Ex-MLB outfielder Milton Bradley Charged With Spousal Battery

Three years ago, SI detailed Milton Bradley's toxic relationship with his late ex-wife. Now, the former MLB outfielder has been charged with spousal battery against his second wife, Rachel.

Three years ago, Sports Illustrated detailed repeated acts of domestic violence committed by Milton Bradley, the former MLB All-Star outfielder whose tumultuous baseball career ended in 2011. Documented in an array of courts, police reports and sworn testimony, time and again Bradley assaulted and threatened Monique Bradley, the mother of his two children and wife for eight years. In 2013, a jury convicted Bradley on nine counts, including inflicting corporal injury on a spouse, assault with a deadly weapon (a baseball bat), and criminal threats.

During the trial, Milton Bradley denied ever hitting his ex-wife. Bradley’s attorney, Harlan Braun, depicted Monique Bradley as a manipulative woman, who’d married Bradley in order to place herself in proximity to the wealth and trappings conferred on a professional athlete. Both Bradley and Braun asserted that Monique struggled with a drinking problem. 

Shortly after the trial, Monique, age 33, died abruptly. At a 2015 hearing seeking to negate his jail sentence so that he could parent his two sons, Bradley was still adamant that he had been unjustly convicted. Addressing Los Angeles Superior Court Judge Thomas Rubinson, Bradley said, “Ray Rice slaps the hell out of a woman, you know. I didn't do that. I'm not Ray Rice. Greg Hardy beats up a woman. I didn't do that. You know what I'm saying? It's obvious to everyone this is a complete farce.” 

By 2016, Bradley had softened his stance. Asking the court for a sentence reduction, Bradley betrayed contrition, telling Rubinson that he understood the ruling and vowed to “continue to work on myself.... I’m going to prove myself.” The request was denied and Bradley completed his 32-month sentence in 2016.

SI has learned that Bradley has again been charged with spousal battery, this time stemming from an altercation earlier this year with his second wife, Rachel Bradley. On Jan. 28, 2018, court and police documents allege that Milton and Rachel Bradley, who have been married two-and-a-half years, went out to dinner to celebrate Rachel’s birthday. A female friend of Rachel’s accompanied them.

After the meal, the couple had a verbal dispute inside their Uber, which continued when they reached the home the couple shared in Encino. That night, Rachel Bradley told police that her husband grabbed her around the neck and threw her onto the couch.

Rachel’s friend and a babysitter—hired that evening to take care of Milton Bradley’s two sons, ages 8 and 12—witnessed Bradley verbally abusing Rachel, but not physically abusing her. Both said that Rachel Bradley told them about the assault and about being thrown onto the couch. Later, Rachel Bradley recanted her statement, telling police that she had made up the abuse in order to get her husband in trouble. The two witnesses maintain that Rachel Bradley told them she had been assaulted.

According to a DCFS worker assigned to safeguard the Bradley children, Bradley “came in with an attorney and minimized the incident. He said they went to dinner and had been drinking.” He acknowledged that he gathered items in his home that belonged to his wife’s friend and “threw them outside” during the incident.

At the time of the alleged assault, Bradley was still on probation for his criminal conviction for violence against Monique Bradley. He is expected to appear before the judge in that case on Monday, to determine whether the terms of his probation have been violated.