A Texas MMA coach and husband of a UFC fighter has been arrested after allegations of sexual misconduct with a minor.
Jacob Brennan, 40, husband of UFC women’s bantamweight Hailey Cowan, was arrested Sunday and charged with indecency with a child with sexual contact, a second-degree felony in Texas. Possible sentences include from two to 20 years in prison.
The news first was reported by KWTX-TV in Waco, near where Brennan runs Next Generation/Blitz MMA in Robinson.
According to the criminal complaint affidavit, a woman told investigators Brennan inappropriately touched her when he coached her between 2013 and 2015, the station reported. At the time of the start of the alleged abuse, the woman was 13; Brennan was 30.
The woman met with detectives in early November 2023. According to her statement in the affidavit, “Brennan kissed her hundreds of times and touched her vagina above and below her clothes hundreds of times between 2013 and 2015.”
An Instagram page that went live about three months before Brennan’s arrest includes screenshots of alleged messages from Brennan to the woman when she was a teenager, as well as Facebook screenshots of photos of them together at the gym in groups and of just the two of them.
Cowan, who married Brennan in 2022, started training at the gym in 2014 and appears in some of the photos.
Brennan was arrested and booked into McLennan County (Texas) Jail on Sunday. Bail was set at $75,000. Brennan is not listed as a current inmate at the jail as of publication time.
Jacob Brennan (photo via McLennan County Jail, Texas)
Cowan (7-3 MMA, 0-1 UFC), a former collegiate gymnast at Baylor, won on Dana White’s Contender Series in 2022 and got an eventual UFC contract. The 32-year-old missed weight for her UFC debut a little more than a year ago and lost a decision to Jamey-Lyn Horth.
Cowan was set to return this past September against Zarah Fairn but pulled out with an injury. She also was supposed to be back this past Saturday at UFC Fight Night 241, but posted photos recently of a badly bruised lower leg and said a broken shin took her out of a fight with Tamires Vidal.
Brennan has coached Cowan in her DWCS and UFC fights. He also appeared with her on the red carpet for the Rose Namajunas documentary at South by Southwest in Austin, Texas, in 2022.
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