Texas Teacher Pleads Guilty to Injury to Child - Updated

(McLennan County, Texas)

Former Hallsburg teacher Patricia Rush, previously charged with having an improper sexual relationship with a student, pleaded guilty Friday to an injury to a child charge.

The plea bargain with the attorney general’s office will not require Rush to register as a sex offender and calls for her to receive deferred probation for eight years. If Rush, 40, successfully completes deferred probation, she will not have a conviction on her record.

Rush pleaded guilty to recklessly causing non-specified “mental injury” to the boy.

In exchange for her guilty plea, the attorney general’s office will dismiss eight counts remaining against Rush.

Sentencing by 19th State District Judge Ralph Strother is scheduled for January 13, 2014.

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Texas Teacher Indicted on Multiple Sex Charges - Updated
[Previous 2/23/11 post]
(McLennan County, Texas) Former Hallsburg ISD teacher Patricia Rush, 38, has been indicted by a McLennan County grand jury on multiple counts of aggravated sexual assault, improper relationship between educator and student/sexual contact, indecency with a child, improper relationship between educator and student/deviate sexual intercourse.

Rush was arrested in November 2007 on a warrant charging improper relationship between educator and student, which is a second-degree felony, but she was never indicted and in December 2009, the charges against her were dropped.

The case, however, remained opened and prosecutors said then that charges could be refiled.

And that is what has now happened.

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Texas Teacher Accused of Being Improper with Boy
[Previous 11/3/07 post bumped]
(McLennan County, Texas) A 34-year-old former teacher for the Hallsburg Independent School District, Patricia Rush, was arrested this week for allegedly having an improper relationship with a 13-year-old boy.

Rush has been charged with felony 2nd-degree improper relationship between an educator and student.

The affidavit released Friday says authorities started an investigation after a woman, who was not named, contacted the Sheriff's Office and told an investigator that her son had been spending a lot of time with Rush and said she was concerned that the boy and Rush were "having a sexual relationship."

Investigators interviewed Rush, who told them she "loves him in her heart," the affidavit said.

She said "she has had fantasies about having sex with the victim," and said she had held hands with and had hugged the student, the affidavit says.

Abel Reyna, Rush's attorney, countered by stating that the charges resulted from an allegation and that "she loved the then-13-year-old boy as a friend, not in any romantic sense."

Until this year, Rush was on the faculty in Hallsburg as a certified elementary school and physical education teacher. Hallsburg is a small community outside Waco.

Rush was booked and released on $20,000 bond.