The Orange County District Attorney’s Office has filed criminal charges against six additional parents and one adult sibling accused of allowing minors to illegally operate high-powered E-Motos on public streets, continuing an aggressive enforcement strategy that has rapidly expanded under District Attorney Todd Spitzer’s RIDE SAFELY unit. According to the OCDA, the latest cases involve children as young as nine years old and include incidents involving serious injuries, police pursuits, repeated warnings from officers, and allegations of ongoing reckless riding.
The new filings come just days after prosecutors announced charges against the parents of 13-year-old Benson Nguyen, who died in a Garden Grove crash after losing control of an E-Moto reportedly traveling more than 40 mph. Prosecutors allege the boy had a history of dangerous riding and that his father purchased a more powerful E-Moto despite previous warnings.
Charges and Potential Sentences
The most serious newly filed case involves Maria Dolores Roehling, who has been charged with one felony count of child endangerment and an infraction for allowing a minor to drive without a license. Prosecutors allege her 9-year-old son was riding an E-Moto capable of exceeding 47 mph when he was struck by a pickup truck in Yorba Linda. If convicted on all counts, she faces a maximum sentence of six years in state prison.
Alex Li faces one misdemeanor count of child endangerment after prosecutors allege his 11-year-old son suffered broken bones and an arterial bleed when his E-Moto collided with a pickup truck in Yorba Linda. Li faces up to one year in county jail.
Dan Mircea Rezmives has been charged with misdemeanor child endangerment, contributing to the delinquency of a minor, and allowing a child to drive without a license after police allegedly found his 12-year-old son operating a Surron E-Moto capable of traveling up to 50 mph. Prosecutors say both father and son had previously been warned. He faces a maximum sentence of one year in jail.
Hulin Guo and Xiaomin Wang each face misdemeanor child endangerment and contributing-to-delinquency charges after authorities allege they repeatedly ignored warnings regarding their son’s dangerous riding behavior. Prosecutors say the teenager’s E-Motos had previously been impounded and one was ultimately sold through a lien auction. Each parent faces up to one year in jail.
Tuan Nguyen faces a misdemeanor child endangerment charge after his 13-year-old son allegedly led Garden Grove police on a pursuit before crashing into a patrol vehicle. Prosecutors say the E-Moto involved was capable of reaching nearly 50 mph. The maximum exposure is one year in county jail.
In a separate case, Jose De Jesus Ramirezbarragan is charged with contributing to the delinquency of a minor after allegedly allowing his 15-year-old brother to ride his E-Motorcycle. The juvenile subsequently led La Palma police on a pursuit before crashing. Ramirezbarragan also faces up to one year in jail if convicted.
OCDA’s Growing E-Moto Enforcement Campaign
The latest filings bring the number of parents charged by the OCDA’s RIDE SAFELY unit to at least 12 since January 2026. Prosecutors previously filed involuntary manslaughter charges against a mother after her 14-year-old son allegedly struck and killed an 81-year-old Vietnam veteran in Lake Forest while illegally operating an E-Moto. That defendant faces a maximum sentence of seven years and eight months in state prison.
The district attorney has repeatedly argued that many of today’s high-powered E-Motos are not legally e-bikes at all, but motorcycles or motor-driven cycles that require registration, licensing, insurance, and appropriate safety equipment when operated on public roads.
E-Moto and E-Bike Safety Concerns in Orange County
According to the OCDA, more than 125 deaths nationwide have been linked to E-Bikes and E-Motos. The agency also reports that E-Bike and E-Moto injuries are now the leading reason children end up in Orange County emergency rooms and that such injuries have increased more than 430% in Southern California during the last four years. Children between ages 11 and 14 account for approximately 61.7% of E-Moto crashes despite riders under 16 generally being prohibited from operating these vehicles.
A June 2026 report by Voice of OC noted that cities across Orange County have been increasing enforcement efforts while schools and local governments debate restrictions aimed at reducing crashes and injuries.
Orange County Cities Seeing the Most E-Moto Enforcement Activity
No countywide public database currently ranks E-Bike and E-Moto arrests by city. However, based on OCDA criminal filings, publicized enforcement actions, injury investigations, and police pursuit cases announced during 2026, the cities appearing most frequently in major E-Moto enforcement incidents include:
- Garden Grove
- Yorba Linda
- Newport Beach
- Orange
- La Palma
Other cities frequently appearing in high-profile E-Moto incidents include Lake Forest, Huntington Beach, and La Habra. This list reflects publicly reported enforcement and charging activity rather than an official arrest ranking.
