

So that's how it got started.

For Schnitzel Ninja and dozens of others,

following the story became like a full-time job.

Laura was extremely upset

about what people online were saying about her.

She saw Dave Neal as kind of a ringleader.

At this point, he'd received dozens

of personal emails from Laura,

including a cease and desist,

and an attempt to get a restraining order.

Dave had never experienced anything like this before.

I was stuck.

I was for better for wars bonded to this lady

in a way that I became the bad guy to her.

And by the way, I'm not trying to convince anybody.

Go out there, get on Google, come back to me.

I'll see you in a couple of days.

Dave's full-time job was covering

bachelor and pop culture news.

Once Laura began singling him out,

I was like, you came into my business.

Like I do this for a living.

Buckle up, we will make as many videos as it takes

to get this thing right.

Justice doesn't always play out

unless the public demands it.

Laura sent a threatening email

to a group of podcasters saying,

if you decide to cover the story

with just Dave's point of view,

my intent is to sue for defamation.

Laura also said in this email

that she would be extremely appreciative

if you would not cover this topic at all.

And that if you do, you allow me

to give my side of the story.

Here's the thing.

Numerous podcasters and creators

have told me they gave her the opportunity

to come on their shows.

And she declined every single time.

At the time I'm recording this,

she has not agreed to an interview with me either.

Here's Dave's perspective on why she refused

to talk on the record with people who were questioning her.

She wanted a story out of it,

but she didn't want to deal with the ramifications

of being cross-examined.

Because Laura was reporting so many videos on YouTube,

Dave Neill moved the bulk of his conversation

about Laura to Patreon.

It's a private community and subscription-based platform

for creators.

And it felt like a safer place to talk about Laura

because she was so litigious.

People wanted to be in there

in like a sort of safe space

in a private community to discuss this.

That's when Dave started getting those emails.

We mentioned at the start of this episode,

the ones from Chase J. Jones.

Clayton got wind of it.

Apparently the Black University students

that was upset that I posted a dance video

that had the n-word in it, but I didn't sing it.

He had reached out to like Dave Neill

and a couple other outlets.

Back in 2023, there was a viral TikTok trend

where people would dance to a catchy song

and add these animated penguins,

making it look like they were doing

a choreographed dance with them.

I post on TikTok, I was dancing with these like penguins.

Clayton didn't sing the lyrics.

The song just played in the background while he danced.

I didn't say it.

And I danced a lot of rap songs.

So yeah.

Today the video Chase J. Jones was pointing out

seemed like a nothing burger.

So I decided not to report on it.

I said, I'm not going to report on this press release

that's clearly trying to slam Clayton

for something that's kind of a little bit of a push.

Chase had also posted a blog about this on Medium.

A few days later,

Dave got another email from Chase

explaining why he should be covering this story.

Dave decided to Google Chase's name.

So we look into Chase J. Jones.

They've got like a bio on Medium and on YouTube

and they say they went to Howard,

which is a historical back college.

Dave wanted to verify that Chase

was who he said he was.

So he replied to the email and asked Chase

to jump on a call.

Crickets.

I hear nothing.

I'm going, you know I can't report this story

if I can't even confirm who this person is.

Several days later, Dave got another email.

But this time it was from Patreon,

the private online community for his audience.

Chase J. Jones became a five dollar member.

Thank you so much.

Dave started talking to his audience

about the emails he'd received from Chase J. Jones.

And they developed a theory.

What if Chase was actually Laura

pretending to be a Howard University student?

Everyone's fascinated about Chase J. Jones

because if it's possible that Laura is faking a black man,

this is insanity.

I mean, it's absolute insanity.

At the time, Laura had already taken legal action

against Dave.

So he had an active court case

and the ability to subpoena Chase J. Jones.

And that's exactly what he did.

Chase J. Jones tries to quash the subpoena,

which means they went through the California legal system

to try to quash his subpoena.

And all my lawyer was saying is just get on the phone with us.

Just confirm your identity and this all goes away.

So we pursued Chase J. Jones as far as we legally could,

knowing there was no one on the end of the phone call.

Dave was having a hard time proving

that this might be Laura.

Until one night, I have some audience members

who cracked the case.

When Chase emailed Dave,

he included the video of Clayton dancing with the penguins.

