A former guard for a private security company at Seneca Valley School District faced a woman he assaulted when she was a 16-year-old student and her parents Thursday, Sept. 3, when he was sentenced in Butler County Common Pleas Court.

Matthew Alan Cowan, 28, of Brackenridge, was sentenced to serve 24 to 48 months in prison and paroled to serve the minimum balance on electronic monitoring followed by 36 months of probation after pleading no contest to a felony charge of aggravated indecent assault.

Jackson Township police filed that and other charges against Cowan following an assault on a trail behind the school campus in August 2021.

In a second case, Cowan pleaded no contest to a felony count of disseminating photos depicting a child sex act filed by Cranberry Township police. Police filed 44 felony charges against Cowan for sharing of nude and sexually explicit photos a female student between 16 and 17 years old. The student sent him the photos for about eight months before the beginning of the 2021 school year.

He was sentenced in that case to serve 12 to 60 months in prison and was paroled to serve the minimum balance on electronic monitoring followed by 36 months probation.

The sentences in both cases are concurrent.

Judge Joseph Kubit, who ordered the sentences, said Cowan has a lifetime registration requirement under the Sex Offender Registration and Notification Act.

The woman called Cowan a predator who took advantage of a student and told the court she continues to struggle with mental and emotional issues from the assault. She said she trusted Cowan at a place she felt safe and thought he was a friend.

“He’s a predator and he knows his way around technology,” the woman said.

She said she deals with the aftershock of the assault everyday and has seen a number of therapists. Photos of her were sent to her friends and she was harassed in school over the incident. Her sister and younger brother also were hurt by the incident, she said.

Her mother said the incident has changed the lives of her family. She said Cowan befriended the student’s younger brother to use him as an avenue to his sister.

She sad Cowan held her daughter against a tree with a hand around her neck and sexually assaulted her. The panic attacks her daughter suffered after the incident left her unable to attend college or get a job, she said. She said stomach pain her daughter experienced for three years following the incident was a symptom of trauma and she is still in therapy trying to get over the incident.

She accused Cowan of “disgusting, sickening behavior” and called him a “detriment to society.”

“I want to rip your ... head off with my bare hands,” the woman’s father said to Cowan.

He said he remembers seeing Cowan standing outside of the school when he would drop off his daughter and felt secure knowing a guard was working at the school.

“I remember you. I remember your face,” he said.

Instead of protecting her, Cowan groomed and pursued her, the father said.

“There is absolutely no forgiveness,” the father said.