Man sentenced to 212 years in prison for insurance fraud in sons’ 2015 drownings

Ali Elmezayen handed maximum sentence for 'evil and diabolical scheme'

Divers search the area where a car went off a pier and into the water in Los Angeles on April 9, 2015. AP

A man accused of drowning two of his sons and trying to kill his former wife by driving them off a Los Angeles wharf to collect an insurance payout was sentenced on Thursday to 212 years in federal prison for fraud.

Ali Elmezayen, 45, received the maximum sentence from a judge who denounced the “evil and diabolical scheme”.

“He is the ultimate phoney and a skilful liar ... and is nothing more than a greedy and brutal killer,” US District Judge John R Walter said.

“The only regret that the defendant has is that he got caught.”

In 2019, a federal jury convicted him of mail fraud, wire fraud, aggravated identity theft and money laundering.

The judge also ordered Elmezayen to pay $261,751 in restitution to the insurance companies.

Judge Walter was especially troubled by the fact Elmezayen had spent years planning the killings.

“In my view, this demonstrates the vicious and callous nature of his crimes."

Elmezayen, of suburban Hawthorne, California, bought life and accidental death policies worth more than $3 million on himself and his family from eight insurance companies between July 2012 and March 2013, according to federal prosecutors.

He paid more than $6,000 a year in premiums for the policies while reporting income of less than $30,000 a year on his tax returns, prosecutors said, noting that he began buying the policies the same year he exited a Chapter 11 bankruptcy.

Prosecutors said Elmezayen repeatedly called the companies to verify the policies were active and that they would pay benefits if his former wife died in an accident as well as confirm with at least two insurers that they would not investigate claims made two years after the purchases.

Elmezayen drove a car carrying Rabab Diab, and their two youngest children, both of whom had autism, off a commercial fishermen's wharf in the San Pedro area of the Port of Los Angeles on April 9, 2015.

It was 12 days after the two-year contestability period on the last of his insurance policies expired, prosecutors said.

Elmezayen escaped through the open driver's side window and his former wife, who could not swim, was rescued when she got out and a fisherman threw her a flotation device. The boys, 8 and 13 at the time, were strapped in and could not escape the vehicle.

The couple's third son, Elhussein Elmezayen, 20, who survived because he was away at camp at the time, spoke at the sentencing trial.

He accused his father of leaving them in "misery and poverty", and squandering his savings on his "low-life family" in Egypt.

"We wish my brothers didn’t die for your financial gain," he said.

"I hope you know I don’t want anything to do with you any more ... don’t call me, don’t write me," he said.

Elmezayen received more than $260,000 in insurance proceeds from two companies on the policies he had taken out on the children's lives and used some of the money to buy properties in Egypt and a boat, prosecutors said.

After the car plunged into the water in 2015, Elmezayen was charged in the federal fraud case and accused by local prosecutors of murder, attempted murder and a special circumstance that the killings were for financial gain.

The murder charges were listed to be prosecuted after the federal case.

"A bench warrant has been issued and our office is evaluating the next step," Greg Risling, a spokesman for the Los Angeles County district attorney, told the Associated Press.