Chase J. Jones ripped that from Clayton's TikTok

and put it on YouTube, probably so Clayton wouldn't delete it.

Well, whoops.

I know a little thing about YouTube, it's owned by Google.

And when you have a password for a YouTube,

there is that two factor authentication.

That means if you were to try to enter the password,

it would send you a password code

if you type in the last four digits

of the account holder's cell phone number.

Dave Neal had Laura's number

because she'd been contacting him for months.

Well, believe it or not,

if you type in Laura Owens last four digits

of her cell phone number and try to do two factor authentication,

what pops up on Chase J. Jones YouTube channel

is it says, we've sent the code to this cell phone number.

If you try any other number, we tried hundreds.

If you tried any other cell phone number,

it says, eh, wrong code.

On his own show, Dave created a video

linking Laura to the phone number

used to establish the Chase J. Jones YouTube account.

Dave believes Laura fabricated this persona,

a black journalism student,

to try to cancel Clayton's record.

Laura appeared consumed by a singular relentless ambition,

the total dismantling of Clayton's reputation.

She was also trying to convince the public

that she was the victim in this case.

According to Laura, people like Dave Neal were cyberbullying her.

In December 2023, Laura posted this video on her Facebook

and just a forewarning, it's a rough listen.

Dave has made more than 50 videos

and work like podcasts content

that I could possibly count talking about me.

He specializes in bachelor content,

but what he's talking about is nothing to do with the bachelor.

She sounds like she's crying, but when you watch the video,

you can see that there are no tears coming out of her eyes.

Dave, I've begged him to stop talking about me.

I've threatened with defamation of lawsuits.

Nothing stops him.

And he keeps teasing that he's going to talk about it.

Another event where it gets crazy, or is he sad?

Around this time, Laura made another police report.

She got their police shot, can I help you?

Can I say report a violation of a protective order

is a person on premise right now?

No, okay.

And then I was ordered violated.

So it was violated online.

The person's not supposed to try to find my location

and they reached out to somebody I'd been dating

and posted a lot of false information about me online.

You probably assume she's talking about Clayton

or maybe even Dave Neal, but she's not.

And who's the person that you have the violation against?

He's even great, so let's be.

Tyler Reddick here from 2311 Racing,

another checkered flag for the books.

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Two years before Laura Owens met Clayton Eckerd,

she was swiping through dating apps.

That's where she met a 35-year-old Scottsdale man named Greg Gillespie.

According to court documents,

Greg and Laura met on a dating app,

and I think they were hanging out for a few days not more than a week.

That's Attorney Greg Woodnick.

We're calling him by his last name Woodnick to avoid confusion.

Woodnick's been practicing law in Arizona for 25 years.

His law firm represented Clayton.

But if you recall, when Clayton first approached him,

Woodnick was hesitant to take on another case involving Laura Owens.

I was remembering what had happened with Greg.

I was remembering what I had learned at that point,

and I didn't really want to get involved with her again.

We're going to take a detour to tell you about Greg Gillespie.

What you're about to hear will sound very similar to Clayton's story,

but it happened two years prior.

Greg was not a celebrity.

Greg was just a regular commercial lighting sales guy.

Greg himself isn't ready to share his story publicly.

I spoke with him late last year,

and he told me he won't be willing to talk until Laura is behind bars.

I understand his concerns, and I think you will too, after you hear his story.

I remember thinking during Greg's case that this would eventually be a lifetime television movie

because it was so bizarre what we didn't know was kind of astounding.

I mean, we knew a half of 1% of the story back then.

For now, we'll be telling Greg's story by relying on public records

and his lawyer Woodnick, who worked on the case for years.

He said that after Greg met Laura on a dating app,

they had hung out just a few times and Greg knew really quickly

that he was not interested in pursuing a relationship with Laura.

The court documents state the two had a first date,

which Greg described as a fairly normal experience.

The next day, they went on a second date.

Then, Laura went back to Greg's place, and they had sex.

My understanding was that the sexual intercourse that they had was safer.

By safer, he means that Laura told Greg she was on birth control.

They also used a condom.

This next bit is graphic, but relevant.

The court documents state that when they had sex,

Greg pulled the condom off and ejaculated on Laura's back.

I wasn't there, but I read the investigative report.

