Former Padres Pick Matt Bush Pleads Guilty

Posted: 07/10/2009
Last Updated: 1414 days ago

Former San Diego Padres draft pick Matt Bush pleaded guilty Friday to assaulting students at a lacrosse practice at Granite Hills High and also admitted reckless driving and vandalism charges in another incident.

Bush, 23, will be sentenced July 21 at the El Cajon Courthouse.

The ex-first-round pick of the Padres pleaded guilty to four counts of misdemeanor battery in the Granite Hills case. He admitted reckless driving with alcohol, vandalism and resisting arrest charges in connection with a June 28 incident in Mission Valley, in which he backed into a parked car.

The pleas came two days after Bush's attorney told Judge Evan Kirvin that the defendant had enrolled in a residential alcohol rehabilitation program.

The Padres released Bush the day after his arrest in the Granite Hills case.

In the Mission Hills case, police said they received a report of a man -- who turned out to be Bush -- throwing objects at passing cars at 1:40 p.m. while standing outside his vehicle. He then climbed into his car and backed it into another vehicle, then drove off and was arrested in the parking lot of the Fashion Valley Mall.

Bush, drafted as a pitcher-shortstop, was with the Toronto Blue Jays until a 23-year-old woman in Florida accused him of throwing a baseball past her head and banging on her car window to scare her in March.

Bush, the overall first pick in the 2004 Major League Baseball Draft out of Mission Bay High School, received a signing bonus of $3.15 million.


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