Rebecca Grossman was an impaired motorist who dedicated homicide and manipulated her teen daughter into defending her on the witness stand. Or she was a scapegoat whose well-known lover bumped into two younger brothers in a Westlake Village crosswalk and acquired away with it.
As closing arguments unfolded Wednesday in a Van Nuys courtroom, jurors have been introduced with two very totally different variations of the Hidden Hills lady and the Sept. 29, 2020, incident that ended the lives of two boys.
“This was not a tragic accident,” stated Deputy Dist. Atty. Jamie Castro of the deaths of Mark and Jacob Iskander, ages 11 and eight. “This was homicide.”
However Grossman’s lead lawyer, Tony Buzbee, launched into his closing assertion with phrases he’d repeated all through the six-week trial: “The place is Scott Erickson?”
Prosecutors allege Grossman, 60, had cocktails with Erickson, a former Dodgers pitcher, after which raced with him — he in his black Mercedes SUV and she or he in her white Mercedes SUV — alongside Triunfo Canyon Highway till they reached a crosswalk, the place she fatally struck the Iskander brothers.
Grossman is charged with two counts of second-degree homicide, two counts of vehicular manslaughter with gross negligence and one depend of hit-and-run driving leading to loss of life. If convicted of all prices, she faces 34 years to life in jail.
To safe a second-degree homicide conviction, prosecutors should show that Grossman acted with implied malice and knew the act of driving at a excessive velocity in a residential space was harmful to human life.
Castro argued the prosecution had achieved simply that. Grossman, Castro stated, confirmed acutely aware disregard for human life and knew her velocity might be harmful on a suburban avenue with pedestrian visitors as a result of she had been warned of the hazards by police up to now. Prosecutors even have alleged that Grossman traveled a 3rd of a mile after slamming into the youngsters earlier than security options in her automotive routinely shut it down.
“She had a historical past of rushing. She’d texted about it,” Castro stated. “She acted with disregard for human life.”
However Buzbee continued to level the finger at Erickson, who was the primary to barrel by the crosswalk. Crash reconstruction consultants for the protection have testified that Erickson’s Mercedes hit the boys first, sending Mark over his car and onto the hood of Grossman’s car.
“When you’ve got doubt that the black automotive hit a type of youngsters, this case is over,” stated Buzbee, who reminded jurors that Erickson allegedly lied to authorities concerning the car he was driving. He stated it was a 2007 Mercedes SUV, however protection consultants testified based mostly on video a brief distance from the collision that it was a 2016 AMG Mercedes, a car that authorities by no means inspected.
Castro, nonetheless, advised jurors that — though Erickson was reckless — there was “not a shred of proof” that he struck Mark or his brother.
“He virtually hit them however didn’t hit them,” Castro stated.
It was round 7 p.m. on Sept. 29, 2020, when Nancy Iskander and her three sons approached the crosswalk. Carrying inline skates, Iskander started to cross Triunfo Canyon Highway at Saddle Mountain Drive. Her youngest son, Zachary, was subsequent to her on his scooter; Mark, on a skateboard, and Jacob, additionally carrying inline skates, have been additionally within the crosswalk.
“The mom did all the things proper,” Castro stated. “Rebecca Grossman did all the things incorrect.”
Iskander beforehand testified that she heard revving engines and seemed as much as see a black sport utility car rushing towards the intersection. She dove out of the best way, pulling Zachary to security.
However she testified {that a} white Mercedes SUV was following intently behind the black car. When it went by the crosswalk, Iskander stated, she heard an influence, and her two oldest boys have been gone.
Jacob was discovered close to the curb about 50 ft from the crosswalk. He was taken to a hospital, the place he was pronounced lifeless a couple of hours later. Mark’s physique was discovered 254 ft away.
Grossman is accused of reaching 81 mph earlier than calmly braking and hitting the brothers at 73 mph, based mostly on the automotive’s knowledge recorder and the space Mark was discovered from the crosswalk. However Buzbee referred to as in consultants who testified that the info weren’t dependable and that Grossman was touring at 52 mph based mostly on a video captured seconds after the collision.
Even after the influence, Castro stated, Grossman “continued to drive so far as her automotive would let her.”
Though Grossman advised a Mercedes operator and 911 dispatcher that she didn’t know what occurred, solely that her airbag had deployed, Castro stated a textual content Grossman despatched to a good friend in 2022 confirmed “she was not sincere.” In that textual content, introduced earlier within the trial, Grossman wrote she had turned her head for 2 or three seconds and was distracted by Nancy Iskander, who was falling on her inline skates.
“The defendant is both mendacity or clearly impaired,” Castro stated.
The prosecutor pushed again on the protection concept that Erickson struck the brothers first, saying the front-end harm to Grossman’s car was not “the results of a baby touchdown on the hood.”
Castro reminded jurors that pathologist Matthew Miller, who carried out the post-mortem, testified that the boys’ accidents have been in step with a single car hitting them.
Buzbee countered, nonetheless, that Miller in what he thought of the strongest indication of cheap doubt had additionally acknowledged the “chance” that the boys may have been hit by multiple automotive.
Buzbee targeted on flaws within the investigation, presenting a visible on the TV monitor with an L.A. County sheriff’s badge and the phrases “beginner hour.” He stated investigators misplaced 5 of eight items of proof from the crash scene and by no means spoke to Erickson for per week. He stated investigators ignored different automobiles on surveillance video and targeted on Grossman: “They’d a busted-up automotive, and the blinders have been on.”
“That is an accident,” Buzbee insisted, saying the medical expert had termed it as such, and never a murder, “on the entrance of their report. … Their star forensic pathologist stated, ‘I can’t rule it out that Mark was hit by multiple car.’”
Castro conceded there have been shortcomings within the investigation by the L.A. County Sheriff’s Division — with proof lacking and few images of the scene. However in the course of the trial, a former California Freeway Patrol officer turned crash skilled was capable of re-create the scene.
The deputy district lawyer additionally repudiated testimony from Grossman’s daughter, Alexis, who advised jurors on Friday that she noticed Erickson hiding behind a tree close to the place her mom was detained and that he later angrily burst into her household’s residence in Westlake Village. She stated he smelled of alcohol and threatened to “spoil” her and her household if she advised anybody she noticed him.
“Alexis is a sufferer of her mom’s manipulation,” Castro stated, noting {that a} deputy on the scene testified he by no means noticed Erickson and that nobody there reported his presence.
Buzbee stood behind the 19-year-old’s testimony, asking jurors, “Why did [Erickson] lie? Why did he make threats?”
Castro pressured in her closing argument the testimony by eyewitnesses. She reminded jurors that one witness, Susan Manners, testified that she noticed Grossman’s car hit Mark. Yasamin Eftekhari and Jake Sands, who have been driving in a automotive behind Grossman’s Mercedes, testified that they noticed the white automotive hit Jacob. Eftekhari, Castro famous, testified the black automotive by no means hit the boys.
The protection performed up the inconsistencies in testimony — variations amongst witnesses on what lanes the impacts occurred in, and what number of impacts have been seen or heard. Buzbee used as a visible assist a picture of cherry-picking. “That is what you name doubt,” he stated.
The lawyer stated that prosecutors “need us to clarify the inconsistencies.”
“However,” he stated, “the reality is Erickson hit these youngsters first, so none of this actually issues.”
Jury deliberations are set to start Thursday.