Greg went to grab a towel,

which he said only took a few seconds,

apparently in the bathroom.

When he got back, Laura was clean,

and said she'd already taken care of it.

Greg thought it was strange.

He ended up hanging out with her one more time.

But shortly after that, he met up with her

to tell her that he wasn't interested in continuing a relationship.

The whole fling only lasted a couple of days.

It was like a short-term fling thing.

It certainly wasn't a relationship.

This is where the story begins to sound eerily similar to Clayton's experience.

After Greg told Laura he wasn't interested in her,

she started texting him excessively.

He told her she didn't stop, he would block her.

Then, around two weeks after he called it off,

Laura sent him a picture of a positive pregnancy test.

Unlike Clayton, there was more of a real possibility she could be pregnant.

Because in this case, there was actually penetrative sex.

Wouldn't it told me that Greg had no interest in having a child with Laura?

Laura said she would have an abortion

if they could date long-term

and eventually have children together the right way.

Sound familiar?

It's almost the exact same playbook she used with Clayton.

But Greg's story has a few key differences,

and they're disturbing.

Just a warning to listeners here,

we're going to recount Laura's story of taking abortion pills.

According to court documents,

Laura obtained abortion pills from a telehealth clinic on July 21st.

They sent her detailed instructions on how to take the pills.

It's a two-step process.

You swallow the first pill

and then six to 48 hours later,

you take the second dose.

That second dose is supposed to absorb vaginally

or between your gums and cheek.

My recollection is that Laura claimed

she took the first dose on July 28th

and the second dose the next day, July 29th.

But then there was a text I remember to her telehealth provider.

It was always telehealth, indicating that she didn't take the second dose correctly

or something like that.

In records with her telehealth doctor,

Laura seemed confused about when and how to take the second dose.

She says she waited a few days to take it, but finally did.

Then, Laura claimed she saw a doctor,

who said the development of the fetus may have stopped,

but it was still uncertain.

There aren't any public records of this doctor visit.

That claim raised alarm bells for Woodnick.

It seemed absolutely ridiculous at the time

and internally in my office.

Remember, this was just dealing with this particular situation.

It seemed totally bullshit.

But in hindsight, when you look back at these dates

and the timelines that are kind of timestamped there,

it's even more incredible.

It's weird what we didn't know

and now looking back how bizarre that data said actually it was.

The text messages between Laura and Greg about this topic

became heated and emotionally charged.

Here are some of Laura's texts read by a voice actor.

I don't want a child on my own.

It probably sounds crazy considering only four dates together,

but I can see us having a kid in a few years.

I felt something so special with you.

I am the one taking the pills, not you.

So I have made the final decision.

Wow, I chose you, not the kid.

I'm not changing my mind.

I want to get this done and have a great and normal relationship

and encourage each other to crush it at work, not fight on the phone.

Then, on August 6th, 2021,

Laura sends Greg an ultrasound,

along with an absolute bombshell.

We obtained a copy of this message from a court document.

Looks like you're going to be a dad to one or two babies.

Was sick enough to go to the clinic this afternoon

and had to get an ultrasound to make sure I wasn't having an ectopic pregnancy.

I wasn't.

She sent this message after she told Greg she took the abortion pills.

I found out that I've been pregnant with twins.

Looks like one of them passed or isn't doing well.

Probably because of the medicine I took.

I had the option of a surgical abortion and elected not to.

This is when we started to realize the things were really off the rails.

Her claims baffled really basic concepts of science and biology.

If I'm going through this on my own,

I will let God decide if He wants both one or none to be born

and the kid or kids would deserve to know their father's side of the family.

I'm giving you one more shot to admit you were overwhelmed and panicked.

Otherwise, you're not getting any input going forward.

Your behavior is appalling,

coercing me to get an abortion for your own personal agenda.

And I will escalate this if I don't hear back from you.

Again, what Greg experienced is strikingly similar to Clayton's story.

Down to the specific language in Laura's messages.

She has a tendency to have conditions and expectations

that aren't normal in regular communication.

If you don't respond to me by tomorrow,

I will assume the answer is yes.

If you don't ex, then I will assume why and proceed that way.

Laura's text of Greg continued.

I talked to a lawyer who told me I can have a court order

to establish paternity at eight weeks

and get child support from that point on,

which is 25% of your income,

even if you're making less than me.

