When I asked him if he knows what he's going to say to the judge, he told me he plans to speak from the heart.

I definitely think I'll go off script when I address Laura, because I do think if there's any part of this in which my emotion rises quickly and it just comes out, I think it'll be when I'm looking at her and explaining to her why I have to say what I'm saying.

She was being reckless.

She was going after everything in my life.

She tried to destroy my job security.

She tried to get my loved ones to see me in a different light.

She tried to wreck my dating life.

And even after everything Laura put him through, he's still trying to find it in her.

It blows my mind that people don't still don't understand that.

Yeah, you bring up a really great point, something actually I'm currently like working through to understand.

You know, for me, I had mentioned this before, but coming off reality television, reality television was like a drug to me.

It spiked my dopamine.

It made me feel special.

It made me.

like I felt like everything I was doing, I was just high.

yeah i mean obviously i would not ask you to read out what you're going to say but what is one thing that you really want the judge to understand

I want to hear in your words what happened.

Laura accepted the plea.

She took a minute to come in there.

We were told that she signed off on the plea, but that she had to walk in and accept the crimes, and she did.

That's a big moment.

I want to say, like, Laura, I am proud of you for taking the first step towards accountability.

That's genuinely how I feel.

When did it finally hit you that, that this was real and that this was, like, over?

Do you plan on speaking up again if you go on the 28th, and what do you think you'll say?

I mean, I assume, again, this hearing is gonna be a matter of, like, is she gonna submit for the plea or not? So as far as my response and what I wanna say, my response will be based upon what she says in that moment.

It's going to be an emotional response just by way of nature.

She's either gonna accept the plea, in which case, if she accepts the plea, I don't think there's really anything for me to say at that point because then they, you know, they go to sentencing, and then I will have something to say at sentencing.

If she denies it and we go to court, then I still don't think I have anything to say in that moment either 'cause it's like, okay, we're going to trial.

The only thing that I would be animated on and would have plenty to say is if she asks for an extension of time, or I show up and Laura doesn't because she has some emergency surgery, and she's asking for an extension of time.

In that case, I will absolutely stand up and be like, "Judge, no more.

Have you thought about what it's gonna be like to see her? Have you thought about if you're gonna look at her again?

He questioned Laura's attorney's request for more time to review the evidence.

The big thing I want to focus on is not allowing an extension of the plea deal simply because she has a history of delaying, and it's just gonna continue.

Uh, my understanding is he's come into the case a few months ago, and this feels like an 11th hour push to say, "I can't access the material." You know, to me, if you couldn't access the material, you should have accessed it day one, and every single day, you should've been following up to get that evidence.

I'm all for due process, but to me, this just feels like an extension of her tactic carried out by him to extend it, and it's been three years.

I'm tired.

I know we're all tired, and a ton of evidence, blatantly obvious, she's admitted on the stand to medical fraud.

She's admitted to certain lies.

He and Laura were making eye contact, and he felt like something about her had changed.

Clayton wants him to reconsider what's being offered in the plea deal.

I've gotten very nervous with the silence as we are waiting trial, which is approaching, but there's just not really anything occurring.

And talking with the other victims, I realized that I don't want this to just cool off and her potentially get a reduction in the plea.

So let me write this letter.

I really want the prosecutor to understand that I'm still watching and I'm still very involved.

And I really can't afford for this to be anything less than what it already is.

And what was offered to me is not enough.

Here's what he wrote.

But I mean, how many of these armchair quarterback people came up to you and said, there's a story here, Clayton, but we need to share it my way and not necessarily your way.

Yeah, I was approached before Stephanie and her team came to me.

I was approached multiple times.

And there were a few times that I was like, no, absolutely not.

And there were other times where I said, yeah, sure, I think you guys can share my story.

And at the end of the day, none of them manifested for one reason or another.

And so, again, I just felt that what was meant to be was going to occur.

Just drop it so I can get on with my life.

When you have faces to put with the names, and there's so many of you sitting there, my gut would be like, you know, wow.

Yeah, and that's, I mean, that's what we've done in the past and I th- and I do believe it's effective to say, like, you know, even when we didn't have the other victims testify a year ago in court, it w- just my lawyer being able to say, "Hey, you know, the other victims are back here in the courtroom," and point to 'em, I mean, that's, that's already powerful enough.

