Ethan Couch, the “affluenza” teen convicted in a fatal 2013 drunken-driving accident and who was taken into custody last month in Mexico, is headed back to the United States, Mexico’s National Institute of Migration said Thursday.
He departed Mexico City International Airport on Thursday morning, en route to Dallas. He will be received by U.S. authorities and is expected to face charges in the U.S., the institute said.
Texas authorities have expressed outrage that Couch, who got sentenced to 10 years probation but no jail time, had gone AWOL.
The 18-year-old fought his extradition in Mexican courts after he and his mother were nabbed in the Pacific resort city of Puerto Vallarta on December 28, weeks after his probation officer last made contact with him.
But on January 19, his lawyer Scott Brown told reporters that his Mexican counterpart filed a document that would “release an injunction and let the (transfer) process go forward.”
Tonya Couch, the teenager’s mother who was charged with hindering the apprehension of a felon, returned to the United States after the pair’s capture — first to Los Angeles and then to the family’s home state of Texas. She was released from jail on January 12 after posting $75,000 bond, CNN affiliate KTVT reported.
Her son, Ethan, was 16 years old on June 15, 2013, when he drove a pickup into a group of pedestrians on a road in Burleson, south of Fort Worth, killing all four and hitting a parked car. Two people riding in the bed of the teen’s truck were severely injured after being tossed in the crash.
During his trial months later, Couch’s lawyers argued that the teen’s parents shouldered some blame for the crime because they never set limits for their son, giving him everything he wanted. A psychologist who testified for the defense claimed Couch had “affluenza,” suggesting he was too rich and spoiled to understand the consequences of his actions.
Judge Jean Boyd decided after that trial that Couch wouldn’t get jail time, instead sentencing him to probation. She didn’t release him to his parents, though, saying that she’d work to find the teen a long-term treatment facility.
Still, Ethan Couch did end up back with his family. And — after video surfaced on social media showing him at a party where alcohol was being consumed, which would have violated his probation — he ended up in Mexico with his mother.
The U.S. Marshals Service tracked Couch, who turns 19 in April, there using a cell phone linked to him, according to an official briefed on the investigation. They found him with a new look, his reddish blond hair and goatee having been dyed a dark color.
Last week, Brown said in a hearing on Couch’s status as a juvenile that the case shouldn’t be allowed to proceed because there was no proof that Couch “voluntarily absented himself” from being at the hearing.
When asked by CNN whether Couch, the so-called “affluenza” teenager, was taken against his will to Mexico, Brown replied, “I don’t think that’s what I said. As far as Ethan being taken against his will, we are examining the facts, investigating the facts.”
