Ex-Football Player to Face Additional Charges

SANTA CLARITA —  A former Canyon High School football player charged last month with slipping out of custody after his preliminary hearing on bank robbery charges was held Tuesday to answer to additional charges, including escape and burglary.

Newhall Municipal Judge Darlene Ulfig ruled there was sufficient evidence against Eddie James Pugh IV, 20, for him to stand trial in Superior Court on multiple felonies.

That decision follows a ruling last month in which Pugh was ordered to stand trial in connection with a Canyon Country bank robbery.

It was just after that court appearance that Pugh, wearing a county-issued jumpsuit, escaped from the secured bus-loading area attached to Newhall Municipal Court, authorities said.

Deputies mounted a search for the one-time football player, who was later found walking away from a condominium complex in blue shorts, a polo shirt and loafers, not more than 500 yards from where he escaped, sheriff’s officials said.

If convicted, Pugh faces his second and third strikes and a possible term of 25 years to life in state prison, according to authorities.

Pugh had a 1996 conviction for attempted carjacking, stemming from the holdup of a pizza deliveryman in Van Nuys in 1995.

He also was arrested by Los Angeles County sheriff’s deputies in Santa Clarita and later convicted of possession of a sawed-off shotgun, authorities said. Most recently, deputies said, Pugh was accused of committing the bank robbery in Canyon Country with help from his 19-year-old cousin, Georgina Greene.

Nobody was hurt in the holdup, in which the assailants fled in a 1989 Nissan Maxima, then abandoned it in a nearby parking lot.

Witnesses later told deputies they had seen a U-Haul truck flee the scene. The suspects were tracked down on Soledad Canyon Road near Shangri-La Drive.