An attorney for Rebecca Grossman’s co-defendant in a lawsuit filed by the family of two boys killed when they were run over by the philanthropist Grossman in 2020 has told a judge that the court in another auto accident case has told lawyers to be ready for trial Jan. 2, three days before the scheduled start of the Grossman civil trial.
In an already concluded criminal case, jurors found Grossman guilty of two counts each of second-degree murder and vehicular manslaughter with gross negligence and one count of hit-and-run driving in the Sept. 29, 2020, deaths of Mark and Jacob Iskander, aged 11 and 8, while they were crossing a Westlake Village street with their family.
Grossman was sentenced in 2024 to 15 years to life in prison.
The plaintiffs in the civil case are the boys’ parents, Karim and Nancy Iskander, and their brother Zachary. Also named as a defendant in the complaint filed in January 2021 is former Los Angeles Dodgers pitcher Scott Erickson, Grossman’s former boyfriend. The two had cocktails and later the couple raced each other in their vehicles along Triunfo Canyon Road until they reached a crosswalk and the children were struck.
The Grossman civil case is scheduled for trial Jan. 5. But on Thursday, Erickson’s attorney, Jeff I. Braun, filed court papers with Grossman trial Judge Huey P. Cotton stating that Santa Monica Superior Court Judge Michael I. Levanas has stated that Jan. 2 is a firm start date for the other auto accident case trial.
Braun states in his court papers that he has been the lead attorney representing the defendant in the Santa Monica case since 2019 and that his absence would “severely prejudice” his client’s interests.
According to the Iskander attorneys’ court papers, Grossman’s daughter, Alexis Grossman, interacted with Erickson at her house after the accident and she contended that he smelled of alcohol and threatened her.
Grossman, 62, of Hidden Hills, tried to flee the scene and she likely would have been successful had her vehicle not automatically shut down due to it sensing the massive impact that had just occurred, the Iskander attorneys state in their court papers.
Grossman then lied to law enforcement about her speed and how much she had to drink, and then contended she did not know why her airbag suddenly deployed despite her vehicle sustaining massive front-end damage, the Iskander attorneys further state in their pleadings.