The parents of a teen killed in an E-Moto crash in Garden Grove pleaded not guilty Thursday to child endangerment.
The victim’s father — Vu Thanh Nguyen, 56, of Santa Ana — is charged with a felony count of child endangerment and a misdemeanor count of contributing to the delinquency of a minor. Hong Cuc Thi Nguyen, 49, of Santa Ana — the mother of Benson Nguyen, who was 13 when the fatal crash occurred — is charged with misdemeanor child abuse and endangerment. The two are next due in court Jan. 25 in the West Justice Center in Westminster.
Benson was speeding and flashing through red lights while doing wheelies on an E-Ride Pro SS 2.0 when he crashed at Magnolia Street near Larson Avenue about 10 p.m. May 7, according to the Orange County District Attorney’s Office.
Benson slammed into a raised center divider and fell off the bike before slamming into a concrete light pole, prosecutors said. The teen was taken to UCI Medical Center, where he was later pronounced dead.
Prosecutors said the teen’s father bought his son the e-bike despite multiple warnings about Benson’s reckless riding. Benson previously suffered a broken leg in a crash, six months before he was killed.
Prosecutors also pointed to multiple videos on the boy’s TikTok and Instagram accounts of daredevil riding stunts.
Riders of the types of vehicles Benson used require a motorcycle license as well as required equipment, prosecutors said. State law draws a distinction between e-bikes and e-motorcycles when it comes to age and licensing requirements.
The father’s attorney, Joel Garson, said the parents are still struggling with grief. Attorney David Scarsone represents the child’s mother.
“The parents are still completely grieving the death of their child. He was only 13,” Garson said. “They’re still grieving the loss of their child, and to add to the injury while already facing that devastation, now they have to deal with criminal charges and a media frenzy that has caused ostracism, and people being judgmental about parenting styles. The public does not understand what was happening in the family dynamics and the problems the kid had before this happened.
“There’s a lot of layers to this case and the parents are still struggling with how could this have been prevented and what could be done to help their son before he got involved in this kind of risky behavior.”
The Nguyens “speak very limited English and did not understand the difference between e-bikes and e-motorcycles,” Garson said.
“It was sold to them with no warnings by the retailer, no discussion about the speed it could travel or whether it was street legal or not, or age appropriate or not.”
Benson “found something he was good at and was never going to stop doing that gave him social acceptance,” Garson said. “How can you punish them more than they’ve been punished?”