Ethan Couch, known as the ‘affluenza’ teen in the United States, was taken into custody along with his mother Tonya Couch on Monday in the Pacific Ocean resort of Puerto Vallarta.
The wealthy Texas teen had been at large after breaking his probation sentence for driving drunk and killing four people in 2013. A psychologist declared in the trial in juvenile court that the boy could not tell right and wrong things apart, since he had always been a spoiled child.
According to CNN, Couch had been serving 10 years probation for intoxication manslaughter. He and his mother entered Mexico by land, as declared by Ricardo Vera, a local officer for Mexico’s national Migration Institute. Vera clarified that none of them had registered when they entered the country. He said that both were supposed to be taken to Houston on a commercial flight on Tuesday from Guadalajara, Jalisco’s capital.
Once they are back in the United States, the mother will face charges for hindering apprehension, whereas the 18-year-old boy will appear in juvenile court, said Tarrant County Sheriff Dee Anderson.
“They had planned to disappear,” Anderson said in a press conference in Fort Worth, Texas. “They even had something that was almost akin to a going-away party before they left town.”
Reagan Wynn, attorney for the Couch family, said in a statement that he had not been able to speak with Ethan and did not expect to have the opportunity until he and his mother were returned to the United States. He declared that for now it would not be “prudent” to make any public comments regarding the situation.
Tarrant County District Attorney Sharen Wilson told journalists on Tuesday that the maximum sentence Ethan, now 18, could face for violating his juvenile probation is imprisonment in a juvenile facility until April 11, 2016, when the boy turns 19. Wilson explained that, even though the DA is willing to transfer Couch’s case to adult court, the measure is not possible because the teenager violated the juvenile system as a juvenile, which is why he will start with a clean slate in the adult probation system.
Source: CNN