Stephanie, I've been a lawyer for 25 plus years.

I'm a former adjunct law professor at top family law trial skills.

That's not the law in Arizona.

You would not get custody given all you have written

about aborting the pregnancy.

If you also had manipulated me to take abortion pills

that resulted in the deformity or death of the second fetus,

I would also pursue any and all legal action for that.

If you're going to stick with manipulation, lies and ghosting,

you are not who I thought you were and would deserve it.

Laura said some unbelievably bizarre things

and had some very interesting legal theories.

I have no idea what she's talking about.

One of those claims was abortion coercion.

This will come back again later.

I had never even heard of abortion coercion

until she put it in writing and sent it to Greg.

But the claim that if Greg caused one of her pregnancies

to be deformed, that it was somehow his fault,

is probably legally flawed.

You should probably talk to a civil attorney about that.

But also it's missing a condition predisant,

the condition predisant being pregnant.

Like with Clayton, Laura's text to Greg

oscillate between claims of abuse

and bids to rekindle the relationship.

Laura's text is read by a voice actor.

I still want to believe that you're the guy

who wanted a fresh start with me.

I told you early on that you didn't need to be with me

and that I would make the decision on my own

with my own timeline.

But you insisted that you wanted to be with me

and do this the right way in the future,

which I believed.

This is your last chance to show me

you weren't coercing me to have an abortion

under false pretenses.

I can't speak for Greg.

But I'd imagine anyone receiving that text message

would be in total shock.

Wouldn't it remember being baffled by Laura's mixed messages?

My recollection was is she relayed that she was pregnant

and then the story eventually morphed into,

it was twins and then it eventually morphed into,

here's the ultrasound.

Greg decided to do a quick reverse image search

on the ultrasound and he got a hit.

The image Laura sent him appeared to be

from a 2015 blog post.

A blog completely unrelated to Laura Owens.

Greg felt like this was proof

that she was lying about the pregnancy.

So he called Laura.

In Arizona, you can record one side of a conversation

and share it if it's a matter of public interest.

I want to play you some of that real phone call

between Greg Gillespie and Laura Owens.

So your pills didn't work?

I didn't say my pills didn't work.

I got an ultrasound today.

I know, but they didn't work.

Did you not see that the other thing is like

the tiniest thing you've ever seen

it clearly stopped the growth in that?

I have one thing.

That's not a child.

There's no twins in this picture.

Yeah, there are.

Do you want me to zoom in on it for you?

Yeah, I don't know.

There's no twins in this photo.

Yeah, it is.

Where?

Oh, I know how to read ultrasound.

This is a single baby.

Can you know how to read ultrasound?

Yeah.

Greg confronted her with the blog post he'd found.

To him, it seemed obvious

that Laura had taken a screenshot of this image

and Photoshopped it.

He got heated.

Why didn't you answer the question

about the photo online?

I did.

What did you want me to say?

Why is it your photo?

It's not my photo.

Wait, didn't you find it peculiar?

How similar it looks?

No, I don't find anything peculiar

with an ultrasound photo.

They all look the same.

They do?

Oh, ultrasound looks virtually the same.

I don't find anything weird with that.

It's not true that all ultrasounds look the same.

Greg sent the two images to his attorney, Woodnick,

who asked to know BGYN to review them.

And he goes, they're the same image.

And that's all I needed at that point.

I felt pretty confident that the images

that Greg received were fake.

Greg blocked Laura across every platform,

phone, email, and social media.

But according to court filings,

Laura wouldn't stop.

She allegedly used apps to generate new numbers to reach him.

On August 11th, she took it a step further

and filed a civil lawsuit against Greg.

She was seeking $45,000 in damages.

This is the point in the story

where Greg retained Woodnick.

Her big allegation was that he coerced her

to having an abortion.

And that was the nexus of the civil lawsuit she filed.

I asked him to give me a legal definition

of abortion coercion.

I think it means someone forcing a woman

to make a choice with their body that is not their choice.

So I think it means that she was claiming

that Greg made her terminate the pregnancy.

I've been a practicing lawyer at that point for well over 20 years.

I'd never even heard of this.

Woodnick manages a family and criminal law practice in Phoenix.

