A non-attorney member of the Los Angeles County District Attorney’s Office testified Wednesday that a former Dodgers pitcher who is a co-defendant in a civil suit with Rebecca Grossman in the accident that killed two young boys crossing a Westlake Village street in 2020 used the same license plates on two vehicles he owned.
Sergio Lopez of the DA’s Justice Conviction Review Unit said his investigation showed that Scott Erickson used the same license plates on two different Mercedes-Benz vehicles, one a 2007 model and the other from 2016. The JCRU, established in 2015, investigates credible claims of actual innocence or wrongful conviction for felonies prosecuted by the DA’s Office.
Asked by plaintiffs’ attorney Brian Panish if such plate-swapping was a felony, Van Nuys Superior Court Judge Huey Cotton prevented Lopez from answering after a defense objection on foundational grounds. However, Lopez was allowed to state that the action was against the law and that Scott could have been prosecuted.
During Grossman’s criminal trial in 2024, Lopez said the plate switching, called “cold-plating,” is a felony, but Erickson was never charged with that crime. Lopez is a former Whittier police officer.
The plaintiffs in the civil suit are the boys’ parents, Karim and Nancy Iskander, and the boys’ brother Zachary.
The lawsuit’s co-defendants are Grossman’s husband — Peter Grossman — and Erickson, her former boyfriend. Rebecca Grossman and Erickson had cocktails and the two later 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.
The 62-year-old Hidden Hills socialite tried to flee the scene and likely would have succeeded 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 contended she did not know why her airbag suddenly deployed despite her vehicle sustaining massive front-end damage, the Iskander attorneys further state. Grossman and Erickson have blamed each other for hitting the boys, and Erickson was allegedly driving one of the Mercedes-Benz vehicles involved in the reputed cold-plating.
In March, a panel of the Second District Court of Appeal upheld the conviction of the Grossman Burn Foundation co-founder. Rebecca Grossman was found guilty Feb. 23, 2024, of two counts each of second-degree murder and vehicular manslaughter with gross negligence and one count of hit-and-run driving in connection with the Sept. 29, 2020, deaths of Mark and Jacob Iskander, aged 11 and 8.
She was sentenced to 15 years to life in prison.