A six-second video of a game of beer pong has lead to an arrest warrant and  intensive manhunt for Ethan Couch, the famed “affluenza teen” who avoided jail time two years ago for the drunk-driving deaths of four people because he was rich.

New information released in search for “affluenza” teen Ethan Couch. https://t.co/CZNUqUhWT5 pic.twitter.com/oaPyt5QTut

— WPEC CBS12 News (@CBS12) December 21, 2015

Couch, 18, missed an appointment with his probation officer on December 10, leading authorities to issue a warrant for his arrest. Now authorities believe his mother, Tonya, is helping to hide him after he was labeled a missing person on nationwide databases Monday.

The decision to run comes just a few weeks after the beer pong video surfaced on social media, showing Couch partying with others. The video alone isn’t proof of Couch violating his probation since the teen isn’t seen drinking, but an investigation into the incident may have caused him to flee.

ya boy ethan couch violating probation. i got more if u want @CityofBurleson @TarrantCountyDA pic.twitter.com/otiGprQ1uD — h (@BlondeSpectre) December 2, 2015

Couch was 16-years-old when a drunken joyride with his friends ended with him mowing down a young woman changing a flat tire and the three pedestrians who stopped to help her. His lawyer used expert testimony from a psychologist to convince a judge that he was unable to appreciate the consequences of his actions because he suffered from “affluenza,” thanks to a whole lot of money and bad parenting.

Instead of serving jail time, the Texas teen was sentenced to therapy at a long-term in-patient facility and 10 years of probation. But for many, the sentence only perpetuated Couch’s lack of accountability and offered no justice for his victims.

Now authorities are offering a $5,000 reward to anyone with information leading to an arrest. Unfortunately it’s unclear exactly how long he has been at large, and due to the family’s considerable financial resources, the pair could have already fled the country.

The judge that sentenced #ethancouch should be investigated & made to resign. Couch committed mass murder and is now on a beach in Mexico.

— Born2Rezist (@Born2Rezist) December 16, 2015

The whole situation just reeks of irony. A judge avoided a tough sentence that would have held him accountable for four people’s deaths, because he doesn’t have a history of being held accountable. It just doesn’t make sense. If authorities are able to capture Couch and his mother, hopefully they won’t get away with yet another slap on the wrist.

Alexis Evans

Alexis Evans is an Assistant Editor at Law Street and a Buckeye State native. She has a Bachelor’s Degree in Journalism and a minor in Business from Ohio University. Contact Alexis at aevans@LawStreetMedia.com.

The post ‘Affluenza’ Teen Ethan Couch on the Run, Missing Mom Presumed Helping appeared first on Law Street.

As the old adage goes, “don’t do the crime if you can’t do the time.” But for Robert H. Richards IV, heir to the fortune of a chemical company called Du Pont, this age-old rule doesn’t seem to apply.

Back in 2009, Roberts was charged with fourth-degree rape after violating his 3-year-old daughter. He now faces a subsequent lawsuit filed by his wife, who claims he sexually abused his son as well.

Brought to light by this new trial, the details of Richard’s first trial are, to say the very least, troublesome.

Although Richards was initially indicted on two counts of second-degree child rape, which carry a mandatory 10-year jail sentence per count, he was offered a plea deal of one count of fourth degree rape charges – and no mandatory jail time.

Instead of placing him behind bars, Judge Jan Jurden ordered Richards to attend a sex offender’s rehabilitation center, claiming he would “not fare well” in prison.

When I first came across this story, I had to read over that quote twice. Was I missing something? What does that even mean? Last time I checked, prison isn’t typically a place where any person “fares well” – that’s kind of the point. It’s a place where people go to be punished.

In an interview with The News Journal, Delaware Public Defender Brendan J. O’Neill said what we are all thinking:  it’s “extremely rare” for an individual to fare well in prison. “Prison is to punish, to segregate the offender from society, and the notion that prison serves people well hasn’t proven to be true in most circumstances,” he said.

According to O’Neill, while lawyers will often argue that a defendant is too ill or frail for prison, he has never seen a judge cite it as a “reason not to send someone to jail.”

