Aliso Viejo Mother Charged with Felony Child Endangerment After Vietnam Veteran Critically Injured When He Was Hit by Woman’s 14-Year-old Son Illegally Riding an E-Motorcycle[...]

Aliso Viejo Mother Charged with Felony Child Endangerment After Vietnam Veteran Critically Injured When He Was Hit
by Woman's 14-Year-old Son Illegally Riding an E-Motorcycle 16 Times More Powerful than E-Bike
Orange County District Attorney Todd Spitzer warns parents he will
prosecute them to the fullest extent of the law when they allow their children
to ride illegal motor vehicles and endanger their safety and the safety of others.

SANTA ANA, Calif. - An Aliso Viejo mother who had been repeatedly warned of the dangers of continuing to allow her middle school son to illegally ride an E-motorcycle has been charged with felony child endangerment and felony accessory after the fact of a crime after her 14-year-old son hit and critically injured an 81-year-old Vietnam veteran while the boy was doing wheelies on an E-motorcycle in Lake Forest. The victim remains hospitalized in critical condition.

Since January, the Orange County District Attorney's Office has filed child endangerment charges against three parents for allowing their children to illegally ride E-motorcycles, including against a Yorba Linda father whose 12-year-old son was critically injured after he ran a red light and was hit by a car while riding an E-motorcycle which had been modified to go up to 60 miles per hour, after the boy and his father had been warned about the dangers of children riding E-motorcycles illegally. He faces a maximum sentence of six years in state prison if convicted on all counts.

Tommi Jo Mejer, 50, of Aliso Viejo, has been charged with one felony count of child endangerment, one felony count of accessory after the fact to a crime, one misdemeanor count of contributing to the delinquency of a minor, one misdemeanor count of loaning a motor vehicle to an unlicensed driver, and one misdemeanor count of providing false information to a peace officer. She faces a maximum sentence of six years and eight months in state prison if convicted on all counts.

Mejer was arrested by the Orange County Sheriff's Department on Tuesday at the Lamoreaux Justice Center in Orange.

On Thursday, April 16, 2026, around 4 p.m., Orange County Sheriff's deputies were called to respond to Toledo Way and Ridge Route Drive, which borders El Toro High School, for a pedestrian hit by an E-motorcycle.

The victim, later identified as an 81-year-old substitute teacher and captain in the United States Marine Corps who flew combat missions in Vietnam, was critically injured after being hit by a teenage boy doing wheelies in the middle of the street. The rider of the Surron E-motorcycle left the scene of the collision.

In June 2025, Mejer called the Orange County Sheriff's Department to complain that someone was posting pictures of her then-13-year-old son riding an E-motorcycle. During a 28-minute interaction with two Orange County Sheriff's deputies captured on body worn camera, Mejer admitted that she purchased her son a Surron E-motorcycle and knew that he drove it recklessly. The deputies warned her that she could face potential criminal charges if she continued to allow him to ride the E-motorcycle which he could not legally ride.

Riders of Class 3 E-motorcycles must be 16 years of age and possess a motorcycle license.

A law enforcement inspection of the 2025 Surron Ultra Bee, the vehicle involved in last week's collision, revealed the vehicle is classified as a motor-driven cycle under CVC section 405 or a motorcycle under CVC section 400. Both classifications require a valid motorcycle license for street operation, as well as DMV registration, license plate, insurance and full motorcycle equipment. Without complying with these requirements, the only approved use of this E-motorcycle is either on private property or properly registered as Off-Highway Vehicle (OHV) areas.

The Surron Ultra Bee is marketed as an off-road E-motorcycle capable of going up to speeds of 58 miles per hour and accelerating from 0-31 miles per hour in 2.3 seconds. With a peak power of 12.5kW, the output of a Surron Ultra Bee is 16 times more powerful than what is legally allowed for an E-bike.

Hours after the collision, Mejer is seen on body worn camera repeatedly telling Orange County Sheriff's deputies investigating the injury crash that neither she nor her teenage son own a Surron or have access to one.

California law distinguishes between e-bikes and E-motorcycles based on three main features: the power limit of its motor, its maximum speed limit, and whether it is equipped with operable pedals. Electric bicycles with Class 1 or Class 2 designations do not have rider age or licensing restrictions; e-bikes with Class 3 designations require riders to be aged 16 or older.

Generally, an electric bike that does not qualify as Class 1, 2 or 3, will be classified as an electric motorcycle. That means either that the bike has an electric motor that exceeds 750 watts of power or can reach speeds higher than 20-mph on motor power alone. Additionally, if the bike is not equipped with fully operable pedals, or if it has been modified to reach speeds higher than 20-mph or to attain power higher than 750 watts, the bike cannot be designated an electric bike and instead would be considered an E-motorcycle.

Per Welfare and Institutions Code Sections 827 and 828, the District Attorney's Office is prohibited from disclosing the name of juveniles involved in criminal investigations or discussing juvenile investigations.

"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," said Orange County District Attorney Todd Spitzer. "This 81-year-old man survived flying combat missions in Vietnam protecting freedom and now he is clinging to life because a mother refused to parent her child and he was run over in the street by a vehicle that should have never been on the road. There is absolutely no reason that an unlicensed, untrained child with no concept of the rules of the road should be riding a motorcycle that can go up to nearly 60 miles per hour next to cars on a public street and think that by some miracle they are going to be safe. The state Legislature has made it virtually impossible for prosecutors to hold juveniles accountable for committing serious crimes, and the only way to stop the carnage E-Bikes and E-motorcycles are causing across Orange County is to hold parents accountable for the crimes they allow their children to commit."

Senior Deputy District Attorney Noor Hasan of the Family Protection Unit is prosecuting this case.

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