Insurance Consequences Could Be Severe
Parents facing criminal exposure may soon discover that the legal case is only the beginning of their financial problems.
Insurance experts generally warn that crashes involving illegally operated E-Motos can trigger substantial civil liability. If a child injures a pedestrian, cyclist, or motorist, parents may face lawsuits alleging negligent supervision, negligent entrustment, or other claims. Homeowners and umbrella insurance policies sometimes provide limited protection, but coverage disputes frequently arise when vehicles are illegally operated or fall outside policy definitions.
Families involved in injury crashes may also face:
- Higher auto insurance premiums
- Increased umbrella liability insurance costs
- Potential denial of coverage for certain claims
- Personal liability for medical expenses, lost wages, and pain-and-suffering awards
- Difficulty obtaining future insurance coverage
Those risks become especially significant when a high-powered E-Moto capable of 40 to 60 mph is involved in a collision causing catastrophic injuries or death.
A New Era of Parental Accountability
The latest prosecutions make clear that Orange County authorities are no longer treating illegal E-Moto riding as a simple juvenile traffic problem. Prosecutors are increasingly looking beyond the young riders and focusing on the adults who purchase, permit, or facilitate the use of these powerful machines. With criminal charges now ranging from misdemeanor child endangerment to involuntary manslaughter, parents who ignore repeated warnings from law enforcement face the possibility of jail time, felony convictions, civil lawsuits, and significant financial consequences. As the OCDA’s expanding caseload demonstrates, Orange County’s E-Moto crackdown is showing no signs of slowing down.
We are an older couple of native Californians. Husband an attorney in perfect standing since 1988 and a former pilot who had a plane with his dad at the John Wayne Airport in Santa Ana, Orange County, CA. I worked for two of the best DA’s in Orange County, Richard Farnell and Bryan Brown, when they were in private practice. They came to our wedding. I was also the only employee of a senior patent attorney from Mattel. My husband and I have been together since 1987. Very important facts: We live in Mission Viejo. There is not one flight path over Mission Viejo from anywhere at any time. There are no international flights in Orange County and our airport is suppose to be closed at night between 10pm and 7am. We have one flight path North, one flight path South. That’s it. We live over 20 miles due East of the John Wayne Airport but we’ve had more flights over our home every day and night for 16 and a half years than the airport itself. What did we do to lose our lives? In 2009, I was visiting with our neighbor in our driveway. Student pilots were doing stall maneuvers over our homes, which was a regular event. Our neighbor was distressed over this taking place many times a day. I will help anyone and said “lets call them. Im sure they’ll stop”. When I called the airport, and asked nicely if this could stop. I now know they lied to me. Maria in noise control said we were in a designated area for student pilots to practice maneuvers. When my husband came home that night, I told him the story and he told me it’s illegal to do maneuvers over any residential area for good reason, its dangerous. I made a very polite call to noise complaint and asked if the stall maneuvers could stop. Maria in noise complaint lied to us and told me “you live in a designated area for student pilots to practice these maneuvers”. Within 15 minutes of that very polite call, the director of the John Wayne Airport, Alan L. Murphy, was over me and our neighbor still standing in our driveway, doing figure eights feet above us over and over and over until we both ran inside our respective homes. Alan L. Murphy recruited Barry Rondinella who until 2015, worked at LAX and flew jets over our home all night long and every day for Alan L. Murphy. Then Rondinella came here to Orange County. After stating in the paper (we contacted both Orange County newspapers and we’re guessing they are afraid to print anything against the government employees. One month without sleep is devastating,17 years is murder. The directors of the John Wayne Airport recruited every government employee to maliciously harass us as a favor. We have been stalked from San Diego to Lake Pilsbury by sheriff, police, fire, calfire, coast guards, military and of course, the FAA. Fire trucks pull up to restaurants, stores, bank and when we come out, turn on their sirens and horns. We have so many clips on tape and in every one of those clips, every one of the firemen in the fire trucks are all looking at us just to drive it home that we are being stalked and preyed on. They’ve stalked