Despite the extensive front-end damage sustained by a Hidden Hills socialite's Mercedes SUV and witness testimony that she ran over two young brothers in Westlake Village, her attorney is expected to tell jurors that the SUV was one of the many vehicles passing through the crosswalk at the time of the accident. fatal incident and that authorities have wrongly focused on it.
Jurors could begin hearing the competing stories as early as Friday in the trial of Rebecca Grossman on two counts of second-degree murder, as well as vehicular manslaughter and hit-and-run charges.
Los Angeles County prosecutors say Grossman, 60, was behind the wheel of a white Mercedes pickup truck that fatally struck brothers Mark and Jacob Iskander in September 2020. Authorities say he was driving at a speed of 81 mph while She was following former Dodgers pitcher Scott Erickson, whom she had been drinking cocktails with at a nearby restaurant. Prosecutors allege she traveled a quarter of a mile after crashing into the children before her car shut off.
The Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department investigated the crash involving the vehicle shown here.
(Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department)
But Tony Buzbee, Grossman's lead attorney and a former Houston mayoral candidate, says he will present witnesses who will testify that several cars hit the children. “Defense reconstruction experts will demonstrate that Grossman's vehicle was not the first vehicle to strike the children, and another witness indicated that it was not the last vehicle to make contact with the children either,” Buzbee said in a statement.
“These witness reports and videos existed from the first night of the accident, and instead of attempting to identify the other vehicles, the Sheriff took the easy route and focused on the driver of the only vehicle that remained after the accident occurred, Rebecca Grossman. ”
Texas Lawyer. Gen. Ken Paxton, center, and attorney Tony Buzbee, left, at the Texas Capitol.
(Sam Owens/San Antonio Express-News via AP, Pool photo)
That video from a home overlooking Triunfo Canyon Road, a short distance from the crash site, shows several cars passing by moments after impact.
Louis Shapiro, a well-known Los Angeles defense attorney, said Buzbee's approach is a high-risk gamble, considering Grossman faces up to 34 years in prison if convicted on all charges.
“Unless there is forensic evidence to support the theory that another car was involved, the jury will see this as a desperate attempt to absolve her of responsibility, and it could haunt her at sentencing,” he said.
“Clearly, the prosecution is not willing to offer involuntary manslaughter, so the defense must go hard or go home,” he said. “When you throw a Hail Mary [pass]“There is a great risk that someone will not catch the ball.”
Buzbee argued in court last week that sheriff's investigators never checked Erickson's black Mercedes SUV for damage, even though he drove through the marked crosswalk just seconds before Grossman. Buzbee said outside court that they also never found the other vehicles that passed through the crosswalk.
“She is not guilty of any of the accusations that have been made against her. She was not disabled, she was not running, she was not going at the speed they claim and she never fled the scene. The fact [is] that so much evidence was hidden, destroyed or simply missing,” Buzbee said.
Prosecutors say Grossman and Erickson were romantically involved and were driving in separate SUVs from Julio's Agave Grill to a Westlake Village home on the night of Sept. 29, 2020, when they “ran” through the crosswalk on Triunfo Canyon Road in Saddle Mountain Drive, with Erickson. to the head.
Two witnesses who were traveling in another vehicle testified during a preliminary hearing that they saw Erickson's truck passing Grossman's.
Jake Sands testified that the black pickup truck, Erickson's, approached the crosswalk first. There, Nancy Iskander and her three children: Mark, 11; Jacob, 8; and Zachary, 5, were crossing the residential street.
The driver slammed on the brakes, Sands testified. “He swerved and avoided the family just before,” he told the court in 2022.
A sign outside the Van Nuys courthouse in 2022 shows an image of Mark Iskander, 11, and his brother Jacob, 8.
(Mel Melcón / Los Angeles Times)
Yasamin Eftekhari said the white Mercedes, driven by Grossman, was unable to avoid the older children, who were further down the street. Iskander was able to grab his youngest son and move out of the way.
“There was a family walking down the street. The white car hit the two children on the road,” Eftekhari said. “The first child who was hit was against the side [of the road]. “I didn’t see the second child get hit.”
Buzbee, however, alleged that a sheriff's investigator never checked Erickson's vehicle after the crash and took him at his word in a telephone interview that he was driving his 2007 Mercedes SUV at the time.
Buzbee told Los Angeles County Superior Court Judge Joseph Brandolino that Erickson submitted the 2007 Mercedes for examination in civil litigation after the fatal crash. The attorney then showed a photo of a 2016 Mercedes-AMG that the retired World Series winner acquired in May 2019, claiming it was the SUV Erickson was driving that day.
Buzbee said he would present witnesses at trial to lay the groundwork for the photo exhibit, adding that it was particularly relevant because one witness told an investigator he saw two vehicles hit the children seconds apart.
Scott Erickson at a Dodgers game in 2005. He denies any wrongdoing in the deaths of two children in Westlake Village in 2020.
(Mel Melcón / Los Angeles Times)
Deputy District. Lawyer. Ryan Gould said prosecutors had no evidence to support the test. In fact, they didn't even know who took the photo Grossman's lawyer wanted to use.
Grossman and his defense team have a website with their side of the story. After prosecutors alleged that the socialite and the former Dodger were having a relationship at the time of the accident, her husband on the website acknowledged that they were separated at the time but were friends.
Buzbee, a high-powered litigator who successfully defended the Texas attorney general against impeachment last year, has revealed in pretrial motions a strategy that seeks to highlight deficiencies in the Los Angeles County sheriff's investigation to sow doubt. reasonable once the trial begins. The jury is expected to meet this week in Van Nuys.
Erickson, 55, was charged with misdemeanor reckless driving. His case was resolved in February 2022, when a judge ordered him to make a public service announcement aimed at high school students about the importance of safe driving. Erickson has denied any wrongdoing.
