A Hawthorne man was sentenced to 212 years in federal prison for intentionally driving his ex-wife and two disabled sons off a wharf at the Port of Los Angeles into the ocean – drowning the boys who were trapped in the car – to collect on accidental death insurance policies he had taken out on their lives.

Ali F. Elmezayen, 45, was sentenced by United States District Judge John F. Walter, who, in imposing the maximum sentence allowed by law, noted Elmezayen’s “evil and diabolical scheme” as well as the “vicious and callous nature of his crimes.”

“He is the ultimate phony and a skillful liar – and is nothing more than a greedy and brutal killer,” Judge Walter said. “The only regret that the defendant has is that he got caught.”

Judge Walter also ordered Elmezayen to pay $261,751 in restitution to the insurance companies that he defrauded.

After a nine-day trial in October 2019, a federal jury found Elmezayen guilty of four counts of mail fraud, four counts of wire fraud, one count of aggravated identity theft, and five counts of money laundering.

Elmezayen obtained more than $3 million of life and accidental death insurance policies on himself and his family bought from eight different insurance companies . He paid premiums in excess of $6,000 per year for these policies – even though he reported income of less than $30,000 per year on his tax returns. Elmezayen began purchasing the insurance policies the same year he exited a Chapter 11 bankruptcy proceeding.

After purchasing the policies, Elmezayen repeatedly called the insurance companies – sometimes pretending to be his ex-wife in whose name he had obtained some of the policies – to verify that the policies were active and that they would pay benefits if his ex-wife died in an accident. Elmezayen also called at least two of the insurance companies to confirm they would not investigate claims made two years after the policies were purchased. These telephone calls were recorded and were played for the jury.

On April 9, 2015, 12 days after the two-year contestability period on the last of his insurance policies expired, Elmezayen drove a car with his ex-wife and two youngest children off a wharf at the Port of Los Angeles. The site of the crash was a loading dock and worksite for commercial fishermen.

Elmezayen swam out the open driver’s side window of the car. Elmezayen’s ex-wife, who did not know how to swim, escaped the vehicle and survived when a nearby fisherman threw her a flotation device. Two of the couple’s three sons, who were 8 and 13 and who were both severely autistic, were strapped into the car and drowned. The couple’s third son was away at camp at the time and was not in the car at the time his father drove it into the water.

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. He used part of the insurance proceeds to purchase real estate in Egypt as well as a boat.

Following the crash, Elmezayen repeatedly lied to law enforcement officers and insurance companies. He also lied in subsequent civil litigation he filed concerning the crash – about the extent of the insurance he had purchased on his family, and specifically about whether he had insured his disabled children’s lives. He also attempted to persuade witnesses to lie to law enforcement and say he had given the insurance proceeds to charity.

He now also faces murder charges in a Los Angeles Superior Court.