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-Lurid Crime Tales-

Father accused of killing 2 sons for insurance by driving them into water at Port of LA

2019-10-20

[ABC7] A 44-year-old father sobbed openly in federal court Thursday as he was accused in a deadly case of insurance fraud.

Crying because he was caught, or because he hadnтt finished the job?

Defendant Ali Elmezayen

...an Egyptian immigrant who must have worked under the table...

said he had loaded his two sons, who have autism, and their mother in the family's Honda Civic to watch the boats at the Port of Los Angeles and ended up driving them off a fishing dock into the water.

The sons, 13-year old Elhassan and 8-year old Abdelkrim, drowned.

Their mother, Rehab Diab,

...another Egyptian, also an illegal immigrant...

whose marital relationship with Elmezayen is not clearly documented, was unable to swim. Fishermen rescued her.

Diab is a prosecution witness.

Federal prosecutors allege that the action was a set up that was years in the making.

Elmezayen, a low-income Egyptian immigrant, was paying $6,000 a year to insure his family, then collected $260,000.

Federal prosecutor Alexander Wyman told the jury that the defendant beat Diab and phoned her parents in Egypt, "threatening to send her home in a coffin," that he was going to "bury her alive" and that he wanted to take a second wife.

Defense attorney Christine O'Connor said that Elmezayen bought the policies to protect his family - that he had under-the-table income to pay the premiums.

Deflecting blame, the defense told jurors to look at the wife's history. Undocumented, once marrying a homeless man to get legal status - claiming that he abused her when advised that doing so would protect her from deportation.

About the defendant - the defense says he is not cunning, but rather, "kind of a kook," "complicated," but not a monster.

Itтs all just fun and games until all the targets are drowned? Ooookaaayy.

Elmezayen faces a separate trial in Superior Court for the murder of his sons.

The Washington Post had an article on the subject last November:

It was all part of a scheme to collect on the millions of dollars in seven life insurance policies he had taken out on their lives. It was a plan he had been plotting for more than two years, according to prosecutors.

He was ordered detained without bail Tuesday. Prosecutors argued he poses a danger to his family, because although he and Diab separated a week after the tragedy, he is still paying premiums on her life insurance and on the insurance of his third son. The boy was away at camp on the night his siblings drowned.

Elmezayen and Diabтs story began in Egypt, where they started dating before coming to the United States on six-month visitor visas in 2000. But instead of returning, they settled down in California and had three sons together, each of them autistic. An immigration judge later ordered Elmezayen and Diab removed, but each was granted тwithholding of removal,т according to the federal prosecutors.

In an attempt to remain in the country legally, Elmezayen entered into a sham marriage with an American citizen he met while working as a security guard at a Los Angeles drugstore, according to a 2006 interview he gave to immigration authorities. The sham wife lived in an alcohol treatment center, and the deal was that she would marry Elmezayen so he could get a green card as long as he continued to financially support her once he obtained it. He never did. In four years, he paid the woman $500, he told authorities. (They later divorced.)

Money never seemed to come easy for Elmezayen, who filed for bankruptcy in 2010 and had been earning less than $30,000 annually, prosecutors said. But somehow he found the money to take out seven different accidental death and life insurance policies on his familyтs lives.

In total, he took out more than $6 million in policies, costing him $6,000 a year in premiums, according to prosecutors.

Diab said in a deposition in 2017 that she knew about the policies for both her and Elmezayen т but not the children. (The deposition was part of a wrongful-death lawsuit she and Elmezayen filed against Honda, Jiffy Lube and Los Angeles County. They lost.)

Twelve days after the two-year period expired on the last life insurance policy he had purchased, Elmezayen barreled down the wharf and into the ocean. In a matter of months, he collected more than $260,000 on his sons' lives, according to the affidavit. He wired $171,000, the bulk of the money, to Egypt.

Elmezayen denied having any life insurance policies on his children in interviews with police on the night of the plunge.

Posted by:trailing wife

#2 the defense says he is not cunning, but rather, "kind of a kook,"

"I've done it myself a couple of times myself, your honour. Heh heh... no, not my sons. I just burnt my Toyota for the claim. It's the same thing really."

Posted by: Dron66046 2019-10-20 16:39

#1 In the past, I'd have called these people prizewinners. However, upon reflection, I realize we (Americans) are the prizewinners and the people mentioned in the article are the prizes.

Posted by: M. Murcek 2019-10-20 08:17