Tommi Jo Mejer, 50, was arrested by the Orange County Sheriff's Department on Tuesday at the Lamoreaux Justice Center in Orange.
According to the Orange County District Attorney's Office, the incident happened last month in Lake Forest, California. Mejer's son allegedly struck the elderly man while he was "doing wheelies," authorities said.
The victim - a substitute teacher and Vietnam veteran - remains hospitalized in critical condition.
"Parents who buy their child an E-motorcycle and let them ride them illegally or help modify e-Bikes to transform them into E-motorcycles are handing their children a loaded weapon - and those parents are going to be prosecuted. That is not a threat. That is a promise," Orange County District Attorney Todd Spitzer said in a press release. "This 81-year-old man survived flying combat missions in Vietnam protecting freedom and now he is clinging to life because a mother refused to parent her child and he was run over in the street by a vehicle that should have never been on the road. There is absolutely no reason that an unlicensed, untrained child with no concept of the rules of the road should be riding a motorcycle that can go up to nearly 60 miles per hour next to cars on a public street and think that by some miracle they are going to be safe. The state Legislature has made it virtually impossible for prosecutors to hold juveniles accountable for committing serious crimes, and the only way to stop the carnage E-Bikes and E-motorcycles are causing across Orange County is to hold parents accountable for the crimes they allow their children to commit."
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The district attorney's office said Mejer had previously been warned about the dangers of electric motorcycles.
"During a 28-minute interaction with two Orange County Sheriff's deputies captured on body worn camera, Mejer admitted that she purchased her son a Surron E-motorcycle and knew that he drove it recklessly," the district attorney's office said. "The deputies warned her that she could face potential criminal charges if she continued to allow him to ride the E-motorcycle which he could not legally ride."
Riders of Class 3 electric bikes must be 16 and have a valid motorcycle license.
Mejer has been charged with one felony count of child endangerment, one felony count of accessory after the fact to a crime, one misdemeanor count of contributing to the delinquency of a minor, one misdemeanor count of loaning a motor vehicle to an unlicensed driver and one misdemeanor count of providing false information to a peace officer.
If convicted, she faces a maximum sentence of six years and eight months in state prison.