(CNN) The California father whose two sons with autism died after he drove off a wharf in the Port of Los Angeles has been charged with capital murder, the Los Angeles County District Attorney's Office announced.

Ali Elmezayen, 45, of Hawthorne, California, was charged Wednesday with two counts of murder and one count of attempted murder, the DA's office said.

and two sons inside -- off the On April 9, 2015, Elmezayen drove a vehicle -- with his wifeand two sons inside -- off the LA port into San Pedro Bay . The defendant escaped the submerged car through his open window. His wife, Rabab Diab, could not swim but survived when a nearby fisherman threw her a life preserver. The couple's sons, 13-year-old Elhassan and 8-year-old Abdelkrim, drowned, according to the US Attorney's Office of the Central District of California.

Court documents describe the two sons as "suffer[ing] from severe autism." Elmezayen and Diab also have a third son, Elhussein. He "was also diagnosed with autism but was high functioning" and "was away at an overnight camp through his high school" when the family car plummeted into the water, according to the legal documents.

When questioned following the incident, Elmezayen told police that he may have accidentally pressed the accelerator or that he may have passed out as a result of medication he took two days earlier related to his medical condition, Thalassemia Minor, according to official testimony cited in the case. (Some patients with this inherited blood disorder that causes fatigue are treated with deferasirox , a medicine known to cause side effects, though fainting is not a common one.)

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