A jury awarded $176 million to the family of two young boys killed by Los Angeles socialite Rebecca Grossman, finding both her and her former professional baseball player lover liable for the deadly crash.
Grossman and Scott Erikson were both found negligent in the death of 11-year-old Mark and 8-year-old Jacob Iskander Wednesday. The decision, reached by a jury, determined $176 million in damages. She will also be on the hook for punitive damages to be determined Thursday.
Grossman, who was convicted of murder for killing the two young boys with her car during a chase with Erickson, was sentenced to 15 years to life in prison in 2024.
The California appeals court rejected Grossman’s final bid to overturn her conviction and keep her behind bars with no early release and no reprieve in a decision in March.
The tragedy unfolded in 2020 when Grossman’s SUV slammed into Mark and Jacob Iskander in a marked crosswalk.
Also drawing scrutiny was Scott Erickson, a former Major League Baseball pitcher who was driving a separate car nearby, raising questions about whether the pair had been speeding together. Erickson, however, was never charged.
Erickson finally addressed the tragedy when he took the stand last month in the wrongful death trial.
He testified that he sped up when he spotted two young boys in a Westlake Village crosswalk moments before they were fatally struck in 2020.
“I stepped on the gas for probably two or three seconds to get through, because I thought that was the safest process,” Erickson told the Van Nuys courtroom on May 13 during the wrongful death trial tied to the deaths of brothers Mark and Jacob Iskander, 11 and 8.
Just after 7 p.m. on September 29, 2020, the boys were crossing Triunfo Canyon Road with their mother and younger brother when witnesses saw cars racing toward them.
Erickson, behind the wheel of a black SUV, reached the crosswalk first. Moments later, Rebecca Grossman, his girlfriend at the time, allegedly plowed through in her white Mercedes, striking and killing the children.
Grossman, co-founder of the Grossman Burn Foundation and wife of plastic surgeon Dr. Peter Grossman, was allegedly driving 73 mph in a 45-mph zone when the crash occurred.
Nancy Iskander, the mother of the two boys, said she grabbed her youngest son and dove out of the way of Erickson’s SUV before seeing Grossman’s vehicle speed through where Mark and Jacob had been standing.
Steamy WhatsApp messages between Grossman and Erickson show the couple coordinating their stories while exchanging “I love yous” as prosecutors attempted to unravel what happened on the night the socialite mowed down two little boys in a crosswalk.
The socialite remains in jail and struck the boys with such force that the older brother flew more than 250 feet.