Crime & Safety
Opening Statements Tuesday for Mom of OC Rampage Shooter
Sarwat Yasmine Syed, of Ladera Ranch, faces four years in prison if convicted of felony hit and run.
Opening statements are scheduled to begin this morning in the case of Sarwat Yasmine Syed, 43, of Ladera Ranch.
Syed, the mother of spree killer Ali Syed, faces two felonies related to a freeway hit-and-run accident that left Ava O’Connor, 4 at the time, permanently injured.
Syed is accused of slamming her SUV into the side of a Honda Accord in June 2011 on the 405 freeway near Irvine Center Drive. The car driven by mother Annette Argo was carrying Ava and her 9-year-old brother.
Prosecutors say after spinning the car off the side of the road, Syed kept driving and failed to stop to check on the car crash victims or to offer her driver information. Police made contact with Syed the next day after she filed an accident claim with her insurance company.
Syed was arrested Aug. 1, 2011.
Ava received multiple facial fractures and required surgery.
If convicted, Syed could receive four years in prison, prosecutors say.
On Feb. 19, Ali Syed, 20, used a 12-gauge shotgun to kill three and wound three more on a 25-mile rampage before turning the gun on himself as police confronted him.
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