A southern California woman is facing an additional charge of involuntary manslaughter after an 81-year-old man died from his injuries after being struck by the woman’s teen son while he was riding an e-motorcycle, prosecutors said on Friday.
On 16 April, Tommi Jo Mejer’s 14-year-old son was riding a Surron e-motorcycle and doing wheelies when he hit Ed Ashman, according to prosecutors. Ashman, a former captain in the US Marine Corps, was walking home from his job as a substitute teacher at a high school in Lake Forest.
He was critically injured and died on Thursday, and Mejer, of Aliso Viejo in Orange county, was charged with involuntary manslaughter as a result on top of a previous count of felony child endangerment.
“This mother essentially handed her 14-year-old son a deadly weapon, and despite multiple warnings of the dangers, continued to let him illegally ride an e-motorcycle until he finally killed someone,” the Orange county district attorney, Todd Spitzer, said in a statement.
Mejer has not yet appeared in court, and there was no public defender listed in records for her. The district attorney’s office gave the Associated Press the name of a private attorney who may be representing Mejer; that person did not immediately respond to an email seeking comment.
Mejer was also charged with felony accessory after the fact and misdemeanor counts of contributing to the delinquency of a minor and providing false information to an officer. She could be sentenced to up to seven years and eight months in prison if convicted on all counts, prosecutors said.
In June 2025, prosecutors said, Mejer called the sheriff’s department to complain that someone was posting pictures of her son riding the e-motorcycle. In an interaction with deputies that was recorded by body camera, she said she bought the vehicle and “knew that he drove it recklessly”.
She was warned by deputies that she could face criminal charges for letting him ride it illegally, prosecutors said.
A bike is classified as an e-motorcycle under state law if it has an electric motor with more than 750 watts of power or can reach speeds above 20mph (32km/h) without having to pedal. Riders are required to be at least 16 years old and have a motorcycle license.
The boy’s e-motorcycle is the 2025 Surron Ultra Bee capable of reaching a top speed of 56mph (90km/h), according to the manufacturer.
In the hours after the April collision, Mejer told deputies that neither she nor her son owned a Surron e-motorcycle or had access to one, prosecutors said.
The district attorney’s office said it could not discuss whether the boy will face prosecution because it is a juvenile case.
Orange county prosecutors have filed child endangerment charges against three parents this year for letting children ride e-motorcycles illegally. And in Contra Costa county, in northern California, parents were charged after their child crashed into a minivan.
In the past, prosecutions of parents were typically seen in truancy cases since the law specifically mentions their liability, said Lawrence Rosenthal, a law professor at Chapman University.
But parental criminal liability in other circumstances has gained attention in recent years, especially in prosecutions and convictions related to shootings committed by minors.
“This is a very new theory. There’s not a long, robust history,” Rosenthal said.
In the cases involving shootings, prosecutors have to prove that the parent committed some act of “criminal negligence” that led to a death, such as providing access to a gun, according to Rosenthal.
However, the legal theories that were used might be more difficult to prove in e-motorcycle cases, Rosenthal said. Prosecutors will have to show that parents knew the risk of an e-motorcycle when letting their child ride one, and firearms represent a “far easier-to-grasp threat to human life”.
“Is it reasonably foreseeable that a child’s going to kill somebody?” Rosenthal said.
The Associated Press contributed reporting
