A judge has rejected the prosecution’s request to revoke Rebecca Grossman’s privilege to make telephone calls while behind bars following her conviction on murder and other counts for a crash that killed two young boys in Westlake Village.
Superior Court Judge Joseph A. Brandolino on Friday cited what he called the defendant’s “naivete” involving requests she made during phone calls with her husband, Peter, and daughter, Alexis, shortly after being taken into custody after the jury’s verdict Feb. 23.
“I’m not going to restrict any of her privileges,” the judge said at the end of the hearing, while warning her that she could still lose her privileges if he determines that she is tampering with a witness in the case.
Grossman is now set to be sentenced June 10 — a two-month delay from the original April 10 sentencing date — at the request of the defense, which now includes another law firm retained to handle her motion for a new trial. A hearing is set on that motion June 3.
Grossman — who has remained jailed without bail since being taken into custody last month — could face up to 34 years to life in state prison.
In a court filing this week, Deputy District Attorneys Ryan Gould and Jamie Castro contended that Grossman used the series of phone calls to “engage in wholly improper conduct or potentially illegal conduct.”
The prosecutors wrote in their motion that Grossman’s recorded phone calls include “admissions to violating the court protective order regarding the disclosure of evidence on the Internet and to the press” and also “document numerous potential criminal conspiracies such as requests to disclose more protected discovery, discussion of various attempts to interfere with witnesses and their testimony and attempts to influence (the judge) in regards to sentencing and motions for a new trial.”
The prosecutors cited a series of phone calls in which Grossman spoke to her husband and her daughter between Feb. 23 and Feb. 25. Those included a Feb. 23 call in which she told her daughter that she wanted her to “unblock the videos” and “put everything out” and another the following day in which she asked her husband if a person she identified as “Tom” could call the judge and “ask him to please let us have a new trial,” according to the prosecution’s filing.
The prosecution had asked the judge to issue a court order that Grossman be housed in a portion of the jail where she has no access to a telephone and is not eligible for calls or visits other than with her attorneys, and that all of her incoming and outgoing mail be screened prior to distribution. The prosecutors contend that the same types of conversations can be conducted through those methods.
One of Grossman’s new attorneys, Samuel Josephs, countered that his client was “in shock after the verdict” and is “basically in solitary confinement as it is” with her phone, visitation and mail privileges marking her “only ability to communicate with the outside world.”
One of her trial attorneys, John Hobson, said he thought Grossman believed that a court order involving the videos that she wants to be released no longer applied since the jury returned its verdict.
The judge cautioned that the order “still remains in place,” and warned Grossman that her privileges could be revoked and that her attorneys could face monetary sanctions and being reported to the State Bar of California if materials that are subject to the protective order wind up being released.
“I think there’s a lot of naivete going on here by the defendant,” the judge said of Grossman’s conduct during one of the phone calls. “She’s upset and she’s naive … She’s entitled to her beliefs.”
Castro disputed the judge’s characterization of Grossman as being naive, saying that the defendant has had 10 defense attorneys advising her.
“She should know better, your honor,” the prosecutor said.
Meanwhile, the judge ordered the defense to destroy any record of personal identifying information of jurors following complaints from several jurors whom the prosecution argued had been approached by a private investigator working for the defense. He ordered the defense not to contact jurors without filing a motion seeking information about the jurors.
Prosecutors argued during the trial that Grossman and her then-boyfriend, former Dodger pitcher Scott Erickson, had been out for drinks earlier that evening and were speeding toward her nearby home in separate vehicles when Grossman’s white Mercedes-Benz SUV struck the boys while they were crossing Triunfo Canyon Road with their parents in a marked crosswalk.
Prosecutors said Grossman continued driving after striking the boys, eventually stopping about a quarter-mile away from the scene when her car engine stopped running.
Grossman’s lead attorney, Tony Buzbee, contended that it was Erickson who struck the boys first with his black Mercedes-Benz SUV.
Erickson was never called to testify in the case.
The prosecution alleged that Grossman was speeding at 81 mph in a 45 mph zone just seconds before impact, and that data from the vehicle’s so-called black box showing that she was driving 73 mph at the time of the crash was reliable.
In her closing argument, Castro told the jury that Grossman “continued driving as far as her car would let her” before the vehicle’s engine cut off about one-third of a mile away.
But Grossman’s lead attorney had told jurors in his closing argument that Grossman was traveling at 54 mph “at best” and that she didn’t know why her airbags had deployed. He said the vehicle rolled to a stop after the collision, and disputed the prosecution’s contention that she was impaired and left the scene.
Buzbee alleged that authorities failed to properly investigate the crash and determine who actually hit the boys.
He called the case a “rush to judgment,” saying they “put their blinders on” and didn’t consider that anyone else might be responsible for the crash.
Again referring to Erickson, the defense attorney noted that, “You couldn’t keep me away from this courthouse” to clear his own name if someone were accusing him.
In a recorded phone call two days after the verdict, Grossman told her husband, “You should call Scott Erickson and tell him to get on a video and that he needs to confess … I have a family,” according to the prosecution’s filing this week.
The deputy district attorneys wrote that Peter Grossman told his wife, “I know he needs to confess, but right now, I can’t even talk about the case, but that guy needs to … you’re in jail for him, and it drives me crazy,” and warned her that they “have to stop talking about the case on the recorded line” from county jail.