{"id":295670,"date":"2026-05-01T22:34:08","date_gmt":"2026-05-01T22:34:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/295670\/"},"modified":"2026-05-01T22:34:08","modified_gmt":"2026-05-01T22:34:08","slug":"o-c-teens-mom-charged-in-e-bike-crash-that-killed-81-year-old","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/295670\/","title":{"rendered":"O.C. teen’s mom charged in e-bike crash that killed 81-year-old"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

An Orange County mother faces an involuntary manslaughter charge in the death of an 81-year-old man who died weeks after her son allegedly struck him with an electric motorcycle<\/a>. <\/p>\n

Ed Ashman, 81, died Thursday, two weeks after a 14-year-old boy doing wheelies on an e-motorcycle near a high school hit him, causing critical injuries, the Orange County District Attorney\u2019s office said. <\/p>\n

Ashman, a Vietnam veteran and captain with the U.S. Marine Corps, had been walking home from his job as a substitute teacher at the school. <\/p>\n

The boy\u2019s mother, Tommi Jo Mejer, 50, of Aliso Viejo, was arrested days after the accident and charged with child endangerment, accessory after the fact, contributing to the delinquency of a minor and providing false information to a peace officer. <\/p>\n

After Ashman died, prosecutors added an involuntary manslaughter charge. She faces up to seven years and eight months in prison if convicted on all counts, prosecutors said. <\/p>\n

Orange County sheriff\u2019s deputies had previously warned Mejer that she could end up being charged criminally if she allowed her son to ride an electronic motorcycle. The devices require a motorcycle license to use, and riders must also be 16 or older. The boy\u2019s electric motorcycle was a 2025 Surron Ultra Bee, advertised by Surron<\/a> as capable of reaching a top speed of 56 mph. <\/p>\n

Orange County Dist. Atty. Todd Spitzer has vowed to prosecute parents who allow their children to ride e-motorcycles, or modify e-bikes to function as such, calling the devices a \u201cloaded weapon.\u201d Mejer is the third parent Spitzer\u2019s office has charged this year for allowing their children to ride electric motorcycles illegally. <\/p>\n

\u201cAn American hero who survived flying combat missions in Vietnam could not survive walking across the street in Lake Forest because of a 14-year-old child who was allowed to ride an E-Motorcycle that he should have never been riding,\u201d Spitzer said in a statement. \u201cIf parents aren\u2019t going to hold their children accountable, then I am going to hold parents accountable for hurting and killing innocent people while riding illegal motor vehicles.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"An Orange County mother faces an involuntary manslaughter charge in the death of an 81-year-old man who died…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":282910,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[36],"tags":[51393,163,165,164,8825,3409,94616,125528,125530,951,125529,121463,346,74802,7087,7214,61851,72],"class_list":["post-295670","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-anaheim","tag-81-year-old","tag-anaheim","tag-anaheim-headlines","tag-anaheim-news","tag-boy","tag-child","tag-e-motorcycle","tag-ed-ashman","tag-electric-motorcycle","tag-high-school","tag-manslaughter-charge","tag-mejer","tag-office","tag-orange-county-mother","tag-parent","tag-prosecutor","tag-vietnam-veteran","tag-year"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/295670","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=295670"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/295670\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/282910"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=295670"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=295670"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=295670"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}