us into restaurants, grocery stores and shaken our home so many times with the huge helicopters for intimidation. They park fire and airport vehicles across the street from our front window so we can’t have our drapes open without seeing it. When we began wearing earplugs or headphones to keep the jet rape at bay, they went to chem trails and fire and camp pendleton went to shaking our home so we would feel the sickness. There should never be chem trails over Orange County. Big Xs over our home, over restaurants, beach. We have been dive bombed by military helicopters on the beach so many times, we stopped going. They have had our electricity shut off during the hottest weeks of the year, our mail diverted, our street dug up at 1:30am several times, our emails erased, our home is dive bombed all day every day and we are kept from sleeping every night. Weve been gang stalked every single place we’ve gone for over 17 years. THE FIRE DEPT HAS EMPTIED GUNS IN OUR HILLSIDE, THROWN FIREWORKS ON OUR HILLSIDE, GANG STALKED US FROM SAN DIEGO TO LAKE PILSBURY. AFTER 16 YEARS OF SICK ILLEGAL PREDATORY GANG STALKING LORD OF THE FLIES ABUSE, RENTED THE HOME ONE DOOR FROM OURS AND HAD THEIR NEPO BABIES RUN AT OUR VEHICLES, WORK OUT IN FRONT OF OUR DRIVEWAY, LAUGH REALLY LOUDLY EVERY TIME WE CAME OUTSIDE. Can you even imagine your predators moving in one door from you. They loved this so much. Breaking every law, stalking and preying on women as a favor to Murphy and Rondinella. Our ex chief of police, former Lt. Binning, uploaded porn to our computer, left messages on our phone machine repeating the sounds we just made in our home so we would fully understand that they are spying on us. Dive bombed us hundreds of times with police helicopters. Called our home at night to keep us from sleeping. He was only demoted and still came after me. We are 4 months into the 18th year. I have tried to take my life to get away from this criminal insanity. Not one day or night off in over 17 years. IN A CITY WITHOUT ONE FLIGHT PATH AND A COUNTY WHERE THE AIRPORT IS SUPPOSE TO BE CLOSED AT NIGHT, wait until you see. IF YOU REPORT ABUSE OF POWER BY A GOV EMPLOYEE, THE AIRPORT COMES AFTER YOU UNTIL YOU DIE. We are 73 years old and our last chapter of our lives is being stolen. The airport has infiltrated our lives so fully, we get grocery bags from Amazon (Bristol Farms) that have TANGO, BRAVO, CHARLIE , ALPHA written in big black letters. If that’s not scarey to you, I wouldn’t know what is. They cripple those of us who report their abuse of power with sleep deprivation , gsng stalking and surveilling us like nothing youve ever seen until we cant get a single thought straight. This is not hyperbole. This is true Nazi Germany stuff and thats not hate speech: one of the women they have ruined the life of is Lisa Beerli. She was raised in Nazi Germany until 22 years old and says “this is exactly how it started. The government employees turned on the citizens and then started using the military”. We have written everyone we can think of, filed complaints (which we have learned they don’t take complaints in OC) with the DA, FAA, CIA, FBI, DOT. DOJ… with every politician in this state and many others in this country. Todd Spitzer has known for 8.5 years. He makes it worse if we beg him for help. The former mayor of Mission Viejo took us to court for restraining orders because we threatened to recall him in an election year and he was going to make sure we couldn’t. They didn’t get the RO because we didn’t threaten anyone. We went into the OC Sheriff building and asked if we could file a complaint. They said “go home and we’ll send someone over”. The sheriff came over and refused to take a report and told us “if you ever need any help, don’t call anyone, we wont come”. Thats how they do law here. There is no law and order in California. Just look at GPS over our home since 2009, and remember, we are not under any flight path from anywhere. 22731 Via Santiago, Mission Viejo, CA. We tried to move to another county for 8 months. Mr. Alan L. Murphy sent military jets screaming over every home we looked at basically telling us he’ll kill us wherever we go. There are four other women that we know of that are suffering this same fate here. One of us, Keri Berriga, put articles in the local laguna beach newspaper about the same jwa directors doing this to her. One died of cancer and we just found out my husband has cancer from all the years without sleep. Our mayor now Brian Goodell won’t help us and has sent an email threatening court action if we insisted on him doing his job. We begged Todd Spitzer for years. He did nothing but make it worse. After 7 years, we thought we’d give him another chance to do the right thing. impossible im guessing
This sounds like something your Congressman should be helping with as it involves the Feds. Best of luck to you!