DALLAS — Ethan Couch was released from jail Friday afternoon, one day after Tarrant County authorities said he violated the terms of his probation by failing a drug test.
Couch, the 22-year-old “affluenza teen,” spent nearly two years behind bars after he killed four people in a June 15, 2013, crash while driving drunk and has been on probation since his April 2018 release from custody.
The Tarrant County district attorney’s office said in a statement Friday that Couch had a “weak positive” THC result on a drug patch he wore for monitoring purposes and that probation officers “did not have confidence in the result.”
Couch denied using marijuana, court documents show.
“Until final testing, we cannot tell if the patch result was actually THC,” District Attorney Sharen Wilson said in the statement. “We cannot tell whether the ‘weak positive’ was caused by legal CBD oil or illegal marijuana.”
Couch has been required to wear a drug-test patch as a condition of his probation after he was released from jail in 2018.
Wilson said her office would file a motion to revoke probation if it obtained proof Couch had used drugs.
Court filings show that a community supervision officer wanted to prohibit Couch from shaving his head so that a follicle test could be performed, but that requirement did not appear in an updated list of bond conditions. State District Judge Wayne Salvant did reinstate electronic monitoring, a condition Couch had been released from last year.
The 2013 crash killed Hollie Boyles, 52; Shelby Boyles, 21; Brian Jennings, 41; and Breanna Mitchell, 24. Two teenagers riding in the bed of Couch’s Ford F-350 — Sergio Molina and Soliman Mohmand — were seriously injured, and seven other people suffered minor injuries.
Couch’s blood alcohol content was 0.24% — three times the limit for adults to legally drive — and he was going about 70 mph in a 40 mph zone when he lost control of the pickup, authorities said.
The teenager was charged with four counts of intoxication manslaughter, and the case drew national headlines — and outrage — after a psychologist testified that he suffered from “affluenza” because his dysfunctional relationship with his wealthy parents had destroyed any sense of personal responsibility he may have had.
He was sentenced to rehab and 10 years of probation in 2014.
More than a year later, in December 2015, a video posted on Twitter purported to show Couch breaking the terms of his probation by attending a party where alcohol was available. He then missed a meeting with his probation officer, and he and his mother, Tonya Couch, fled to Mexico.
The pair were apprehended in the resort town of Puerto Vallarta later that month after they used a cellphone to order pizza from Domino’s and authorities were able to track their location.
The Couches were extradited to the United States, and Ethan Couch’s case was moved to the adult court system when he turned 19. Salvant sentenced him to 720 days in jail — 180 days for each of the people he had killed.
Tonya Couch, who faces charges of hindering the apprehension of a fugitive and money laundering, has been in and out of custody since her return to Texas.
