Two passengers in the teen’s truck were thrown from the vehicle and seriously injured in the accident. The teen returned to court in February 2014 for intoxication assault charges. He also must seek chemical dependency treatment. However, the judge agreed that the teen would not get the help he needed in prison and instead sentenced him to 10 years of probation, during which he cannot drink alcohol or drive. The judge could have sentenced the teen to up to 20 years in prison. He never had to take responsibility for anything, which meant that he never developed good decision-making skills, leading him down a destructive path that ultimately culminated in the deaths of the four people in the drunk driving accident. He claimed that he was suffering from “affluenza,” meaning that he never learned that his actions had any consequences because his parents always used their wealth to make problems go away. What garnered national attention in the matter was the defense that the teen used to argue against jail time.

In December 2013 the teen pled guilty to manslaughter charges for the deaths of the four pedestrians. The teen’s blood alcohol content at the time of the accident was 0.24 percent. In June 2013, the 16 year-old was driving his pickup with seven passengers in it when it struck an SUV stopped on the side of the road with a flat tire, killing four people standing near the stopped vehicle. On February 5, 2014, the Texas judge declined to give the teen jail time for assault charges stemming from the accident.

In December 2013, a Texas judge made headlines by giving a teen driver who caused a fatal auto accident while intoxicated a sentence of 10 years of probation and chemical dependency treatment. Texas Teen Who Killed Four In Drunk Driving Accident Sees No Prison Time

Record of drunk drivers killed in texas