But, um, I am on the victim list, as is one of the other guys, uh, and we're ready to testify.

I mean, we're, we're both ready to go, um, and, and willing and, and I mean, I'd be a, I'd be almost frustrated if I wasn't obviously able to.

Uh, I, I, I wanna go up on the stand and I want to share everything, and I want there to be a clear picture painted of this is what's happened.

'Cause I do think, like, now that there's been a lot of theatrics, it's just like, of course, this podcast, the Love Trapped, has done very well.

Um, and it's, it's really high...

I mean-

I asked him to revisit that moment when the news broke.

Oh, man, I remember 'cause I was sittingIn a locker room at a pickleball venue by myself, and I'm staring at the screen.

My vision got blurry.

I just r-remember, like, disassociating in that moment and thinking, like, I don't...

I just don't even feel like what I'm experiencing is real.

It just feels like there's a script running or a movie playing, and I'm, I'm in The Truman Show, and I'm being watched for everyone's entertainment.

This is past the point of me making decisions and living a normal life.

He says he's doing better than ever, and he's got an entire community around him.

Mm-hmm.

Not, you know, Jan Black.

That really rubbed her the wrong way was what I was told.

She despised that.

To make matters worse, he had an affair.

Now he's showing he has no respect for her, and so now, though he's beloved, and she sees that he's having this affair, and I don't think it came out at the time, like people knew.

It was just a rumor.

Right.

I think that makes you even more of a desirable contender.

Well, and, and, and for what it's worth, like, I will not make decisions based on how I think the audience will perceive me.

I, I'm more confident in myself than I've ever been.

I stand by everything that I did o- on the first time around.

Like, I stand by it.

I apologize for things that I wish I would take back now and say I shouldn't have apologized for some of those things because I, I think I took too much accountability.

It's like, other, I, it, I didn't have to take all the accountability I took.

... make amends?

After Mike and Danielle left the courthouse that day, I sat down with Clayton to process what just happened.

I'm pissed, because, you know, I s- first saw Mike walk out of the courtroom, and tears in his eyes.

And you know where those tears are coming from.

It's six-plus years that this man has had to endure, and I feel for him, because I've went through two years of my own.

And so it is really frustrating, because you just want it to be done.

Clayton knows better than anyone else what it feels like to try to prove his innocence against Laura Owens.

Laura thinks she's won today.

I don't see that at all as a win.

[gentle music] Clayton began filming his season of The Bachelor in late September of 2021, and he was ready to find love.

At that point, I was so overcome with just excitement.

What is my life? This isn't even real.

Pinch me, but don't actually pinch me because if this is a dream, I don't wanna wake up from it.

That's how grateful and excited I was.

I was just soaking it all in, and I felt like I'm gonna give everyone the love story that they're looking for 'cause I got the genuine heart that's actually looking for something serious.

This is gonna be a fairy tale ending.

Clayton knew he wasn't perfect, but as the finale approached, the online hate took its toll on him.

Yeah.

Um, but what I had f-heard and found out was that, like, her dad was, was the guy in San Diego.

You know, he was a radio host.

He was, like, so well-known.

I mean, he was getting interviews with Obama and all these other, you know, like, big name people, A-lister celebrities.

And he, you know, again, like, he, he basically was the, the, the, the, the pride of the family.

He was, he was the big dog, right? Well, from what I had heard, like, his-- Jan, his wife, you know, did not like being in his shadow.

Like, how does that support feel to you ultimately kind of at the end of the day?

So Mike and Clayton hopped on the phone.

It was surreal at first to obviously find out that there's now another individual that went through this, but my story really paled in comparison to Mike because Mike actually dated Laura, which was mind-blowing when I found that out.

And to know that he had been going through this for six plus years, I mean, this is an ongoing battle he was facing.

And the great thing, as I found out very quickly, was he had incredible support from his wife that was helping him through this troubling time.

But ultimately, he wanted to reach out and let me know that I wasn't alone.

And the beautiful thing was is that his story was going to help me out so much.

I did ask him a question of if he had saved anything from that time with Laura, whether he had any photos or texts or anything of the matter.

Even though they didn't have time to call Mike in the trial, his presence there made a difference to Clayton.

Did you reach out to the others that he had represented to cross stories?

Before he reached out, what happened was she went public, and then within, like, twelve hours after she went public or somewhere within a day, I got a DM from, um, the now wife of the previous victim.

