California prosecutors charge parents as e-motorcycle crashes kill children and bystanders

Orange County, California, prosecutors have charged a dozen parents so far this year with crimes including child endangerment and involuntary manslaughter after their children crashed high-powered electric motorcycles, part of a prosecutorial strategy that a national CBS News report published Thursday evening says is spreading as the vehicles kill and injure children and bystanders across the country.

The approach, pursued aggressively by Orange County District Attorney Todd Spitzer, treats parents as criminally responsible when they buy or allow their children to ride "e-motos" — motorized two-wheelers that resemble bicycles but can reach highway speeds — even though the children themselves are largely shielded from serious prosecution under California juvenile law. The most recent case involves Benson Nguyen, a 13-year-old from Santa Ana who died in May after losing control of his e-moto and crashing into a light pole in Garden Grove; his father and mother were charged with child endangerment, and both are due to be arraigned Nov. 12.

Three cases, one prosecutorial theory

Nguyen had been riding at speeds topping 40 mph, running red lights and performing stunts in the moments before the crash, according to police accounts cited by Fox 11 Los Angeles. His father, Vu Thanh Nguyen, 56, faces a felony child endangerment count and a misdemeanor count of contributing to the delinquency of a minor, exposing him to as much as six years in state prison; his mother, Hong Cuc Thi Nguyen, 49, faces a single misdemeanor count. Investigators allege the father bought his son a faster e-moto despite repeated warnings about his reckless riding, a detail local reporting says prosecutors viewed as central to the charges.

The Nguyen case followed two others that drew wider attention. In April, prosecutors charged Tommi Jo Mejer, 50, of Aliso Viejo, after her 14-year-old son allegedly struck 81-year-old Ed Ashman — a Vietnam veteran, former Marine Corps captain and substitute teacher — while doing wheelies on a Surron Ultra Bee electric motorcycle near El Toro High School in Lake Forest. Ashman died roughly two weeks later, and prosecutors added an involuntary manslaughter count to the felony child endangerment and accessory-after-the-fact charges Mejer already faced, according to Fox 11 Los Angeles's coverage of her case — exposure reported at up to seven years and eight months in prison if she is convicted on all counts. Investigators allege Mejer had been warned months earlier about her son riding the same machine.

A third case involves Richard Eyssallenne of Yorba Linda, charged after his 12-year-old son suffered a skull fracture, a broken leg and internal bleeding when he ran a red light on a modified e-moto and was struck by a car, according to NBC Los Angeles. Prosecutors allege Eyssallenne had removed the vehicle's speed governor so it could reach roughly 60 mph, and that he took his sons to a police-run e-bike safety presentation months before the crash. He has pleaded not guilty.

"Parents who buy their child an E-motorcycle and let them ride them illegally or help modify e-Bikes to transform them into E-motorcycles are handing their children a loaded weapon — and those parents are going to be prosecuted. That is not a threat. That is a promise."

A classification written into the vehicle, not the label

The prosecutions turn on a distinction in California law that owners and parents frequently misunderstand. Under the state's vehicle code, a two-wheeler stops counting as a bicycle — and becomes a motorcycle requiring a license, registration, insurance and, for most riders, a minimum age of 16 — once its motor exceeds 750 watts, its top speed on motor power alone exceeds 20 mph, or it lacks fully operable pedals. Devices such as the Surron Ultra Bee are marketed for off-road use but are frequently ridden on streets and sidewalks; the model involved in the Mejer case is rated at roughly 58 mph and produces many times the power legally permitted for an e-bike.

The county's own numbers help explain the office's urgency. In an announcement of its first buyback event, held at Angel Stadium in September, the district attorney's office said e-bikes and e-motos had become "the number one reason Orange County children are admitted to the emergency room," with injuries rising 430% over the prior four years across Southern California. The event, modeled on gun buyback programs, offered gift cards of $200 to $1,000 for surrendered devices. The district attorney's office told CBS News that e-bikes and e-motos have now been linked to more than 125 deaths and tens of thousands of injuries nationwide.

Washington begins to weigh in

The phenomenon is not confined to Orange County, and federal regulators and lawmakers have started responding. The U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission's Micromobility Information Center has flagged rising emergency-room visits and deaths tied to e-bikes, e-scooters and similar devices, though the agency's public materials stop short of separating ordinary e-bikes from the far more powerful e-motos at the center of the California cases. In July, four members of Congress — Democratic Reps. Jared Huffman and Dave Min of California and Republican Reps. Michael Lawler of New York and Brian Fitzpatrick of Pennsylvania — sent the CPSC a bipartisan letter urging the agency to write a separate federal safety standard for e-motos, require labels disclosing top speed and minimum age, and help local governments track injuries. The letter cited CPSC injury-surveillance data showing e-bike and e-moto injuries rose nearly tenfold between 2019 and 2022 even as sales merely quadrupled, and noted that a single Orange County children's hospital treated one pediatric e-bike patient in 2021 and more than 220 in 2025.

"Parents should not have to become product safety experts just to know what they are buying for their kids," Rep. Min said in the release announcing the letter, which pointed to his previously introduced Safe SPEEDS Act as a model for a national regulatory framework. No CPSC rulemaking specific to e-motos had been finalized as of this week.

For now, the practical response is playing out case by case in Orange County courtrooms. Mejer's prosecution continues, as does Eyssallenne's; both have pleaded not guilty to the felony counts against them. Vu Thanh Nguyen and Hong Cuc Thi Nguyen are scheduled to be arraigned next month, and the district attorney's office has said it expects to bring additional charges as more crashes are investigated. Spitzer has framed the prosecutions explicitly as a deterrence message to parents rather than an attempt to punish grieving families, telling CBS News there "has to be consequences" when a child is handed what he has repeatedly likened to a weapon.