The mother of a Texas teenager, derided over a claim of “affluenza” as a defense for his deadly drunken-driving crash, arrived in the United States on Thursday after deportation from Mexico while her son won a delay in his extradition, officials said.
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“While the public may not like what she did, may not agree with what she did, or may have strong feelings against what she did, make no mistake – Tonya did not violate any law of the State of Texas and she is eager to have her day in court”, Tonya Couch’s attorneys Stephanie K. Patten and Steve Gordon said in a statement released to ABC News.
Tarrant County Sheriff Dee Anderson has said when the teenager returns to the United States he will face a detention hearing in the juvenile justice system. They fled there after officials in Tarrant County, Texas, began an investigation into whether Ethan violated the probation deal that kept him out of prison after he killed four people with his pickup truck in 2013.
Her son, Ethan, is being held in an immigration facility in Mexico City.
Tonya Couch is expected to be sent to the Tarrant County jail in Texas.
According to the Inquisitr, Tonya Couch tried to fight deportation from Mexico, but the paperwork didn’t come in time, and U.S. Marshals came and took her into custody.
“It is our policy to escort the man back to his hotel or to an ATM machine to get our money if they don’t have it with them”, the manager, Eduardo Dudinez, of Harem, the strip club where Couch accumulated his bill, told the the Daily Mail. She’ll ask for a reduction in her client’s million-dollar bond.
Ethan Couch, now 18-years-old, was on probation for killing four people in a drunk driving accident.
She will now be sent back to Texas to face charges of aiding her fugitive son.
Jalisco St. Prosecutor’s Office Ethan Couch remains in Mexico. He was due to meet with a Mexican lawyer Tuesday.
During the sentencing phase of his trial, a defense expert argued that Ethan’s wealthy parents had coddled him into a sense of irresponsibility – a condition the expert termed “affluenza”.
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The diagnosis is not recognised by the American Psychiatric Association and was widely ridiculed. It was resurrected two years later after a short video posted on Twitter shows a teen who appears to be Ethan Couch playing beer pong at a party, which would be a violation of his probation.
