Rebecca Grossman Denied Venue Change in Wrongful Death Suit Trial

VAN NUYS, CA — A judge Friday denied a bid by Grossman Burn Foundation co-founder Rebecca Grossman -- who was sentenced in 2024 to 15 years to life in prison for running down two young boys crossing a Westlake Village street with their family -- to have the trial of a wrongful death suit filed by the boys' family transferred out of Los Angeles County, possibly to Tulare County.

In an already concluded criminal case, jurors found Grossman guilty of two counts each of second-degree murder and vehicular manslaughter with gross negligence and one count of hit-and-run driving in the Sept. 29, 2020, deaths of Mark and Jacob Iskander, aged 11 and 8.

The Van Nuys Superior Court civil suit plaintiffs are the boys' parents, Karim and Nancy Iskander, and the boys' brother Zachary. On Friday, Judge Huey P. Cotton ruled that the trial of the civil case, now scheduled for Jan. 5, will take place in the Van Nuys courthouse.

Grossman's attorneys maintained that pretrial publicity stemming from the criminal case, most of which they deemed reflected negatively on their client, made it impossible for her to get a fair trial in the civil case. But in his ruling, Cotton said he disagreed.

"Several of the articles depicted Ms. Grossman arriving or leaving court with family including her own teenage children," the judge wrote. "Far from demonizing Ms. Grossman, these depictions show her as a member of a concerned family, a wife and a mother."

The judge acknowledged that fewer people are likely to know about the Grossman litigation in Tulare County.

"That said, Los Angeles is a large populous county," according to Cotton, who cited a survey that found that 60% of Los Angeles County do not recall the accident.

"The court is confident that this court and the excellent attorneys on each side working together will be able to ferret out prejudice in the jury pool and seat an impartial jury," Cotton wrote.

Grossman's attorneys maintained in their court papers that a survey of jury-eligible respondents revealed that just 17% of those sampled in Tulare County in the Central Valley recalled Grossman's name in association with the criminal case trial compared to 44% in Los Angeles County.

Grossman, 62, is named a defendant in the complaint filed in January 2021 along with her then-boyfriend -- former Los Angeles Dodgers pitcher Scott Erickson. In a separate motion, the judge ruled that the Iskander attorneys are entitled to information on Erickson's financial assets because they have shown a "substantial probability" that they may prevail on their punitive damages given that he was allegedly racing Grossman along Triunfo Canyon Road when the children were struck. The two had earlier had cocktails.

Grossman tried to flee the scene and she likely would have been successful 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.

Grossman then lied to law enforcement about her speed and how much she had to drink, and then contended she did not know why her airbag suddenly deployed despite her vehicle sustaining massive front-end damage, the Iskander attorneys further state in their pleadings.

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