Convicted Windermere sex offender could get new trial

ORLANDO, Fla. — A convicted sex offender who claimed he never raped his young victims will get a new trial.

In 2013, Scott Bush was sentenced to life in prison for raping two girls.

Bush was just granted a new trial after a judge agreed his attorney was ineffective.

The judge wrote that the trial was a credibility contest and said the defense attorney was deficient in his performance.

The judge said there is a reasonable probability that the outcome of that trial could have been different, so she granted a new one almost six years later.

When the Windermere businessman was found guilty, he shook his head, telling his attorney that the conviction was wrong.

The victims told the judge then that Bush had damaged their lives.

"I want to be able to feel like a normal person and not feel messed up and lost," one of the victims said.

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Bush appealed the decision.

The judge said the attorney failed to object when the prosecutors tried to use his position as a former pharmaceutical salesman to suggest he drugged a victim, and claimed he was a genius when it came to the side effects of drugs.

The judge agreed his attorney should have objected.

The judge also granted the new trial because evidence was not presented that could call into question the girls' testimony.

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A person said that one of the girls told them that she did not remember Bush doing anything to them, saying "counsel should have utilized these statements to show the victims were encouraged to lie about the alleged incidents as the trial was a credibility contest."

The judge found these things should have been done and if they had been done, there were a possibly the trial could have ended differently.

"After a conviction, it is rare to be granted a new trial," said Bill Sheaffer, a WFTV legal analyst. "It's even more rare to grant it on a basis of ineffective counsel."

No court date has been scheduled yet because the state may appeal the decision.

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The case took down then-Windermere police Chief Dan Saylor.

At the time, Florida Department of Law Enforcement investigators said Saylor covered up the allegations, and he was then convicted of perjury for lying on the stand in the trial.

In 2014, Saylor was sentenced to eight years in prison for that crime.

Sheaffer said Bush's new trial will not affect Saylor's case.

Cox Media Group