US ‘affluenza’ defendant released

ATEXAN from a wealthy family who used “affluenza” as a defence for a deadly drunk-driving crash was sent home on Monday after two years in jail.

Ethan Couch, imprisoned for a 2013 accident that killed four people when he was a teenager, was released from custody in the afternoon, Tarrant County Sheriff’s spokesman David McClelland said.

“He went over to supervision, which is our probation,” McClelland said. Couch’s lawyers told ABC News that he would serve six years’ probation.

The then-16-year-old son of millionaire parents crashed his pickup truck into a group of pedestrians and another vehicle.

He made headlines when a psychologist testifying on his behalf claimed that the teen suffered from “affluenza”.

The term, coined from affluence and influenza, implied that financial privilege made the teenager unable to understand the consequences of his actions.

At the time of the crash in

Texas, Couch had a blood-alcohol level nearly three times the legal limit for an adult. He pleaded guilty to four counts of intoxication manslaughter. Prosecutors had sought a 20-year prison term, but a juvenile court handed Couch a sentence of mental health treatment and a decade of probation.

The sentence caused outrage among many Americans, who considered it too lenient.