I asked around,

and he's sort of a go-to for cases involving complex child custody,

child abuse, and neglect.

While paternity cases are common,

cases like Laura's are not.

At first, Woodnick wasn't sure if he wanted to take on Greg's case.

He and his firm regularly provide pro bono work for Planned Parenthood.

I'm very proud of the work that I've done

and the commitment my office has to Planned Parenthood.

And I truly believe all health care decisions regarding a woman

and their pregnancy are theirs to make.

But Woodnick took the time to read over Greg's documents.

Immediately, Laura's messages stood out to him.

I saw the communication related to it,

and it was bafflingly bizarre.

A lot of like transactional negotiated communications.

It's kind of thing where Laura would send text after text after text

and Greg wouldn't respond.

She would send emails like,

I'm having the baby if you don't call me, that's weird.

The day after Laura filed the civil lawsuit against Greg,

he filed for an order of protection against her.

I got a copy of Greg's filing.

It paints a clear and unsettling picture of what he was going through.

Here's what he told the courts, read by a voice actor.

She continued to harass me via text messages

through 14 different email accounts and I messages,

all of which I've sent blocked.

She threatened to reach out to my family,

located them on public records, reached out to my mother,

threatened to expose me on her self-help podcast.

Laura Owens has shown up to my home two times after being asked not to come there.

She now is reaching out,

making threats of lawsuits to my work email address.

She's contacted the HR department in my company

to confirm my email address and is threatening my career and reputation

at my place of work as of yesterday and today.

She is showing no sign of stopping.

The defendant is stating that she is in love with me

after three dates roughly two hours each date

and is promising to have an abortion and dismissed pressing charges

if I commit to loving her, marrying her

and starting a family with her within the next two years.

I'm scared for my reputation and safety

and it's time to serve her a legal order of protection.

The judge granted Greg's order of protection exparte,

which means it gets issued right away

without the other person being hurt.

But in Arizona, a protective order isn't effective until it's been served.

Authorities tried to serve Laura and failed each time.

All the while, Laura kept flooding Greg's inbox with lengthy emails

and she was escalating her claims against him.

Some of the messages she sent to Greg were later included

in a Maricopa County investigative report.

We've had them read by a voice actor.

I have been advised to file criminal charges against you for fraud

where I can easily establish my case.

All I want is what you told me you wanted

if I got an abortion, a real genuine relationship

where even though we have no idea if it works in the end or not,

we really try.

It's emotional whiplash.

She was constantly bombarding Greg with texts and emails.

I think I have found representation for the case

and am waiting to make a decision until or if I hear back from you.

My hesitancy in hiring him is that he would want to talk

about this to the media because he thinks it would be a landmark case.

You weren't the first guy to coerce a girl into an abortion

and he thinks there should be legal consequences for men

who do that to prevent it from happening.

I wanted to ask you one more time if you wanted to date.

If that were the case, I would also keep my promise to you

and not have the child.

I obviously would drop the lawsuit.

If I don't get an apology and you don't show that you meant what you said

about wanting a relationship with me,

I will not be having a surgical abortion

and will be filing for punitive damages for $75,000.

Some of these lines sound exactly like the one

she would later write to Clayton.

Woodenick was disturbed by the similarities in the messages.

I remember when the communication started coming in from Clayton

and his dialogue with Laura.

And I remember looking at the communications

wondering if they were identical.

I mean, it was very eerily similar.

But there are some features of Greg's experience

that don't quite line up with Clayton's,

like this one letter Laura sent Greg.

She told him it was from a lawyer who'd reviewed her case.

It was a letter on female letterhead

from a very reputable lawyer in the San Francisco Bay area.

Greg shared it with Woodenick.

Here's his recollection of what the letter said.

Laura, we've reviewed your case.

This is the best abortion coercion case we've ever seen

and kind of implied that the case was worth a lot

and she needed to sue and go after Greg.

Obviously that caused me to raise my eyebrows.

It caused me to do some research.

So we did some digging into those communications.

And when she was attaching letters from her lawyer,

I was like, wait a minute, if she's represented by a lawyer,

I need to be communicating with the lawyer.

So I did what I would train any associate

or what I'm supposed to do ethically.

I reached out to the lawyer themselves

and you'll be surprised to find out

that they said they were not representing her.

