LOS ANGELES
A federal grand jury this week named a Hawthorne man in a 14-count indictment alleging that he drove his family into the water at the Port of Los Angeles to collect on a life insurance policy he had purchased on their lives, according to authorities.
Ali F. Elmezayen, 44, was charged with four counts of mail fraud, four counts of wire fraud, one count of aggravated identity theft and five counts of money laundering.
Elmezayen remains in federal custody after being arrested on November 7 by the FBI. He is scheduled to be arraigned next week in federal court, according to officials.
The indictment alleges that Elmezayen purchased several life and accidental death insurance policies providing coverage on himself, his domestic partner and their three children in 2012 and 2013.
Elmezayen then drove a car with his partner and two youngest children off a wharf at the Port of Los Angeles on April 9, 2015.
Elmezayen swam out the open driver’s side window of the car. Elmezayen’s partner, who did not know how to swim, escaped the vehicle and survived when a nearby fisherman threw her a flotation device.
The two children, who were 8 and 13, drowned in the car.
Elmezayen then collected more than $260,000 in insurance proceeds from Mutual of Omaha Life Insurance and American General Life Insurance on the accidental death insurance policies he had taken out on the children’s lives, according to the indictment.
The defendant is presumed innocent unless found guilty.
If he were to be convicted of all the charges contained in the indictment, Elmezayen is facing up to 212 years in federal prison.