While “Affluenza Teen” Ethan Couch was walking around free on probation, one of the surviving victims of his 2013 drunken-driving crash that he didn’t kill has been confined to a wheelchair with brain damage and his family trapped in hell.
Sergio Molina was just 15 when a 16-year-old Couch drunkenly mowed down four people by the side of the road. His heartbroken mother, Maria Lemus, said Saturday that her son was left paralyzed from the neck down and only able to communicate by blinking.
The teen did not have health insurance, so he was kicked out of the hospital after just a month, and Maria said the wealthy Couch family coldly refused to help the crippled child even a little bit.
PHOTOS: Bill Cosby’s Night Of Dirty Depravity — Court Document Details!
“We called Ethan Couch’s family, begging for help,” Maria said. “They refused. They say, ‘There’s nothing we can do. Go ahead and call a lawyer.’ I said, ‘But we need the help now.’
“People say we have to die to go to hell. To me, I’ve already been there,” Maria sobbed. “Just because he was there that night doesn’t mean he was the same as Ethan Couch.”
Sergio, in fact, was riding in the bed of Couch’s pickup truck when the crash occurred.
PHOTOS: Paula Jones: Hillary Clinton ‘Allowed’ Husband Bill To Go After Women!
Sergio’s brother, Alex Lemus, also spoke on behalf of the family.
“What you see here today, this is my brother, Sergio Molina. This is how he will live for the rest of his life. Take a look,” Alex said. “Y’all ain’t even gone to my house yet. You haven’t been to my house to see every day what we have to do with my brother in order for him to stay stable like this: Alive. Breathing.
“The reason we are doing this is so you can see that we need help. [The Couch family] got so much money but they can’t pay for nothing,” he charged. “They need to pay. They need to fund something. We need some help. There’s possibilities to get him back.”
PHOTOS: The Most Shocking True Crime Stories Of 2015
In the period immediately following the crash, the Couch family paid nothing — but eventually a settlement was reached and they paid Sergio’s family $2 million.
Maria said the first six months of Sergio’s care ate up $1 million, and the mother of five has had to quit her job to look after him.
As The National ENQUIRER has been reporting, Couch, now 18, received only probation in 2013 because a defense expert convinced the judge that Ethan had been raised in such a wealthy environment of privilege that he didn’t understand right from wrong when — with a blood alcohol level three times the legal limit and pumped full of Valium — he plowed his Daddy’s truck into four strangers at more than 70 mph.
PHOTOS: Pedophiles, Rapists & Worse: The Biggest Sex Scandals Of 2015
The smug teen is suspected of violating even that light sentence after allegedly appearing in a college beer pong video. Couch and his mother, Tonya, allegedly fled to Mexico to avoid a hearing, but they were captured and returned to the United States.
A Texas judge last Friday sent Couch’s case to the adult system instead of juvenile court. However, Couch still faces only another light penalty there: just 120 days for violating his probation.
Any further violations, however, could result in a prison sentence of up to 40 years!
