A plastic surgeon’s wife who murdered two young brothers with her Mercedes while chasing her lover has demanded her convictions be overturned.
Rebecca Grossman’s lawyers filed a motion before California‘s appellate court Wednesday claiming there was insufficient evidence to convict her for the 2020 slaughter of Mark Iskander, 11, and his eight year-old brother Jacob.
The youngsters were sent flying into the air at a crosswalk in Westlake Village, California, after Grossman’s Mercedes roared through while doing 81mph in a 45mph zone.
Grossman, 61, kept on driving and failed to stop until the powerful sedan’s sensors picked up the impact damage and shut off its engines.
She was racing her lover, former Los Angeles Dodgers’ pitcher Scott Erickson, after a boozy lunch when she struck the boys.
But Grossman’s lawyer Lara Gressley has now filed a 120 page motion insisting her client didn’t ‘willfully flee’ the scene of the crash, the Ventura County Star reported.
Gressley has also argued the bloodbath did not rise to the level of murder.
The lawyer claimed that courts should not let ‘the outcome of vehicular homicide cases be the driving force behind legal decisions.’
Rebecca Grossman, pictured, has demanded her murder convictions be overturned
Mark and Jacob Iskaner were struck and killed by Rebecca Grossman, who now insists their deaths were not murder
Grossman’s Mercedes is pictured after the smash. She kept on driving, despite the obvious damage caused to the car after she struck the boys
Grossman, whose husband is famous plastic surgeon Dr Peter H. Grossman, has continuously shirked responsibility for the devastation she wrought on the Iskanders.
Her defense team tried to cast doubt on Grossman’s former lover, suggesting he could have been the one driving the Mercedes.
Grossman’s lead defense attorney, Tony Buzbee, repeatedly blamed Erickson for the deaths, suggesting the retired baseball player’s car hit Jacob, hurling him to a curb, and then hit Mark, throwing him into the path of Grossman’s Mercedes.
Erickson was initially charged with a misdemeanor count of reckless driving but it was dismissed after he made a public service announcement.
The two – who were dating while Grossman was separated from her husband – 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.
Prosecutors also used letters Grossman wrote to the Iskanders begging for forgiveness to depict her as unrepentant.
In the letters, Grossman went on about a difficult childhood and said she wished she would have been killed in the incident instead.
Before the tragedy, Grossman had been drinking with her then-lover, former Los Angeles Dodgers’ pitcher Scott Erickson
The wealthy Los Angeles socialite was convicted by a jury on February 23, 2024 of one felony count of murder and vehicular manslaughter with gross negligence for the boys’ deaths
The boys were out walking with their mother Nancy and father Karim when Grossman murdered them.
Grossman was sentenced to 15 years to life behind bars in June 2024 – far short of the 34 years to life a judge could have imposed.
That sentence left the Iskander family distraught, with Grossman’s latest bid for freedom likely to rub further salt on their wounds.
Grossman appealed her convictions in June, 2024, but was denied a new trial.
The Iskanders named both Grossman and Erickson in a wrongful death lawsuit filed in 2021 in a case that is still to go to trial.
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.
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.
Pictured: Rebecca Grossman appearing at court during her murder trial, along with her husband Peter Grossman and children Nicholas and Alexis
Nancy and Karim Iskander filed a wrongful death lawsuit against Grossman and her former lover
Pictured: Grossman’s backyard in the home where she lived with her husband during her murder trial. She is now incarcerated at the Central California Women’s Facility in Chowchilla
The current centers – which specialize in the treatment and reconstruction of burn injuries – have cared for many wealthy and famous patients, including Jay Leno who went to Grossman when he was burned in a garage gas fire in 2022 and actress Anne Heche who suffered fatal burns in a fiery car crash the same year.
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.
Texas-born Rebecca Grossman helped run the philanthropic wing of the family empire, the Grossman Burn Foundation, often hosting star-studded galas and fund raisers to help collect the funds to pay for the treatment of burn victims.
