A man was charged with capital murder for killing his two autistic sons who died when the car he was driving plunged off a berth at the Port of Los Angeles four years ago.
Ali Elmezayen was charged with two counts of murder and one count of attempted murder with ‘the special circumstance allegations of multiple murders and the murders were carried out for financial gain,’ the Los Angeles County District Attorney’s Office said.
Elmezayen is currently in federal custody on insurance fraud charges. Once that case is completed, Elmezayen will be tried on the murder charges.
On April 9, 2015, Elmezayen was driving a vehicle with his wife and two sons in San Pedro. The car went off the berth and into the water, the prosecutor said.
The couple’s sons, 13-year-old Elhassan and 8-year-old Abdelkrim, drowned. His wife, who did not know how to swim, survived when a nearby fisherman threw her a flotation device.
According to a criminal complaint, Elmezayen purchased several accidental death insurance policies providing more than $6 million in coverage on himself, his domestic partner and his children in 2012 and 2013. Elmezayen allegedly paid nearly $6,000 a year for these policies – even though he was earning less than $30,000 a year – and he called at least two of the insurance companies to confirm they would not investigate claims made two years after the policies were purchased.
Elmezayen then collected more than $260,000 in insurance proceeds from American General Life Insurance and Mutual of Omaha Life Insurance on the accidental death insurance policies he had taken out on the children’s lives, according to the complaint. In addition to posing as his domestic partner in communications with the insurance companies without her knowledge, Elmezayen allegedly made several false statements, including stating that the cause of his children’s deaths was accidental and that he had no other insurance policies on his children.
A case involving Elmezayen was presented to the District Attorney’s Office and was declined in December 2017. Further investigation done by the Los Angeles Police Department’s Harbor and Robbery-Homicide divisions and the Los Angeles City Attorney’s Office led to the murder and attempted murder charges against Elmezayen .
If convicted as charged, Elmezayen faces a possible maximum sentence of life in state prison without the possibility of parole or death. A decision on whether to seek the death penalty will be made at a later date.
