Deportation delayed as Couch wins amparo

Tonya Couch, who with her son Ethan was captured Monday in Puerto Vallarta, Mexico, was deported Wednesday evening and booked into the Los Angeles County Jail.

The son, who had been held with her at a migration facility in Jalisco’s capital, Guadalajara, was transferred to Mexico City in a van that arrived early Thursday.

When Fred and Tonya Couch divorced in 2006, the court ordered psychological evaluations of both parents and Ethan, their only child. Couch, the Texas teenager known for using an “aff…”

Ethan Couch is still being held in a Mexican lockup after filing a writ of amparo, which sends the case to immigration court. A photo distributed by the Jalisco state prosecutor’s office shows him in detention with his blond hair dyed black and his normally blondish beard now brown.

(AP Photo/Doraliz Terron Moreno).

“Fred Couch has been cooperating with officials from the Tarrant County District Attorneys Office and the U.S. Marshals Service in their search for Ethan”, the statement from Lance Evans reads, according to ABC News.

A fugitive United States teenager on Wednesday won a three-day delay from deportation from Mexico where he was detained weeks after fleeing probation imposed for a deadly drunk-driving crash in Texas.

How long do you think Tonya Couch will be kept in prison for helping her son go on the run?

The infamous “affluenza” teen and his mother had a gun with them as they hid out in a Mexico resort, two staff at a Puerto Vallarta hotel told Reuters.

A teen fugitive who’s known for using an “affluenza” defense and his mother attempted to disguise themselves and disappear among the American tourists thronging a Mexican resort city for the holidays, but are now in custody and will be returned to the USA, authorities said Tuesday.

At one point Wednesday, it was believed that she would be granted a temporary stay of deportation but a Mexican immigration official has now told ABC News that officials never received the necessary paperwork to allow for her deportation to be delayed.

Los Angles prosecutors say that won’t happen until at least next week. Officials haven’t introduced a date for the transfer and there’s no scheduled courtroom look in Los Angeles for the mother, Kim stated.

Earlier, Ethan Couch’s attorneys filed a petition in court to block his deportation process for 72 hours, but no such legal manoeuvre appears to have been made for his mother, who faces a USA arrest warrant on charges of “hindering an apprehension”, which is punishable by two to 10 years in prison.

Mexican authorities and the U.S. Marshals service were coordinating their return, which was slated for today. Ethan Couch was on probation for vehicular manslaughter after killing four people and injuring more. He was sentenced to probation.

At the time, many were outraged that a judge sentenced him to probation instead of jail time, slamming his now-notorious affluenza defense.

Tonya and Ethan Couch fled to Puerto Vallarta, Mexico, as prosecutors investigated whether the 18-year-old had violated his probation.

Authorities began searching for the pair after Ethan Couch missed a mandatory December 10 appointment with his probation officer. “And it seems to me, if they wanted to, they could pay them as much money as they want to drag this thing out”, Hunter said.

“It also depends on the fact the Couches have legal counsel”, Hunter said.