HOUSTON — The Texas teen known for using an “affluenza” defense in a fatal drunken-driving crash likely won’t return to the U.S. anytime soon because of a Mexican judge’s decision to delay his deportation Wednesday, but a Mexico immigration official said his mother was being flown to Los Angeles.
Richard Hunter, chief deputy for the U.S. Marshals Service in South Texas, said during a news conference in Houston that a three-day court injunction granted to Ethan Couch likely will take at least two weeks to resolve.
Later in the day, however, the teen’s mother, Tonya Couch, was put on a plane to be flown from Guadalajara to Los Angeles, an official with Mexico’s National Immigration Institute told The Associated Press.
The official, who was not authorized to discuss the case and spoke on condition of anonymity, said the woman was sent to the United States because immigration authorities did not receive a judge’s injunction like the one that temporarily blocked her son’s deportation.
Ethan Couch remained in the custody of immigration officials in Guadalajara.
Authorities believe the 18-year-old Couch, who was sentenced only to probation for the 2013 wreck in Texas, fled to Mexico with his mother in November as prosecutors investigated whether he had violated his probation. Both were taken into custody Monday after authorities said a phone call for pizza led to their capture in the resort city of Puerto Vallarta.
The ruling earlier Wednesday by the Mexican court gives a judge three days to decide whether the younger Couch has grounds to challenge his deportation based on arguments that kicking him out of the country would violate his rights.
Hunter said the legal maneuver basically takes the decision out of an immigration agent’s hands and asks a higher authority to make the deportation decision. He said such cases can take two weeks to several months, depending on the priorities of the local courts.
“It also depends on the fact the Couches have legal counsel. 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. “We’re hopeful that’s not the case. We’re hopeful the Mexican immigration court will make a quick and decisive decision and return the Couches to America.”
During the sentencing phase of Couch’s trial in 2013, a defense expert argued that his wealthy parents coddled him into a sense of irresponsibility — a condition the expert termed “affluenza.” The condition is not recognized as a medical diagnosis by the American Psychiatric Association, and its invocation during the legal proceedings drew ridicule.
“Couch continues to make a mockery of the system,” said Fort Worth, Texas, attorney Bill Berenson, who represented Sergio Molina, who was paralyzed and suffered severe brain damage in the crash.
Couch’s attorneys in the U.S. issued a statement Wednesday saying they couldn’t comment on the case because they weren’t licensed to practice law in Mexico. It wasn’t immediately clear which attorneys were handling the case in Guadalajara.
