SLO County man who was convicted of molesting boy and faced life in prison is now being released
A former Cambria resident who had his 2014 conviction for molesting the son of a girlfriend overturned due to a prosecutor error will be released on parole after he accepted a plea agreement last week.
Ronald John Cowan, 63, had been sentenced to 65 years to life in prison in 2014, but after pleading no contest Aug. 26 to a single felony count of committing a lewd act on a child, Cowan will be released next week on time served, his attorney, Ilan Funke-Bilu, said Monday.
In exchange for his plea, San Luis Obispo County prosecutors agreed to dismiss four felony charges including sodomy on a victim 10 years old or younger, and oral copulation on a victim 10 years old or younger.
The 2014 jury found Cowan guilty on all counts.
Under the terms of his plea, Cowan will be on parole for 10 years and required to register as a sex offender for life upon release, according to court documents.
Funke-Bilu said that at last week’s trial-setting conference, Cowan accepted the plea agreement with the DA’s Office in exchange for an eight-year prison term.
When he is sentenced in San Luis Obispo Superior Court on Wednesday, Cowan is expected to be sentenced to time served since he’s been in custody for roughly 85% of the time he would have served on the single charge he pleaded no contest to, Chief Deputy District Attorney Lisa Muscari said Monday.
Both Muscari and Funke-Bilu said Cowan is expected to be transferred to the custody of state parole on Sunday.
Cowan has been in custody at San Luis Obispo County Jail in lieu of $700,000 bail since his release from prison following his appeal in 2017. Prior to his appeal, he had been in custody since 2012.
It is up to state parole to determine whether Cowan is released to San Luis Obispo County, where his victim lived at the time of the abuse.
Details of the case
Cowan was arrested in 2012 for allegedly molesting the son of a girlfriend over a period of about two years when the boy was between the ages of 3 and 5.
Court documents show that he had become a trusted grandfather-like figure to the boy and won the family’s trust with gifts and cash after the boy’s mother became addicted to drugs and was incarcerated.
He was convicted of all charges and related enhancements in a San Luis Obispo Superior Court jury trial and sentenced to a possible life sentence in state prison, most recently serving his time at Kern Valley State Prison.
But a state appellate court in February 2017 reversed the conviction after finding the prosecutor in the trial “misstated the law” about Cowan’s presumption of innocence to jurors during her closing arguments.
“In rebuttal, during closing argument, the prosecutor told the jury, ‘Let me tell you that presumption (of innocence) is over. Because that presumption is in place only when the charges are read. But now you have heard all the evidence. That presumption is gone,’” the Second District Court of Appeals ruling reads. “She buttressed this grossly inaccurate explanation of reasonable doubt with the erroneous statement that the jury’s decision regarding (Cowan’s) guilt is just an ordinary decision people make ‘a hundred times a day.’”
“It is misconduct to misinform the jury that the presumption of innocence is ‘gone’ prior to the jury’s deliberations. It strikes at the very heart of our system of criminal justice,” the ruling reads.
The appellate court did not take issue with the merits of the prosecution’s case however and said the evidence against Cowan was strong.
This story was originally published August 31, 2020 at 2:33 PM.
