North Richland Hills Police Department
Fred Couch, father of so-called "affluenza teen” Ethan Couch, was found guilty on Wednesday of impersonating a police officer. The elder Couch, 51, was charged in September of 2014 after falsely identifying himself as a reserve Lakeside police officer, showing a North Richland Hills police officer a shield-style badge and claiming to have his "Lakeside police stuff in the truck." Couch's son, Ethan, is serving two years in a North Texas jail for a drunk-driving crash that killed four. Despite Ethan's defense attorney's efforts to clear him of the charges by invoking the "affluenza" defense, whereby he claimed that Ethan grew up spoiled and did not have the right parenting or discipline to know better, Ethan was given probation and his case was eventually moved from juvenile to adult court. He fled to Mexico in late 2015 with his mother before being brought back to the states.