Mom of ‘affluenza’ teen didn’t break law, attorney said

Lawyers for a Texas teen who cited “affluenza” as a defense in a deadly drunken-driving wreck may be attempting to stall deportation to the United States by claiming that Mexican authorities violated his human rights.

Couch and his mother, Tonya Couch, 48, were captured in the Mexican Pacific Coast resort city of Puerto Vallarta on Monday.

Tonya Couch, who was needed on a cost of hindering apprehension, was flown out of Mexico and landed in Los Angeles early Thursday.

She is being held without bail in the Metropolitan Detention Center in Los Angeles and faces transfer to Texas, said Los Angeles police spokeswoman Jane Kim.

In 2013, the teen crashed his pickup into a group of pedestrians in Texas and another vehicle, leaving four dead and several seriously injured.

A Texas teenager and his mother won a delay on Wednesday to their extradition from Mexico after fleeing there as US authorities investigated a possible violation of a probation deal that has kept the youth out of prison over a fatal drunken-driving crash.

Ethan Couch was taken to Mexico City late Wednesday, an official said.

In a photo from the Jalisco State Attorney General’s office, Ethan… The condition is not recognized as a medical diagnosis by the American Psychiatric Association, and its invocation during the case drew ridicule.

It was unclear why she was taken to Los Angeles instead of Texas, where she and her son live and where he was on probation for the 2013 crash.

Federal and local authorities referred questions on Tonya Couch’s deportation to US marshals, who led the cross-border hunt for Ethan Couch.

Ricardo Ariel Vera, the representative of Mexico’s immigration institute in Jalisco state, said the mother and son were being held at immigration offices in Guadalajara and would be returned to the United States aboard a commercial flight to Houston.

That likely won’t happen until at least next week.

Authorities began searching for the pair after Ethan Couch missed a mandatory December 10 appointment with his probation officer. Couch’s attorneys argued probation would be more effective than detention because Couch could have been eligible for release in as few as two years.

Tarrant County Sheriff Dee Anderson said he was informed about 8 a.m. Wednesday that the Couches weren’t returning to Texas as planned.

If Ethan Couch’s appeal is unsuccessful, he will be deported back to Texas and be held in a county facility until a probation violation hearing January 19. She is accused of aiding her son to flee to Puerto Vallarta, said Tarrant County District Attorney Sharen Wilson on Thursday. She says a club manager and waiter brought him back to the resort, where she had to wake up his mother to pay his bill.

Ethan Couch’s case would now be topic to immigration proceedings as a result of he entered the nation illegally, however he would finally not have the ability to keep in the nation, stated the Mexican official, who spoke on situation of anonymity.

The Couches had filed an injunction to delay their extradition and a judge in Mexico would have up to 72 hours to consider the injunction, they said. They immediately called the hotel and an employee picked up the gun and wrapped it inside a bathroom carpet and put it in a plastic bag, the employees say.