Even if Judge Jurden’s rationale was based on this ill and frail scale, her ruling would still be flawed. At 47 years of age and roughly 250 pounds, Richards certainly isn’t frail. Although it’s clear that anyone who would violate their own child is sick, court records make no mention of physical illnesses.

So why did Richards get away with such a light sentence? Myself, O’Neill, and many other criminal justice authorities in Delaware believe the answer is simple – he, or rather his family, has money.

While one side of Richard’s family built a chemical empire, the other side co-founded the law firm Richards, Layton and Finger, one of the most prominent corporate law firms in Delaware. Needless to say, Richard’s family clearly has influence in the area.

And as for Judge Jurden, she isn’t exactly known as a softy. According to The News Journal, “the fact that Jurden expressed concern that prison wasn’t right for Richards came as a surprise to defense lawyers and prosecutors who consider her a tough sentencing judge.” Jurden’s decision on treatment rather than prison raises even more questions. The “treatment instead of prison” rationale is characteristically used in the sentencing of drug addicts, not child rapists. Additionally, if Jurden was worried about Richard’s safety once in prison – those who abuse children are sometimes targeted by other inmates – protective custody could have easily been arranged.

Looking at the all facts, it’s difficult to see a reason, besides money and family influence, why Richards isn’t behind bars. After all, this wouldn’t be the first time money has appeared to influence a judge’s ruling. In February 2014, Ethan Couch, a boy who drove drunk and killed four people, was sent to rehab rather than prison. The case made headlines after a witness claimed Couch was a victim to “affluenza,” or as CNN puts it: “the product of wealthy, privileged parents who never set limits for the boy.” Although the presiding judge claimed the affluenza defense did not influence her decision, many suspected that had the boy’s financial situation been different, there would have been a very different outcome.

When it comes down to it, it appears as though this is yet another example of the longstanding notion that money and a good lawyer can manipulate the justice system. If Richards hadn’t been a trust fund baby and wasn’t so well-connected, I have a very hard time believing he would have been able to score the deal he did – or pay his $60,000 bail. Amid all these questions, we’re left with just one. If the law doesn’t apply to those with money and a top-notch lawyer, is the system broken? My answer: unequivocally, yes.

[Detroit Free Press] [Huffington Post] [CNN] [Detroit Free Press]

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Matt DiCenso

Feature Image Courtesy of [Victor via Flickr]

Matt DiCenso

Matt DiCenso is a graduate of The George Washington University. Contact Matt at staff@LawStreetMedia.com.

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Happy Thursday, folks! You’re almost there. Breathe with me. Friday’s coming.

In the meantime, let’s get to our biweekly session of bitching about the GOP, shall we? Today, we’re talking about school lunches. And poor kids. And how Rep. Jack Kingston of Georgia is a gigantic asshole.

Here’s what happened. Across the nation, kids from families whose income levels are below 130 percent of the poverty line can receive free school lunches. Kids from families with income levels between 130 and 185 percent of the federal poverty line are eligible for reduced lunch prices. This is news to no one.

Trust me on this. My awesome wife teaches in Newark, one of the poorest cities in New Jersey. Literally all of the kids at her school get free lunch. Free lunch for low income kids is nothing new.

Said no one.

Anyway! Rep. Kingston decided to make news out of something that’s not new — a common talent for many GOP rainmakers. This week, he went on the record saying that poor kids should NOT get free lunch — oh no! The blasphemy!

Instead, he made the following suggestions:

“Why don’t we have the kids pay a dime, pay a nickel to instill in them that there is, in fact, no such thing as a free lunch? Or maybe sweep the floor of the cafeteria — and yes, I understand that that would be an administrative problem, and I understand that it would probably lose you money. But think what we would gain as a society in getting people — getting the myth out of their head that there is such a thing as a free lunch.”

Oh my gosh I CAN’T. I cannot. What are you doing, Rep. Kingston? Really.

Friends is on my level today.

