FORT WORTH
— A Tarrant County judge told affluenza teen Ethan Couch he’ll remain in jail for 180 days for each of the four people he killed in a drunken driving crash three years ago.
That means he won’t be free until 2018, unless his attorneys change State District Judge Wayne Salvant’s mind.
“Nothing I do is in stone, so I might reconsider” Salvant told the bearded teen, who donned a red jail suit and shaggy hairstyle Wednesday.
The judge is expected to issue a final ruling in two weeks.
Couch was considered a juvenile until Monday, when he turned 19 and his case was officially transferred to the adult court system.
Salvant could have tightened restrictions on the teen, said the his probation terms as an adult would remain “consistent” with the conditions he faced as a juvenile, Salvant said.
Upon his release, Couch will not be able to drive, take drugs or consume alcohol. He will also need to seek employment and submit proof of it to his probation officer, Salvant said.
There is one significant change, though: Salvant ruled that Couch would be jailed for 180 days on each of the four convinctions of intoxication manslaughter he was convicted of in 2013.
But, Salvant said, the attorneys involved in the case will get the opportunity to “convince me that I’m wrong or tell me something else that I might need as far as probation.”
Couch’s father, Fred Couch, and half-brother Steven McWilliams were in the courtroom with other relatives during the hearing. They declined to talk to the media after the hearing.
On the opposite side of the courtroom sat Alex Lemus, the brother of Sergio Molina. Molina was paralyzed in the crash and still requires around-the-clock care. Lemus declined to comment after the judge made his ruling.
Ethan Couch was shown to his seat in a Fort Worth courtroom by Tarrant County Sheriff Dee Anderson. (NBC5)
Ethan Couch was 16 in June 2013 when he got drunk at a party and struck a group of people, killing four and injuring others. A psychologist testified that he suffered from “affluenza” because of his family’s wealth and a dysfunctional relationship with his parents.
As a result, Couch was given probation, a sentence that sparked outrage among the public. He returned to the headlines late last year after he was accused of violating the terms of his probation and fleeing to Mexico as authorities investigated those allegations.
Couch was later tracked to the Mexican resort town of Puerto Vallarta, where he and his mother were arrested in December. Both were returned to Tarrant County to face charges.
Salvant is handling Couch’s case and the case of his mother, Tonya. She is accused of fleeing with him to Mexico while authorities were investigating a viral video that appeared to show him at a party where alcohol was being served.
Salvant has sealed documents from Ethan Couch’s juvenile proceedings so the public will not have access to them.
The judge has also forbidden prosecutors and defense attorneys from making public comments on the case.
He said the gag order is in place because Ethan Couch’s case is directly tied to his mother’s, who has yet to be indicted on a charge of hindering apprehension.
But that hasn’t kept the county sheriff from talking about the case.
Tarrant County Sheriff Dee Anderson told reporters on Wednesday that Couch has been compliant so far with the jail staff at the Lon Evans Corrections Facility in downtown Fort Worth.
The 19-year-old is kept in isolation at the facility for his own safety, away from other inmates who might want to harm him, Anderson said.
He spends 23 hours of the day alone in his jail cell and only gets an hour of free time.
“I do think that it’s having an impact on him,” Anderson said. “I do believe that he is not the same person he was when he came in.”