By TERRI VERMEULEN KEITH
VAN NUYS — A co-founder of the Grossman Burn Foundation was speeding when she ran down two young brothers in a Westlake Village crosswalk, a prosecutor told jurors Friday, but the woman’s attorneys insisted she wasn’t the driver responsible for the deadly crash — which they contend occurred outside a crosswalk.
Rebecca Grossman, now 60, was charged in December 2020 with two felony counts each of murder and vehicular manslaughter with gross negligence, along with one felony count of hit-and-run driving resulting in death, in connection with the Sept. 29, 2020, deaths of 11-year-old Mark Iskander and his 8-year-old brother, Jacob.
Deputy District Attorney Ryan Gould told jurors that Grossman was speeding in a white Mercedes-Benz SUV on Triunfo Canyon Road and struck the two boys as they were crossing the street with their mother in a marked crosswalk.
One of Grossman’s attorneys, Tony Buzbee, countered that the evidence would show that Grossman is “not guilty because she didn’t do anything and someone else did.”
The defense attorney acknowledged that no one saw a vehicle driven seconds ahead of Grossman by former Dodgers pitcher Scott Erickson — described by the prosecutor as Grossman’s boyfriend — strike the children, but said the defense will prove that Erickson’s vehicle hit the children first, and the victims “hit Mrs. Grossman’s car” about three seconds after the initial collision.
Erickson was previously charged with misdemeanor reckless driving in a case that was separately filed, but that charge was dismissed after he completed a diversionary program.
In his opening statement, the prosecutor told jurors that a passenger in a car behind Grossman’s vehicle saw the white Mercedes-Benz strike Jacob.
“It is a well-marked crosswalk, and this is where our worlds collide,” Gould said, noting that Grossman and Erickson were in separate vehicles heading back to her house on the lake to watch the…
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