The woman who fled to Mexico with her son, who is wanted for a probation violation in the so-called “Affluenza case,” was flown to Los Angeles and likely will remain behind bars here over the New Year’s weekend, awaiting extradition to Texas.
Tonya Couch, 38, was deported from Mexico, escorted by U.S. Marshals, said Dave Oney of the U.S. Marshal Service. She was booked into the Metropolitan Detention Center at 1:37 a.m. and was being held with no bail, according to the sheriff’s department, which runs L.A. County’s jails.
Couch will stay in the jail until deputies from the Tarrant County Sheriff’s Department in Texas come to get her, said Officer Norma Eisenman of the Los Angeles Police Department’s Media Relations Section.
Tarrant County Sheriff Dee Anderson announced on Twitter that Couch will not be transported today, adding that “move may be days from now.”
Couch and her 18-year-old son, Ethan, were arrested in Puerto Vallarta, Mexico, Monday in connection with Ethan Couch’s alleged probation violation stemming from a deadly drunken-driving crash in Texas. Lawyers for the teen — who was 16 at the time of the crash that killed four people — successfully argued in 2013 he should not go to prison because he suffered from growing up in affluent circumstances.
Couch missed a required check-in with Texas authorities earlier this month after video surfaced showing up at a party where drinking was going on.
Ethan Couch has been granted a stay in his deportation case while the legal process in Mexico runs its course, according to his Texas attorneys.
—Staff and wire reports