Woodenick wanted to be clear.

He does not believe the lawyer whose name is on this letter

is the one who authored it.

First, he said he didn't represent her second.

They weren't licensed in Arizona.

It was absolutely an Arizona case.

And it didn't read like a lawyer wrote it.

Certainly not a lawyer with the gravity

that the lawyer that she claimed was representing her had.

And again, we didn't get this communication from the law firm.

So I'm not blaming them at all.

I actually believe they didn't know.

I think I alerted them to it.

Because the protective order could never be successfully served,

Laura was legally allowed to continue contacting Greg.

He wasn't responding anymore.

But that didn't deter her.

She contacted important people in Greg's life, like his boss.

Those messages were later included

in that same investigative report we discussed earlier,

which is how we got a copy of them.

Here's an email she sent his employer,

read by a voice actor.

Hi.

I filed a civil lawsuit against a salesman

at your Scottsdale location, Greg Gillespie.

And wondered if I could confidentially confirm

the dates that he was out on COVID leave in July and August.

The illness is unrelated to the case.

But my father is going through radiation for cancer right now

and is having COVID symptoms.

I am helping to care for him and wondered

if I may have been asymptomatic

after being in close contact with him

and then transmitted into my dad.

I would really appreciate you're not involving him.

And if I could just have help in tracing back how he had been exposed,

I think it had to be through me.

Although at this point, I'm testing negative.

Thanks, Laura.

Laura was about to take it a step further.

On November 12th, 2021,

Laura filed an order of protection against Greg Gillespie,

citing that he had been hacking her computer, social media,

and even her podcast's website.

Laura claims her applies that Greg is some sort of master IT hacker.

I don't know where the hell she's getting that from, Stephanie.

There's nothing that I've ever seen in any document or record

that remotely imports with that.

In her filing, Laura claims that Greg is a manipulative and dangerous person

who has been incessently harassing her.

It reads, quote,

he will not stop until he has ruined my life,

my podcast, and caused a serious mental and or physical harm to me.

The same day, a judge heard Laura's protective order case over Zoom.

I'm going to call Laura Owens and Gregory Gillespie,

FN 2021 004799.

Miss Owens, are you online?

Yes, I am.

Do you solemnly swear or affirm to tell the truth,

the whole truth, and nothing but the truth?

So I hope you got.

I do your honor.

The judge seemed to remember Laura.

You've been in front of me before on this case.

These allegations, I remember them.

Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

You're the one whose friends with the attorney in California.

Yes.

Yeah, okay.

Well, all right.

If the judge's voice sounds familiar to you,

it's the same judge you heard in the last episode,

granting Laura's order of protection against Clayton.

The one about the selfie of Laura that had become a Halloween costume meme.

But her hearing against Greg, two years prior,

was much more serious.

You say Mr. Gillespie put his hands on your throat.

When did that happen?

That actually happened on our first date.

And you've only known him since like June or something, right?

Correct.

Okay.

We have a conversation the other day.

And I want to start off by saying that everything that we say

on our hearing today is something that will be recorded in Mr. Gillespie.

And as attorneys, you can get copies of it.

You're aware of that, right?

Yes.

Okay.

I will grant your order of protection.

Thank you so much, your honor.

Greg was served without order of protection three days later.

Laura has since renewed the order twice as recently as December of 2024.

Greg has yet to contest it.

But he still has the opportunity to contest it in the future

and end up back in court with Laura Owens.

By December of 2021, Laura's civil case against Greg was still in the court system.

And Woodenick was repeatedly asking about the status of Laura's pregnancy.

We kind of lost track of the lie of the pregnancy.

The story wasn't about a pregnancy.

It was about this coercion thing.

As soon as she filed this lawsuit claiming abortion coercion,

the law of what she was here in pregnant kind of was gone.

Now we were dealing with whatever she was claiming Greg had done to her,

because now she was a victim, obviously.

A victim of a guy who wanted nothing to do with her.

A guy who was like, leave me alone.

A guy who was like, click calling my employer.

A guy who was like, I don't ever want to see you again.

After that, Greg stopped hearing from Laura about the pregnancy.

He never saw verified medical records confirming a miscarriage.

There are also no birth records, no death certificates, nothing.

But that isn't the end of the story.

There was one more very serious allegation that Laura levied against Greg Gillespie.

