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Ethan Couch Update: Attorney Says Judge Who Sentenced ‘Affluenza Teen’ Never Gave Interview

By Leigh Egan
Published on: 13:16 PST, Feb 25, 2016

The judge who sentenced “affluenza teen” Ethan Couch to probation for killing four people didn’t give an interview to the Daily Mail earlier this month, at least according to her attorney.

The Star-Telegram reports that Roland Johnson, attorney of former judge Jean Boyd, said that his client hasn’t given any interviews at all on the Couch case, despite what the British newspaper Daily Mail published on February 22. Although numerous other media outlets, including the Star-Telegram, picked up the story, originally written by Daily Mail‘s Ruth Styles, the lawyer insists that Boyd hasn’t spoken to anyone about the Ethan Couch case.

“She hasn’t given an interview about this to anyone……She hasn’t talked to the Daily Mail. That’s false and now that falsehood is getting repeated everywhere.”

Boyd was quoted by the Daily Mail as saying, “I had all the facts. Most people don’t. They just don’t understand.”

Recent photos of Boyd accompanied the Daily Mail story, showing her in front of her Texas home, standing in front of a red pickup truck. Yet Johnson said that the photo screams “tabloid,” as they are taken from afar and Boyd looks clearly unamused.

“You look at that photo and it looks like a tabloid photo. That’s not an interview photo.”

Boyd’s husband, John Boyd, also denies that the interview took place. He sent an email to the Star-Telegram stating that the story was “completely fabricated.”

“The reporting is completely fabricated. Apparently, it is really true that when you repeat a lie often enough it is seen as the truth. She would never break her ethical bond by commenting on this case or any other case. Judge Boyd is and has always been dedicated to and driven by her commitment to following the law and applying it fairly and appropriately to all of her decisions — no matter how hard it is…”

This isn’t the first time Daily Mail writer Ruth Styles has been accused of false stories. In 2013, she was blasted for supposedly plagiarizing an entire article on travel. According to numerous Twitter users who called her out, the humor website Cracked originally posted the story. Ruth was accused of copying the article without giving proper credit and not giving her own take on the story.

However, after editors of Cracked learned of Styles’ story, it was determined that one of their own writers actually copied Styles’ article. On August 14, 2013, Cyriaque Lamar wrote a public apology to the Daily Mail, admitting it was a Cracked author who copied the story.

“So we’d like to solemnly apologize to The Daily Mail and Ruth Styles for this editorial oversight. We know plagiarism when we see it.”

So far it’s uncertain if the former judge actually gave an interview to Styles or not, but the sentence that Boyd handed down to Ethan Couch in 2013 caused outrage across the world. Couch, then 16, was convicted of killing four people after he drove drunk and plowed into innocent bystanders on the side of a road in the Fort Worth, Texas, area. Along with killing four people, he also injured numerous others, one of whom now remains paralyzed for life.

Boyd sentenced Couch to 10 years of probation and inpatient therapy for his crime. After handing down the sentence, she told the teen,

“Ethan, you are responsible for what you did, not your parents. The court is familiar with the Texas Juvenile Justice Department [formerly the Texas Youth Commission] and has sent numerous teens to programs there, and sometimes they don’t even get into the program we designated for them.”

In December, 2015, Ethan Couch violated his probation when he fled to Mexico with his mother. He’s now in a Tarrant County, Texas, adult detention center.

[Photo by AP/LM Otero]

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