Orange County prosecutors on Friday upgraded the case against Tommi Jo Mejer after an 81-year-old veteran died two weeks after he was struck in Lake Forest by her 14-year-old child riding an e-motorcycle and doing wheelies. Mejer now faces a charge of involuntary manslaughter, alongside allegations that she allowed the teen to ride a machine he was not old enough, or licensed enough, to use.
The victim was Ed Ashman, who was walking home from work on April 16 when the collision happened, according to prosecutors. He died Thursday after being critically injured in the crash. The rider fled the scene.
Mejer was arrested on April 21 and was initially charged with felony child endangerment and accessory after the fact to a crime. Prosecutors later added contributing to the delinquency of a minor, providing false information to a peace officer and permitting an unlicensed minor under 18 to drive a motor vehicle. She is scheduled to be arraigned on May 21.
The charges reflect a timeline prosecutors say began well before the crash. In June 2025, Mejer contacted the Orange County Sheriff's Department to complain that someone had posted photos of her son riding an e-motorcycle. During that interaction, prosecutors said, she admitted buying him a Surron e-motorcycle and knowing that he drove it recklessly. Deputies warned her that she could face criminal charges if she kept allowing him to ride it.
Riders of that class of e-motorcycle must be 16 and hold a motorcycle license, according to the district attorney's office. Prosecutors said Mejer had been repeatedly warned about the risk, but allowed the teen to keep riding anyway. District Attorney Todd Spitzer said Ashman, who served as a captain in the U.S. Marine Corps and flew 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.” He also said Mejer “essentially handed her 14-year-old son a deadly weapon” and kept letting him ride until he killed someone.
The district attorney's office said state law bars it from identifying the juvenile or discussing the investigation involving him. Mejer faces a maximum sentence of seven years and eight months in state prison if convicted on all counts. The case now turns on a blunt question the facts have already answered: whether repeated warnings, a child too young to ride legally and a machine treated like a toy can together become a fatal criminal case.