This time, it wasn't just against him.

It was against him and his attorney, Greg Woodenick.

I was going to answer every fucking question.

And the police are the FBI had, because I had nothing to do with this.

Tyler Reddick here from 2311 Racing.

Another checkered flag for the books.

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In 2022, Woodenick was preparing to defend his client Greg Gillespie in a strange case.

It was an abortion coercion claim brought by Laura Owens.

For Woodenick, the case was already outside of his normal scope of practice.

Then, something happened that had never occurred before in Woodenick's 25-year legal career.

Maybe two or three days before the hearing, I get an email from Judge Bocca's judicial assistant.

And the email is not addressed to me.

It is addressed to Laura, and I'm on the CC being copied back.

And the email accused Greg and I of somehow being complicit in Laura's rape.

When Woodenick first told me about this, I was shaken.

After months of reporting on Laura Owens, I thought I had a sense of her pattern of behavior.

But this accusation was as serious as it gets.

Woodenick is adamant that he never conspired with his client to have Laura raped.

To see my name associated with it really was troubling.

Troubling is probably an understatement.

As much as I knew that it was complete fucking bullshit, I mean, I'm not a rapist.

Not only was it not true, I had no idea what the hell she was talking about.

But it was a little bit frightening because she said it with a pretty good command of vocabulary

that the FBI and the police were involved.

Woodenick found out about Laura's allegation because of an email she sent to the judge in the case.

That email is now part of the public record, and we've had it read by a voice actor.

I hate to email you again, but there is a major issue with a defendant, Mr. Gregory Gillespie

and his attorney, Mr. Greg Woodenick, that needs to be brought to judge Boccus' attention privately

before she rolls on the motion to extend filed by my now former attorney.

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 is 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 exparte 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 Boccus about this

without giving the other side confidential information about what has transpired.

While Laura is adamant in her email to the judge, it seems like she never reported this alleged rape to the police.

For Woodenick, the accusation was still devastating.

It made him even more sure Greg was telling the truth.

Listen, I mean, I don't know that in my career that I'm going to meet someone who's got such an interesting relationship

with the truth as Laura Owens does, and that may never happen again.

After Woodenick read Laura's accusation, he immediately went into action,

assembling a group of his most trusted colleagues.

I got my team together.

Unfortunately, I've got seven lawyers in my team and some really experienced wonderful lawyers who are family to me and work with me.

One of the people with him was his colleague, Deandra Arena.

Here's what Deandra thought of Laura's accusation.

She has a tendency to throw these random, very concerning red herrings out there

to detract or deflect from what maybe is going on at the time.

So I think it could have been a tactical move.

I think she certainly did not want Greg Woodenick on this case anymore.

I think she certainly did not want to deal with my office anymore.

And what better way to do it than make probably the most horrific allegation you can about an individual.

Deandra saw how the accusation cut deep professionally and personally.

Oh, it was awful.

I mean, this is the most egregious of allegations.

I would much rather have my father, brother,

any male loved one be accused of murder.

She helped Woodenick figure out what to do next.

I think he just went into a more logical mindset of,

this is someone who has fabricated a lot.

So I guess I shouldn't be surprised by this.

And then how do we deal with it?

Woodenick has a wife and two teenage kids who were in high school at the time.

So after talking with his firm, he called a family meeting.

And we don't do serious family meetings.

We are not a serious family.

So I brought the boys and I sat them down.

I said, hey, guys, you need to understand that in a case I was accused of being involved in a woman's rape.

I want you guys to know that it's not true.

I know you know, it's not true.

I want you to hear from me that it's not true.

But if you come home and the police are here.

That I've got it under control.

If the police show up.

We had a game plan.

We spent the next two days contacting the local police and the FBI.

Woodenick wanted to get ahead of it.

He had nothing to hide.

I contacted the FBI, Stephanie.

I contacted multiple police departments.

Not a soul knew what Laura was even talking about.

No one even said, oh, yes, there's an open investigation.

I mean, nothing.

They had no idea what I was talking about.

I don't even think there was ever a police report involving it because no one has ever contacted me this many years later.

It was all in my opinion alive.

So, yeah, this one pisses me off pretty good.

This one pisses me off pretty good.

I've spent hundreds of hours researching this case.

