Officer not guilty in first of 4 sexual abuse cases

A suspended Coconut Creek police officer won his first round in court late Monday when a Broward jury found him not guilty of molesting an aspiring cop during a supposed training exercise two years ago.

Daniel Rush, 28, still faces decades in prison on charges of molesting three underage boys in the spring of 2016.

In the most serious of those cases, a young boy passed a note to another parishioner at Church of Christ in Pompano Beach. According to a police report, the note said Rush had made the boy perform oral sex on him.

That case is pending. Rush is due back in court in July. A trial date has not been set.

The not guilty verdict came in the case of a man who was in his early 20s at about the same time the church case surfaced.

The man told investigators he was an aspiring police officer and childhood friend of Rush’s, and that Rush invited him to Tradewinds Park to practice for a training exercise.

According to a police report, Rush handcuffed the man and began to pat him down, then reached into the man’s pants and fondled him. Rush denied it. During the trial that began late last week, defense lawyer Johnny McCray portrayed the alleged victim as a dishonest opportunist frustrated at his own inability to get a job in law enforcement.

Rush was unwilling to help the man get a job as a cop, McCray said, and the man wanted revenge.

“The morning after this happened, he [the victim] sent a text message to my client asking him for $300,” McCray said.

The jury took less than half