Harlan man with a history gets 2 years for child porn possession

ALLEN COUNTY, Ind. ---He started communicating with the 16-year-old girl on Snapchat in mid-December of 2023.

The messages started with language that was  “sexual in nature.”

Reid J. Cowan

Who knows what he told her or even what age she thought Reid J. Cowan was when she agreed to send him nude photos of herself, some as she performed sexual acts on herself, according to a probable cause affidavir submitted by Det. Jacob Quick of the Indiana State Police.

On New Year’s Day, 2024, the teen agreed to go to Cowan’s Harlan home, a visit which apparently ended any relationship with the 39-year-old. 

Five days later, the teen was interviewed at the Dr. Bill Lewis Center. Nearly a week after that interview, Quick was at Cowan’s doorstep. During the execution of a search warrant, the 39-year-old Cowan refused to speak to Quick, court documents said.

Then he asked “what day (was it I) would have done something that would cause law enforcement to be at (my) house?”

When Quick told him New Year’s Day, he quickly came to his own defense. 

“She told me she was 16 years old. She drove to my house. How could I have thought any different?”

But the law doesn’t allow grown men to exchange photos and videos of that nature with a minor, Quick explained. The material Cowan had kept on his cell phone was explicit enough in nature to be considered child pornography.

Cowan was charged with child porn possession, a Level 6 felony, the lowest level felony in Indiana. 

Thursday, Superior Court Judge Steven Godfrey sentenced Cowan to two years in prison, after Cowan agreed to a plea deal in April. The sentence is to be served consecutive to his prior sentence for sexual misconduct with a minor.

Deputy prosecutor Christina Gull represented the state.

According to the Indiana Department of Correction, Cowan served time for that prior charge starting in 2008 and was released in 2017.

Cowan is also facing a one day trial in Grant County in August for child solicitation, court documents indicate. He was charged in July 2024 for an alleged offense in December 2022.

In Allen County, Cowan retained Andrew Baldwin of the firm Baldwin Perry & Wiley in Franklin, the same firm that represented Alison K. Davis, the New Haven woman accused of killing her husband. She was acquitted in May.

Baldwin was also one of the lead attorneys in the Delphi trial that wrapped up last year in Carroll County, a trial that drew national attention.