By TERRI VERMEULEN KEITH | City News Service
VAN NUYS — An expert called by the prosecution in socialite Rebecca Grossman’s trial testified today that a crash that killed two young brothers in Westlake Village in 2020 was caused by speed.
Grossman, the 60-year-old co-founder of the Grossman Burn Foundation, is charged 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 involving the Sept. 29, 2020, collision that left 11-year-old Mark Iskander and his 8-year-old brother Jacob dead.
The prosecution alleges that Grossman was speeding at the time she hit the boys, with Deputy District Attorney Ryan Gould telling jurors that Grossman was “flooring it” to get herself up to 81 miles per hour on a 45-mile-per-hour street and driving just over 70 mph at the time of impact. The older boy died at the scene and his 8-year-old sibling died at a hospital.
Grossman’s attorneys insisted she was not the driver responsible for the deadly crash, which they contend occurred outside a crosswalk. The defense — which contends that Grossman was driving 52 mph “at best” — pointed the blame at former Los Angeles Dodgers pitcher Scott Erickson, whom they allege was driving a black Mercedes SUV just ahead of Grossman’s white Mercedes SUV.
Erickson was described by a prosecutor as Grossman’s boyfriend at the time.
When asked about his conclusion of the cause of the accident, an expert in human factors related to drivers’ abilities to recognize and respond to hazards said he determined it was “simply speed.”
“Is it fair to say that speed kills?” Deputy District Attorney Jamie Castro asked the expert, Jeffrey Muttart.
“Based on the facts of this case, yes,” Muttart responded.
Under cross-examination by lead defense attorney Tony Buzbee, the expert said it would have been extremely difficult for Grossman to avoid the collision if the children had been struck by Erickson and if one of the children had gone airborne. But he said the facts of the case “don’t support that.”
Under renewed questioning by the prosecutor, Muttart said that Erickson had denied hitting anybody and that Erickson said that he saw the two boys and a reflective scooter in the crosswalk.
Another prosecution witness, CHP Officer Robert Leffler, testified that he had stopped Grossman for speeding 92 mph on the 101 Freeway in March 2013 — more than seven years before the crash — and that he remembered her telling him that she hoped he didn’t need the burn center in the future.
Grossman is a co-founder of the Grossman Burn Foundation with her husband, Dr. Peter Grossman, the director of the Grossman Burn Centers.
The CHP officer said that Grossman had initially been apologetic and informed him that her husband had been called in to work and that she was rushing to pick up her children, but said that she grew frustrated after he wrote the speeding ticket and informed her about the dangers of speeding.
He acknowledged that he didn’t write Grossman’s alleged remark to him about the burn center on the ticket.
“It just sticks out,” he said, noting that he went through the traffic citations he had issued years earlier after learning about the deadly crash.
The prosecution is expected to wrap up its case-in-chief Friday, with the defense expected to begin its portion of the case next Tuesday.
In testimony last week, Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Deputy Rafael Mejia told jurors that he didn’t find any evidence indicating that more than one vehicle was involved in the collision, saying he only saw debris from a white vehicle.
Mejia said he found Grossman about three-tenths of a mile away standing outside her white Mercedes-Benz SUV, which had front-end damage.
“She told me that her vehicle was disabled by Mercedes-Benz,” Mejia told jurors, saying that the airbags had gone off and that Grossman told him that she had hit something but she didn’t know what she struck.
Under questioning by Deputy District Attorney Jamie Castro, the sheriff’s deputy said he didn’t find any debris consistent with a black SUV or any kind of black vehicle.
“We didn’t see any indicators there was another vehicle,” Mejia said, indicating that the debris at the scene indicated a white vehicle had been involved.
The deputy said a Mercedes-Benz emblem was found among the debris at the scene of the collision, adding later on cross-examination that another Mercedes-Benz emblem was discovered. He noted that the auto chain has multiple emblems on their vehicles.
Of his interaction with Grossman, the deputy said, “She kept telling me to call her husband. … Her husband could help those kids.”
He said he smelled “alcohol coming from her person,” and contacted a unit to come to perform a DUI investigation.
The deputy said he saw a person who identified herself as Grossman’s daughter and said she was there to pick up her mother. He said he told her that she couldn’t go home with her. He said he never saw a man hiding in the bushes watching the police investigation, and would have considered that highly suspicious.
Deputy District Attorney Ryan Gould told jurors in his opening statement that blood testing done on Grossman after the crash determined she had alcohol and Valium in her system, but that she is not charged with driving under the influence. Jurors don’t need to find her guilty of that in order to convict her of the charges, he said.
In his opening statement, lead defense attorney Tony Buzbee alleged that Erickson’s vehicle went through the intersection 2 1/2 seconds before Grossman and hit the two children first. He told jurors that Erickson stopped up the road, hid in the bushes and watched after the collision.
Under cross-examination, the deputy said he wasn’t aware that a black SUV had gone through the intersection mere seconds before Grossman.
He acknowledged that the first debris from the crash was found 50 feet away from the crosswalk, and said he relied in giving his estimate of the point of impact on the accounts of witnesses who indicated that the victims were in the crosswalk when they were hit. He noted that there was no fluid found in the crosswalk.
The deputy said he had considered the possibility that more than one vehicle was involved in the collision with the boys, but ruled it out saying that all of the debris was “consistent with a white vehicle.” He said he believed the crash was caused by the vehicle “traveling at an unsafe speed,” and added that he stands by that conclusion.
Jurors also heard an audiotape of Grossman’s conversation with an operator with a Mercedes-Benz service in which the woman said she didn’t know if she had hit anyone and said she was driving when her airbag “exploded.”
“I don’t know what I hit,” she said in the recording when a 911 operator was patched in and asked if she had hit someone.
Rebecca and Peter Grossman were separated at the time of the crash, according to a statement by her husband posted on a website supporting her.
Grossman is free on $2 million bond. She could face up to 34 years to life in state prison if convicted as charged.
