A jury on Friday found Rebecca Grossman guilty in the killing of two young brothers who were crossing a street in a Westlake Village crosswalk when her speeding Mercedes hit them.
The verdict caps a legal drama that generated international attention in part because Grossman is a prominent figure who co-founded the Grossman Burn Foundation with her husband, Dr. Peter Grossman.
The jury verdict was read in a tense, packed Van Nuys courtroom. The jury of nine men and three women found Grossman guilty of murder, gross vehicular manslaughter and hit and run. She faces up to 34 years to life in prison at sentencing, and is scheduled to return to court April 10.
Jurors were presented with two very different versions of the Hidden Hills woman and the 2020 collision that ended the lives of Mark and Jacob Iskander, ages 11 and 8, respectively.
“This was not a tragic accident,” Deputy Dist. Atty. Jamie Castro said in Wednesday’s closing arguments. “This was murder.”
But Grossman’s lead attorney, Tony Buzbee, launched into his closing statement with words he’d repeated throughout the six-week trial: “Where is Scott Erickson?”
Nancy Iskander, the boys’ mother, clutched her hands in prayer as the verdict was read. Alexis Grossman, Rebecca’s daughter, said, “Oh my God, oh my God” as tears ran down her cheeks.
Prosecutors alleged Grossman, 60, had cocktails with Erickson, a former Dodgers pitcher, and then raced with him — he in his black Mercedes sport utility vehicle and she in her white Mercedes SUV — along Triunfo Canyon Road until they reached a crosswalk, where she fatally struck the Iskander brothers.
Grossman, Castro said, showed conscious disregard for human life and knew her speed could be dangerous on a suburban street with pedestrian traffic because she had been warned of the dangers by police in the past. Prosecutors also alleged that Grossman traveled a third of a mile after slamming into the children before safety features in her car automatically shut it down.
“She had a history of speeding. She’d texted about it,” Castro said. “She acted with disregard for human life.”
But throughout the trial, Buzbee continued to point the finger at Erickson, who was the first to barrel through the crosswalk. Crash reconstruction experts for the defense testified that Erickson’s Mercedes hit the boys first, sending Mark over his vehicle and onto the hood of Grossman’s vehicle.
It was around 7 p.m. on Sept. 29, 2020, when Nancy Iskander and her three sons approached the crosswalk. Wearing inline skates, Iskander began to cross Triunfo Canyon Road at Saddle Mountain Drive. Her youngest son, Zachary, was next to her on his scooter; Mark, on a skateboard, and Jacob, also wearing inline skates, were also in the crosswalk.
“The mother did everything right,” Castro said. “Rebecca Grossman did everything wrong.”
Iskander previously testified that she heard revving engines and looked up to see a black SUV speeding toward the intersection. She dived out of the way, pulling Zachary to safety.
But she testified that a white Mercedes SUV was following closely behind the black vehicle. When it went through the crosswalk, Iskander said, she heard an impact, and her two oldest boys were gone.
Jacob was found near the curb about 50 feet from the crosswalk. He was taken to a hospital, where he was pronounced dead a few hours later. Mark’s body was found 254 feet away.
Prosecutors accused Grossman of reaching 81 mph before lightly braking and hitting the brothers at 73 mph, based on the car’s data recorder and the distance Mark was found from the crosswalk. But Buzbee called in experts who testified that the data weren’t reliable and that Grossman was traveling at 52 mph based on a video captured seconds after the collision.
This story originally appeared on LA Times
