‘Affluenza’ teen’s mom appears in Texas court

FORT WORTH, Texas The mother of a Texas teenager, ridiculed for his “affluenza” defense in the killing of four people while he was driving drunk, is to be arraigned in a Fort Worth court on Friday on a charge of helping her son flee to Mexico after he was suspected of violating probation.

Judge Salvant told Couch to come back Monday for a motion to reduce her $1 million bond.

If she makes bail, she’s required to wear an ankle monitor, turn over her phone numbers, live at one address and surrender her passports.

Her attorney, Stephanie Patten, did not make the arraignment portion of the hearing because she was stuck in traffic. He replied, “This is a jail, not a resort”.

Tarrant County Sheriff Dee Anderson told reporters at a news conference that Couch had complained about the conditions of her jail cell, to which he responded by saying it “is a jail, not a resort”. Couch’s attorney has requested a bond reduction.

Couch and her son were arrested December 28 in Puerto Vallarta, Mexico, in connection with his alleged probation violation stemming from a deadly drunken- driving crash in Texas.

Tonya Couch is taken by authorities to a waiting vehicle after arriving at Los Angeles International Airport, Thursday, Dec. 31, 2015, in Los Angeles.

Couch remains behind bars in Mexico, but his mother has been returned to Texas to face charges of hindering the apprehension of a felon.

Ethan Couch is in a Mexican immigration detention facility while he fights deportation, which could take months. Sheriff Dee Anderson told KDFW 4 (Fox) that this was the first time in his career he personally escorted a prisoner to jail to ensure everything “went well” in the process “with the eyes of the world upon us”.

The Couches are in all of this legal trouble because they fled the United States after Ethan violated his parole.

He nor his mother had any cash to pay the remainder of the bill so he gave the waiter his Rolex watch as a guarantee that he would repay his $345 debt the next day, ABC News reported.

Tonya Couch, 48, and her 18-year-old son, Ethan Couch, have been the objects of derision since Ethan was sentenced to probation, rather than jail time, for the 2013 wreck. His defense attorneys claimed that the teen, then 16-years-old, was the victim of “affluenza”, an inability to distinguish right from wrong based on his affluent upbringing.