Attorneys for Grossman Burn Foundation co-founder Rebecca Grossman — who was sentenced in 2024 to 15 years to life in prison for running down two young boys crossing a Westlake Village street with their family — want to tell jurors in an upcoming trial of a civil suit against their client that a deputy who headed the crash investigation was sued by Kobe Bryant’s widow over leaked photos.
Jurors in a previous Van Nuys Superior Court trial 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.
The plaintiffs in the civil suit trial, scheduled to start Jan. 5 in Van Nuys, are the boys’ parents, Karim and Nancy Iskander, and the boys’ brother Zachary.
On Wednesday, Grossman’s attorneys filed court papers with Judge Huey P. Cotton stating that it is fair game to let a jury know that Deputy Rafael Mejia’s credibility as the accident investigator is at issue in the civil case. Cotton is scheduled to rule on the Mejia matter and multiple other final pretrial motions before jury selection begins.
“Indeed, a (federal) jury ordered Los Angeles County to pay $35 million to Kobe Bryant’s widow, Vanessa Bryant and Chris Chester (who lost his wife and daughter in the crash) for failing to prevent the taking and sharing of photos of their deceased loved ones at the site of a 2020 helicopter crash,” Grossman’s lawyers state in their court papers.
Mejia confirmed in a pretrial deposition that he was involved in the investigation of the Bryant photos, the Grossman lawyers further state in their court papers while noting that the Iskander attorneys have acknowledged they consider Mejia a crucial witness in their case.
“They state he drafted the traffic collision report for the incident, had law enforcement’s first interaction with Rebecca Grossman after the incident, smelled alcohol coming from Rebecca Grossman and secured her in the back of his patrol vehicle,” the Grossman lawyers further state in their pleadings. “Mejia’s credibility as a witness is therefore at issue.”
Mejia’s involvement in the “investigatory incompetence” associated with the Bryant case “reflects on his lack of training, skills, qualifications and ability to competently perform his investigatory duties with this case,” according to the Grossman lawyers’ court papers.
However, in their court papers, the Iskander attorneys contend that Mejia’s involvement with the Bryant photos have nothing to do with the Grossman case.
“Such evidence, testimony and argument about Deputy Mejia’s involvement with the Kobe Bryant crash case is completely irrelevant to any fact or issue in this case and it would be unduly prejudicial to plaintiffs to allow it because it has nothing to do with anything the L.A. County Sheriff’s Dept. did here with this fatal collision,” according to the Iskander lawyers’ pleadings.
Co-defendants in the civil case are Grossman’s husband, Dr. Peter Grossman, and Scott Erickson, a former Los Angeles Dodgers pitcher, Rebecca Grossman’s former boyfriend. The two had cocktails and later the two raced each other in their vehicles along Triunfo Canyon Road until they reached a crosswalk and the children were struck, according to the suit filed in January 2021.
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.
The philanthropist 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.