Jacob Brennan, husband/coach of UFC fighter Hailey Cowan, charged with assaulting a minor
The husband and coach of UFC bantamweight standout Hailey Cowan has been arrested amid allegations of sexually assaulting a minor.
According to a report from KWTX-TV, Jacob Brennan, 40, was arrested and booked into the McLennan County (Texas) Jail on May 19 after a woman accused him of inappropriately touching her “hundreds of times” over a two-year period.
Brennan was charged with indecency with a child with sexual contact, a second-degree felony in Texas. If convicted, Brennan could face two to 20 years in prison.
Per the criminal complaint affidavit, the alleged victim was 13 years old when the assaults occurred. Brennan was 30.
Meeting with detectives in November 2023, the woman claimed that “Brennan kissed her hundreds of times and touched her vagina above and below her clothes hundreds of times between 2013 and 2015″ in the affidavit.
She goes on to state that the assaults happened in “various rooms throughout the gym almost every day,” and that “Brennan was concerned with getting caught and would stop touching her if he heard noises in the gym or believed someone was nearby.”
Prior to his arrest, an Instagram page popped up in February sharing screenshots of alleged conversations between Brennan and the woman along with Facebook posts showing the two of them together at Brennan’s gym, Next Generation/Blitz MMA in Robinson.
Hailey Cowan and Jacob Brennan were married in 2022
Hailey Cowan, a former Baylor University gymnast turned mixed martial artist, began training at Brennan’s gym in 2014. The two were married eight years later.
After a successful run under the LFA and Invicta FC banners, Cowan introduced herself to UFC fans on Dana White’s Contender Series in 2022, scoring a split-decision victory against Cláudia Leite. The victory was good enough to earn a contract and she made her promotional debut in April 2023.
Unfortunately, Cowan failed to make weight for her bantamweight bout with Jamey-Lyn Horth. The fight went forward as scheduled with ‘All Hail’ losing via unanimous decision.
Cowan has since been scheduled to compete in bouts against Zarah Fairn and Tamires Vidal, but both were scrapped after she withdrew due to injury. It has been more than a year since her last fight.
