She will be arraigned on Friday on a charge of hindering the apprehension of a felon – her son, Ethan Couch.
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The judge said another hearing will take place on Monday in regards to Couch’s bail, which has been set at $1 million.
During the arraignment in a Fort Worth courtroom, Tonya Couch stood in front of Judge Wayne Salvant in a yellow prison uniform as he read the criminal complaint against her and explained Couch’s rights to her.
Ethan Couch used an “affluenza” defense in a drunken driving crash in 2013 that killed four people, but was not given any jail time. They’d been gone for nearly a month, having ditched North Texas following discovery of a video that apparently showed Ethan Couch playing beer pong on Twitter and a missed probation appointment.
Afterward Couch’s attorney, Stephanie Patten, said she had concerns that Anderson had talked with her client about her passport.
She also disclosed to Salvant that she and Fred Couch are still married.
“She expressed a slight displeasure about her accommodations, and I told her this was a jail and not a resort”, Tarrant County Sheriff Dee Anderson said at a news conference.
The charges against Tonya Couch are all felonies.
Tonya Couch was escorted on an American Airlines flight by two sheriff’s deputies after being picked up from a Los Angeles County jail, according to Terry Grisham, executive administrator for the Tarrant County Sheriff’s Office in Texas. Her arraignment scheduled for this morning.
Ethan Couch is now sitting in a jail fighting efforts to extradite him to Texas. The judge said she was tied up in traffic. According to WFAA 8 (ABC), Anderson said he told her, “it’s jail, not a resort”.
Officials from Los Angeles and Tarrant counties were not immediately available for comment.
Tarrant County prosecutors asked for the teen to be sentenced to 20 years in a state lockup, but defense attorneys argued that he would be better served in a rehabilitation facility.
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Patten later issued a statement criticizing the public manner in which Anderson has handled the case and questioning why he spoke to Couch in court without her attorney present.
