Judge orders 'affluenza' teen to nearly 2 years in jail
Ethan Couch must spend 180 days in county jail for each of the four people he killed in 2013 when he rammed a pickup truck into a crowd of people helping a motorist
A grand jury on Thursday indicted Tonya Couch, the mom accused of helping the so-called "Affluenza teen" Ethan Couch escape to Mexico while on probation after a deadly drunken-driving crash.
The charges included hindering apprehension and related money laundering.
In April, a judge in adult court ordered Ethan Couch to spend nearly two years in jail: consecutive 180-day sentencess for each of the four people he killed in 2013 when he rammed a pickup truck into a crowd of people helping a driver.
Couch was 16 and his blood-alcohol level was three times above the legal limit for adult drivers when the crash unfolded.
The teen ended up in trouble again late last year after a cellphone video showed him apparently playing beer pong at a party. Drinking alcohol is a violation of Couch's probation. Shortly after the video surfaced, Couch and his mother, Tonya, took off to Mexico.
The two were apprehended in a Mexican resort city in December and sent back to the United States. Prosecutors said Tonya Couch spent up to $150,000 to keep her son out of sight of law enforcement.
It was not his first run-in with the law. At 15, Couch was given two citations after a police officer found him behind the wheel of a pickup truck next to a half-naked girl, with an open vodka bottle on the backseat floor.
During the sentencing in the car crash trial, a psychologist suggested Ethan Couch had "affluenza," blaming the teen's parents for having "taught him a system that's 180 degrees from rational. If you hurt someone, say you're sorry. In that family, if you hurt someone, send some money."
Fox News' Casey Stegall and The Associated Press contributed to this report.
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