“Affluenza teen” is now a free man.
Ethan Couch walked out of a Tarrant County, Texas jail Monday, days away from turning 21, after serving two years for a parole violation.
Tarrant County deputies ushered Couch through a tunnel to avoid a media scrum awaiting his release, a reporter with NBC affiliate KXAS said. He is currently at a probation office where he’ll be issued his court-ordered ankle monitor.
The spoiled rich kid — who avoided a significant sentence by blaming his upbringing after a drunken joyride killed four people — is reportedly a changed person following years of bratty behavior.
“I haven’t seen arrogance in Ethan in more than nine months,” Tim Williams, a volunteer chaplain who’s spent the last two years visiting Couch, told the Star-Telegram newspaper in Dallas.
Williams’ childhood friend Brian Jennings was one of the four people Couch killed when he drunkenly crashed his red Ford F-350 pickup on the night of June 15, 2013.
The then-16-year-old Couch had a blood alcohol level triple the legal limit the night of the crash.
His release Monday has left Mothers Against Drunk Driving members furious, and the group’s president says the organization is supporting his victim’s relatives.
“As an organization, we’ll be there to serve them if they need us,” MADD President Colleen Sheehey-Church told CBS affiliate KTVT on Sunday. “We’ll continue to watch him because we have a partnership with Tarrant County to make sure that he at least adheres to all his rules of probation when he does get out on Monday.
At Couch’s trial, his high-priced lawyers argued that he wasn’t fully aware he was responsible for his actions.
Couch killed four people when he drunkenly crashed his truck in 2013.
(Tarrant County Sheriff’s Office)
Psychologist G. Dick Miller testified Couch suffered from “affluenza,” which meant he didn’t know right from wrong because he he came from a wealthy, dysfunctional family.
“I wish I hadn’t used that term. Everyone seems to have hooked onto it,” he later told CNN. “We used to call these people spoiled brats.”
Couch was sentenced to 10 years probation after pleading guilty to manslaughter for the four deaths. His family later settled with relatives of all four slain victims.
He was also forced to undergo rehab, which his once-wealthy parents said they were too broke to pay for, kicking it to taxpayers to cover most of the $200,000 stint.
Treatment didn’t seem to take, however, and a tweeted video in 2015 showed Couch playing beer pong, a blatant probation violation.
Instead of meeting with his probation officer, Couch and his mother Tonya — herself arrested Wednesday for reportedly failing a urine test — took off for Mexico, staying on the run for weeks. They were captured in December 2015 after using a cellphone to order Domino’s pizza.
Tonya Couch was extradited and charged with money laundering after draining $30,000 from her bank account, along with hindering the apprehension of a fugitive.
Ethan arrived in the U.S. a few weeks later, where his lawyers initially argued his mom took him there against his will.
A judge didn’t see the escape that way, however, and sentenced Couch to a two-year jail sentence — 180 days for each person killed — beginning in April 2016.
Tonya Couch was arrested days before her son’s release.
(Brandon Wade/AP)
His lawyers made a failed bid in March 2017 to have the Texas Supreme Court to toss his jail sentence.
They argued the judge was out of his jurisdiction to bump Couch’s case up from juvenile to adult court, which the state’s highest court rejected.
Inside jail, he’s been a “model inmate,” Tarrant County Deputy Chief Henry Reyes told ABC affiliate WFAA late last month.
Reyes, whose spokesperson didn’t return a request for comment, added he’d only been in one fight and had just one other write up.
“For somebody here for two years, the number of incidents he has, or hasn’t, been involved with is actually pretty impressive,” he told the news channel.
Williams, a volunteer jail chaplain whose friend was killed in the rampage, told the Star-Telegraph the rambunctious teen wants to change.
“I told him, ‘You realize you owe everybody, right? Don’t smirk,’” he told the newspaper. “I told him he has to be surrounded by healthy influences. I think he’s listening.”
Couch will have some strict rules even when he gets out of jail. He’ll have to wear an ankle bracelet and be home by 9 p.m. every night, according to court records obtained by local media.
And, even though he’ll turn 21 on April 11, he has to wear an alcohol monitor.
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