POCATELLO — A 37-year-old local man was recently arrested after police say he sexually abused two teenage girls over a span of several years.

Justin Troy Reese, of Pocatello, has been charged with two counts of lewd conduct with a minor under 16 and one count of statutory rape where the victim is 16 or 17 and the defendant is three or more years older, all felonies, according to police and court records the Idaho State Journal obtained Monday.

Reese is accused of having engaged in yearslong relationships with two teenage girls, of which the first case involves allegations he abducted and sexually abused a girl in March 2021 when she was age 15 and he was 32, court records show.

Reese was initially charged with first-degree kidnapping and lewd conduct with a minor under 16, both felonies, in connection to that case in March 2022, but Bannock County prosecutors in August 2025 dismissed it on the eve of trial after being unable to locate the victim.

Prosecutors have since charged Reese with one count of felony lewd conduct in relation to that victim on the heels of police launching a second investigation against him in July 2025 when a second victim reported he raped and sexually abused her during a yearslong relationship that began in 2019 when she was 15, court records show.

The girl first reported the alleged abuse to the Chubbuck Police Department on July 31, 2025, as a continuation of an earlier case, telling investigators she had been sexually abused by Reese, an adult, between October 2019 and August 2021, when she was 15 to 17 years old, according to the police report. She made a separate report to the Pocatello Police Department on Aug. 26, 2025, because some of the alleged abuse occurred in that city, police said.

In October 2025, an officer confirmed with the girl that the information she had already provided was complete and scheduled an appointment to gather more details and possibly conduct a pretext phone call with Reese, according to court records. The girl did not show up for that appointment, the report states.

Around the same time, investigators obtained a flash drive from the Chubbuck Police Department containing text messages, Instagram posts and Snapchat conversations between Reese and the girl, according to the police report. A review of the material in late October found the majority of the messages came from a phone number registered to Reese, police said.

During a follow-up interview in November 2025, the girl told police she and Reese had met online and that he contacted her through several different Instagram accounts, including one using a nickname for her. She said Reese primarily used one account, deleting it or switching to a new one each time she blocked him in an effort to re-establish contact, police said.

The evidence also included several photographs and videos, among them an image the girl said was taken in September 2021 at Reese’s mother’s residence, showing his arm around her with a tattoo on his hand bearing her initials, according to the police report. She also provided a photo from January 2020 showing a hickey Reese had given her, as well as videos from late 2020 showing the two kissing and riding together in the back seat of a vehicle, court records show.

Two recordings of Snapchat video calls from January 2020 showed the girl partially undressed while a voice she identified as Reese’s could be heard making sexually explicit remarks, the police report says

In text messages from a separate phone number, the girl confronted Reese about their relationship, telling him she no longer wanted contact and accusing him of having had a sexual relationship with her since she was 15.

In another message, Reese denied raping her, telling her, “I don’t rape you, I don’t make you do things,” police said.

In January 2026, the girl told police she had received new Snapchat messages from an account using the name “Kai,” in which the sender said he had moved to Ohio and was working there, according to the police report.

When investigators interviewed Reese by phone later that month, he denied knowing the girl or ever having a relationship with her, denied having a tattoo matching the one she described, and suggested the messages and photos could have been faked, according to court records. He also gave investigators conflicting accounts of where he had lived in recent years, at different points saying Ohio, North Dakota and California, police said.

Two witnesses separately told police in late January 2026 that they had personally observed Reese and the girl together while she was a minor. One said she saw Reese groping the girl and pressuring her for sex despite the girl telling him no, the police report says.

The other told police Reese had provided her and the girl with drugs, including methamphetamine, while they were minors, and that she witnessed the two having sex in the back of a car, court records show.

Reese’s mother told police in February 2026 that she was aware of the relationship and believed the girl had misrepresented her age at the time, according to court records.

Investigators later obtained a search warrant for the Snapchat account “Kaironin,” which returned no subscriber information but included a creation IP address that traced to Ironton, Ohio, consistent with Reese’s claim that he had moved there, police said. The case was submitted to the Bannock County Prosecutor’s Office on April 30.

In the older case, the girl went missing from her foster guardian’s home in the early morning hours of March 24, 2021, the police report says. She told a forensic interviewer days later that a man, later identified as Reese, grabbed her near her guardian’s residence, forced her into a vehicle and gave her something to drink that caused her to pass out, police said. She said that when she woke up, she was inside a residence and that Reese was sexually assaulting her, the report states.

The girl told the interviewer she eventually got Reese to stop, ran from the residence and walked home, adding that he threatened to find and kill her if she told anyone, according to the report. She said she had been in contact with Reese through a Snapchat account that was disabled within days of the assault, police said.

Following the most recent investigation, Reese was officially charged this past May and a warrant for his arrest was issued on May 13, court records show.

Reese was arrested on June 25 in Licking County, Ohio, police said. He was extradited back to Pocatello and incarcerated at the Bannock County Jail at 12:30 a.m. Saturday, police records show.

Reese appeared before 6th District Magistrate Judge David A. Hooste for an arraignment hearing via video conference from the Bannock County Jail Monday, where his bond was set at $200,000 and no-contact orders were issued between him and the now-adult victims.

Reese is scheduled to appear in court again on July 21 for a preliminary hearing. Prosecutors will attempt to present sufficient evidence to elevate the case from magistrate to district court for trial.

If convicted, Reese faces up to life in prison and a fine of up to $50,000 on the rape charge, and the same maximum penalty on each of the two lewd conduct charges.