Murderess socialite Rebecca Grossman has won a small victory against the parents of two young boys she killed who are now seeking huge damages.
Los Angeles Superior Court Judge Huey Cotton threw out a motion to fast-track the upcoming civil trial against Grossman, which would have seen it held in the coming months.
The judge’s decision means that Grossman and her former MLB star lover Scott Erickson, 56, won’t have to face trial until the original December 1 start date.
Grossman and Erickson had both vehemently opposed the motion filed by Nancy and Karim Iskander’s to fast track the trial.
The Iskanders are parents to Mark, 11, and eight year-old Jacob, the brothers mown down by Grossman in her Mercedes in September 2020.
Their civil suit was delayed on a technicality. Lawyers for Grossman claimed Iskander’s attorneys had promised not to file a ‘trial preference motion’ to advance the trial date.
Meanwhile, Erickson argued that since he was never convicted of a felony in Grossman’s criminal case, a trial preference motion doesn’t apply to him.
Tuesday, at Van Nuys court, north-west of Los Angeles, Judge Cotton refused to fast-track the trial, denying the Iskanders’ motion.
In a written ruling, the judge said that during an earlier conference with all parties where the December 1 trial date was set, ‘the court specifically worked with all counsel to find a date that was agreeable to everyone, while affording some preference to plaintiffs (the Iskanders) in this case ahead of all the court’s other cases. Everyone agreed to the current date.
‘(The Iskanders) completely fail to… explain what has changed since the trial setting to create a need for an even earlier date.’
A jury at her criminal trial in February last year found Grossman guilty of all five charges against her, two counts of second-degree murder, two of gross vehicular manslaughter and one of hit-and-run resulting in death.
She was sentenced to 15 years-to-life in prison.
Jurors didn’t buy her defense team’s contention that it was Erickson’s black Mercedes SUV – not Grossman’s white Mercedes – that was responsible for killing Mark Iskander and Jacob as they walked across a marked crosswalk in Westlake Village, west of LA in September 2020.
The pair – who were dating while Grossman was separated from her husband, acclaimed plastic surgeon Peter Grossman – had been sharing margaritas earlier in the day and were racing each other at more than 70mph, with Erickson’s car just in front of Grossman’s, when the crash happened.
Erickson received only a slap-on-the-wrist reckless driving misdemeanor citation as a result of the accident.
He was not charged with a felony alongside Grossman, nor was he called as a witness at her criminal trial where he was conspicuous by his absence.
But the Iskanders named him, with Grossman, in the wrongful death civil lawsuit they filed in January 2021, slamming him for racing with Grossman on the day of the accident and saying his ‘despicable conduct played a substantial factor in causing the fatal collision.’
Erickson – who played for six MLB teams during his 15-year baseball career – hired attorneys to fight the lawsuit and both he and Grossman’s lawyers filed motions calling on Judge Cotton to throw out the Iskander’s bid for an earlier trial date.
To try to bring that date forward, the Iskanders filed a ‘preferential trial setting’ motion under California Civil Procedure Section 37 which, if granted, would have meant they could get a trial within 120 days because the cash damages they’re seeking for the deaths of their boys ‘were allegedly caused by the defendant (Grossman) during the commission of a felony for which the defendant has been criminally convicted.’
That would have meant a trial by May 2025 or earlier.
Erickson’s attorneys asked Judge Cotton to deny the Iskanders’ motion, saying in court papers, ‘Defendant Erickson has not been convicted of a felony in this matter… As such the basic statutory requirement of California Code of Civil Procedure Section 37 has not been met.
They added that if the judge did grant the motion to fast-track the trial, Erickson ‘will not have enough time to prepare his defense… Such prejudice would violate his right to due process.’
Grossman’s lawyers also fought the ‘preferential trial setting’ motion, accusing the Iskanders’ civil attorney of ‘reneging’ on an agreement made in August 2023 in which the Iskanders counsel said he wouldn’t ask for trial preference.
The attorney conceded in court papers that he had made that agreement but countered, ‘When I said that back in August 2023, I wasn’t contemplating getting a trial date in December 2025… Had such a trial date been foreseeable, I would not have agreed to anything.’
In their unlawful death civil lawsuit against Grossman, the Iskanders have also filed a motion asking Judge Cotton to let them probe her financial worth, estimated to be around $20 million.
The judge is scheduled to rule on that motion on February 26.
The cash damages the Iskanders are seeking are as yet ‘unspecified’ but when they’ve determined exactly how rich she is, they’ll be able to put a dollar figure on how much they want from her for the agony and suffering they’ve endured since losing their boys.
Grossman’s husband Peter, 61, is also named in the civil lawsuit as the owner of the white BMW that hit the boys and the one who paid the insurance on the vehicle.
He is medical director of Grossman Burn Centers, a multi-million-dollar medical corporation with modern, state-of-the-art hospitals in West Hills, CA, Bakersfield, CA and Kansas City, Mo.
Before – and during – her murder trial Grossman was living with her husband in a luxurious, nine-bedroom, ranch-style Hidden Hills home worth around $9 million and located in a gated community that boasts near neighbors like Kylie Jenner and former Full House TV star Lori Loughlin.