And honestly, it takes a lot to shock me at this point.

But sitting in Woodenick's office, listening to him tell me this story.

I actually started to tear up.

I believe Woodenick when he says he wasn't involved in any criminal conspiracy to have Laura raped.

Even after all these years, Laura's allegation is still an emotional topic.

It's deeply personal for him.

Woodenick's colleagues urged him to leave Greg's case and find a replacement.

Here's Deandra.

You have to take a step back and consider, is this worth it anymore?

I mean, I went to law school for three years.

I put my blood sweat and tears into this career and to have someone just so cavalierly throw that out there in an email.

Like, maybe we need to remove ourselves from this situation because this is a very dangerous person.

Ultimately, Woodenick stepped away from the case.

Greg and I had to financially part ways at some point.

It's just the nature of the beast, but he and I have stayed close. He's a great guy.

We ended up handing it off to a dear colleague of mine.

A guy I really like or a great lawyer who helped resolve it for Greg.

It took years for the abortion coercion case to finally get dismissed.

And in the end, nothing came of Laura's rape allegation against Greg and Woodenick.

No charges and no further documentation in the public record.

I asked Woodenick if he considers himself another victim of Laura Owens.

I think people have suggested that I'm a victim in this too.

It was never about me being a victim. The victims are these guys.

I'm just a lawyer. A lawyer was doing his job and I think we did a pretty okay job.

Two years later, Woodenick would read about a former bachelor contestant involved in a bizarre paternity case.

Woodenick immediately recognized the pattern.

This was Laura Owens.

And when Clayton supporters raised the funds for him to retain council,

Woodenick would hesitate for just a moment.

Was I not happy with what Laura said about me?

Absolutely. Was that in my head? I'm sure it was somewhere in my head.

But it certainly wasn't my dominant thought process.

To Woodenick, Clayton's case represented something bigger.

This was a pattern. And maybe Clayton could be the one to finally bring this to an end.

The fact that so many people's lives had been attempted to be destroyed by Laura was a big deal.

And Clayton, this guy who was already in the spotlight because of his role on the bachelor,

he was kind of the torchbearer to make sure that justice was served.

That's how Woodenick and Deandra found themselves back in the courtroom with Laura Owens.

I was going to make sure I did everything I could do,

that my team did everything we could do to make sure we got justice for Clayton.

Coming up on the next episode of Love Trap.

I'm going to remind you again that you're not really supposed to be dishonest in deposition.

I'm well aware.

I thought maybe she'd actually successfully trapped me by sending herself.

I did not send the soldier some video.

This is the greatest programming in the history of YouTube.

This is why you do it live.

I've never seen anything like it, ever.

I need to hold this woman accountable.

This isn't about her.

It's about the people that she's victimized.

Thank you so much for listening.

Please be sure to follow Love Trap on Apple Podcasts,

the iHeartRadio app, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts.

And please leave us a review.

A five-star rating helps others find this show.

We're grateful for your support.

If you would like to reach out to the Love Trap team,

email us at LoveTrapPod at gmail.com.

That's LoveTrap, P-O-D, at gmail.com.

Love Trap is a production of Glass Podcasts,

a production of Glass Entertainment Group in partnership

with iHeart Podcasts.

This show was executive produced by Nancy Glass,

Andrea Gunning, and Ben Federman.

Written, produced, and hosted by me, Stephanie Young.

Our story editor is Monique LaBorde.

Producer on this episode is Sydney Gladue.

Additional production support from Todd Gans.

Our production manager is Kristen Melcuri.

For iHeart Podcasts, Ali Perry was our executive producer.

Audio editing and mastering by Anna McLean.

Additional editing support by Zach Proto and Matt Delvecchio.

Thank you to our voice actors in this episode.

Leslie Tolly, Kristen Melcuri, Todd Gans, and Trey Morgan.

This podcast was developed in collaboration with Danny Passman

and Lev Abramoff at Crybaby Media.

The Love Trap theme is composed by Oliver Baines.

Music library provided by Mybe Music.

Additional thanks to Carrie Lieberman, Will Pearson,

Jessica Crinecheck, Ali Cantor, and the entire iHeart Podcast team.

And for more podcasts from iHeart,

visit the iHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts,

or wherever you get your podcasts.

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