Let’s start with the first and most obvious issue with your solution to a non-problem: children are not possessors of money. They don’t work. That’s what being a child means. So, really, they all get free lunches. Every single one of them. Even the richest of rich kids are getting a free lunch. Because it’s not their money that paid for it. It’s their parents’ money.

Take me for example. I was a solidly middle-class child. My parents, being the health nuts that they are, were not big fans of the idea of me eating mystery meat in my elementary school cafeteria. So, every day, they dutifully packed me a brown bag lunch. I got a peanut butter and jelly sandwich on whole wheat bread and a handful of cookies, virtually every single day. For me, that lunch was free.

I didn’t pay for it. I didn’t even know that food cost money. Or that when my parents went to work, they were paid in money. I kind of just thought working was a thing that grownups had to do — the same way kids had to go to school — and all of the other stuff like food and housing was just magically bestowed upon people who followed the rules.

Baby me did not understand how much this leather jacket probably cost my big sister.

Clearly, I was a naïve child.

But! There was a kernel of truth in my naivety. For me, food really didn’t cost money. It just appeared in my brown bag every day, as if by magic. Nowadays, as a precariously middle-class adult who has to purchase food before it lands in my brown bag (I’m still packing a whole wheat PB&J for work, I’ll admit it), I’m fully aware that food was free when I was a kid.

I’m even more aware of it when my now gray-haired parents take me out for lunch.

My reaction whenever my parents invite me out to dinner.

Anyway! All children get free lunch. They aren’t working the night-shift to pay for their sandwiches. So, your argument is already inherently flawed, Rep. Kingston.

Moving right along. What is this obsession with punishing poor people for being poor? Seriously. The GOP is fixated on it. When you suggest forcing children to sweep the floors in order to earn their lunch, you’re talking about child labor. That’s bad enough, but when you’re only suggesting the poor kids participate, you’re talking about a caste system.

You’re talking about a world where rich kids learn early on that only certain people sweep floors. Namely, not them. You’re teaching them that someone else will always clean up after them. Someone else will always have to beg for their scraps.

Then, you wind up with kids like this boy, who killed 4 people because of pathological rich kid syndrome.

And, you’re teaching the poor kids that they’re the ones who need to beg for those scraps. Because of the social standing of their family — which they have zero control over — poor kids will understand themselves to be inherently less than. That’s a traumatic and debilitating lesson to learn at such a formative age.

Finally, there’s the looming issue at hand — the solution that Rep. Kingston is obviously hinting at, but isn’t explicitly articulating.

He’s saying that it would be better if these kids didn’t get a free school lunch at all. If we HAVE to give it to them, at least make them work for it, he’s saying. But really, his best case scenario is equally expensive lunches for all.

Folks, this is a classic case of a Republican who lacks empathy. It’s an alarmingly common quality among headline-making GOP’ers.

Where my wife teaches, all of the students qualify for free lunch. Every single one of them. These kids are poor. They don’t have the luxury to grow up naïve like I did. They know food costs money because they don’t have any of it. As in, neither food nor money.

For many of her kids, lunch is the only meal they eat. They hardly eat at all on weekends. Why? Because they’re poor. They can’t afford food. And the little food they do have at home, they give to their baby brothers and sisters.

My wife’s students are good kids. They’re smart and loving and talented, and hysterically funny. And they deserve to fucking eat.

So, Rep. Kingston? Shut the fuck up.

Stop talking about child labor, and a (not really) new caste system, and the idea that poor kids shouldn’t be fed lunch on the school’s dime. Stop talking out of your ass, and start feeding some children.

—

Hannah R. Winsten (@HannahRWinsten) is a freelance copywriter, marketing consultant, and blogger living in New York’s sixth borough. She hates tweeting but does it anyway. She aspires to be the next Rachel Maddow.

Featured image courtesy of [Philippe Put via Flickr]

Hannah R. Winsten

Hannah R. Winsten is a freelance copywriter, marketing consultant, and blogger living in New York’s sixth borough. She hates tweeting but does it anyway. She aspires to be the next Rachel Maddow. Contact Hannah at staff@LawStreetMedia.com.

The post GOP to Hungry Kids: You Don’t Work Hard Enough appeared first on Law Street.