And she said, "Hey, you need to look into this court case.

You're not the only one." And then she sent me the court case number.

Well, of course, when I see that, my, my stomach drops.

I'm like, "What?" You know, I'm like, "Whoa, whoa, whoa." Like, this is not the DM I'm, I was expecting.

Like, what are we talking about? There's somebody else.

Okay, so the, the question that begs is, how do you go back into the dating world after this?

Laura's side of the room was noticeably sparse.

It was her mom and her medical expert.

That was it.

Dad wasn't there.

Sister wasn't there.

No friends.

And I think that, to me, also spoke volumes.

The judge granted his petition for non-paternity.

But what do you think? I mean, since 2016, is this a business? Does she think people are going to pay her off?

So I'm going to speculate here based on all the information that I'm aware of.

This is just my personal opinion.

But I feel very, very confident.

And it's not about money.

The family has money.

But this is a family executed game plan.

Okay.

Sure.

Yeah, I'll try to do the 30,000 foot view and just- Yeah, sorry.

I'll just give you the basics, but essentially she reached out to me on LinkedIn.

I just got my real estate license.

She said that she was looking to buy multiple investment properties.

So I fed her my contact information.

She started texting me.

So was that helpful to have that many people invested? I'm sure it, you know, they, they probably came up with a lot of information.

Clayton felt strongly about this, so he called Woodnick.

I said, "Hey, this case is going inactive here soon, and I'm not okay with that.

I would like to file something to have her prove that she was pregnant, because she won't be able to.

Can we do that?"

Clayton didn't know what her next move would be, but with Woodnick on his team, he finally felt like they had a chance to prove the truth in court.

I need to hold this woman accountable.

I'm tired of people stepping all over me and shitting on my reputation.

It's time that I fight back.

And let me ask you this, Clayton, what has been the most rewarding part of this for you? And also, what do you hope comes out of this?

I believe for me, I mean, the most rewarding aspect has been the collective healing that I've seen.

Um, for one to be able to see the other victims and, and see hope come back within their bodies, and for them to say, "Hey, look, actually, everything...

After all this time, I actually might be able to close a chapter on this because it'll be over, as opposed to her continually antagonizing us." But then I've also seen healing from a, a greater level of just the entire community, and people coming together with shared experiences of trauma and being able to find their tribe.

Uh, that's been the most rewarding aspect of all of this.

Um, and so for, for what I hope for, like, this... what, what to come from this is just a continuance of that.

Um, you know, I mean, selfishly, sure, uh, uh, anything that can, can help me out in my life, you know, through more exposure, um, I, like, I'll take.

... um, trust us, I guess, um, with, with your story?

Like, you become embroiled in just a legal battle.

Yeah, she filed a parenting plan, uh, which I couldn't believe and was in shock that I had to respond to it via the court system, otherwise, uh, I would...

they would submit a f- default judgment.

And most times they would assume, the majority of the time, people filing parenting plans are actually pregnant.

So I was gonna throw away the paperwork, and then I had someone on the, the legal side of things that said, "Uh, no, you can't do that.

You need to respond." And I went into the court and I...

he, the judge, asked me why I was, you know, countering this, you know, parenting plan.

And it's a really, um, hard lesson to learn, especially about our justice system, that sometimes the last thing that matters is actually the truth.

After that interaction in the car, what happened from there? Tell us a little bit about the harassment and then everything you had to go through.

Yeah, so we were involved in a real estate transaction.

She reached out to me originally to do real estate.

You know, I made the mistake of mixing business with pleasure and it wasn't.

Lesson learned.

Yeah, lesson learned.

I don't do that now.

Right, and it's a really hard lesson to learn, especially about our justice system, that sometimes the last thing that matters is actually the truth.

Clayton got wind of it.

Apparently the Black university student that, um, 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 Neal and a couple other outlets.

The song just played in the background while he danced.

I didn't say it, and, and I dance to a lot of rap songs, so [laughs] they, they...

Yeah.

Suddenly, everything made sense.

sense.I go right to the courthouse because honestly, at this point, this is the most important thing in my life by far.

Work, all these other things go by the wayside.

I couldn't even function anyways.

Mentally, I couldn't focus.

So I sit down on this computer, and I type in the court case number, and up pulls all of the documents.

And so I was sitting there for probably an hour to an hour and a half.

Here's what he posted.